Born in Baghdad in 1923, Shlomo (Salīm) Hillel immigrated to Palestine together with his family in 1934, after they witnessed the massacre of Assyrians following Iraq’s independence. He graduated from the Herzlia High School in Tel Aviv and joined a group of pioneers preparing to establish a kibbutz. He was also involved in the establishment of a clandestine munitions factory.

Following the pogrom against (Farhūd) the Jews of Baghdad in 1941, Hillel was sent as an emissary of the Mosad la-ʿAliya Bet (the organization for clandestine immigration) to help build an underground Zio…