Shlomo Hillel, a Baghdad-born Israeli operative who in the late 1940s and early ’50s used bribes, fake visas and a network of smugglers to move more than 120,000 Jews from Iraq to Israel, died on Feb. 8 at his home in Ra’anana, Israel. He was 97.
His death was confirmed by his son, Ari, who did not specify a cause.
Mr. Hillel was just 23 when the Haganah, a paramilitary organization in what was then British-controlled Palestine, sent him undercover to Iraq. Jews had lived there for centuries, mostly in harmony with their neighbors, but growing Arab nationalism and anti-Zionist sentiment, including a 1941 pogrom in which several hundred Jews were killed, were making their situation precarious.
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