Carole Basri, born to Iraqi Jews parents, is a graduate of Barnard College, Columbia University and NYU School of Law, where she was a member of its National Moot Court Team. She was an assistant counsel on the United States Senate Antitrust and Monopoly Subcommittee, and was an attorney at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). She is an adjunct professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, and is an expert on international relations and Jewish history in the Middle East.

A filmmaker, Basri has served as director of “The Last Jews Of Baghdad: End of an Exile, Beginning of a Journey” (2005), a documentary that presents a historical and personal view of the persecution, torture, escape and flight of over 160,000 Jews from Iraq between the years 1940 and 2003.

Ms. Basri was a member of the US State Department’s Future of Iraq Project. From July 2003 until July 2004, she was a member of the Coalition Provisional Authority working with the Iraqi Reconstruction Development Council (IRDC) for Ambassador Paul Bremer in Baghdad. She worked extensively on doing business in anti-corruption and transparency issues in Iraq. She helped draft legislation on these issues and met with representatives from all of the Ministries in Iraq. In September 2004, she led a conference in Baghdad on transparency and anti-corruption in Iraq and worked as an adviser on these issues with the Iraqi Ministry of Health. In September 2004, she worked with the Iraqi Ministry of Health and the Iraqi Red Crescent on health and legal issues.

In March 2005, Ms. Basri spoke to a conference for Chief Judges and Appellate Judges from Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine and Egypt on anti-corruption Protocols at Cairo University’s School of Law. Similarly, in April 2005, she spoke on anti-corruption strategies at the Dead Sea in Jordan at a conference for 150 Iraqi women leaders sponsored by the US Department of Defense and US State Department. In July 2006, she spoke at the Iraqi Constitutional Convention in Southfield, Michigan, with a direct hook-up to Iraq, on constitutional issues. In October 2005, she met with Iraqi women leaders at the United States State Department to discuss leadership issues in the December 15, 2005 election.

Click here to read The ‘taboo history’ of the Jews of Iraq, an interview with Carole from 2011

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