Heritage
In Exile, Iraqi Jews Are Desperate To Reclaim Their Artifacts
by Talia Zax Shortly after the Iraqi Jewish Archive was found, Doris Hamburg, then director of preservation programs at the National Archives, and Mary Lynn Ritzenthaler, then the National Archives’ chief of conservation, were brought to Iraq to assess the archive’s condition. The materials had been stored in 27 metal trunks packed into a freezer […]
The Last Relics Of Iraq’s Jewish Past Are In America. Should They Be Returned?
by Talya Zax On a leafy parkway in the Jamaica section of Queens, there is a house that is no longer a house. It’s one of New York’s two Iraqi synagogues: Bene Naharayim. The building doubles, in some ways, as a museum. The sanctuary houses 18 Torahs kept in elaborately decorated wooden cases known as […]
The Iraqi Jewish Archive Could Reshape Foreign Policy. But Its Future Is Uncertain
by: Talya Zax Iraqi Jews are sure the Iraqi Jewish Archive belongs to them, and they’re determined to get it back. Meanwhile, Iraq is holding firm to the claim that it owns the archive, which it sees as an important commemoration of a rich past destroyed by Saddam Hussein. I asked Iraq’s ambassador to […]
The Iraqi Jewish Archive is stolen property that should go back to its original owners
By Carole Basri and David Dangoor, In the preamble to the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, it says that “damage to cultural property belonging to any people whatsoever means damage to the cultural heritage of all mankind, since each people makes its contribution to the […]
Is the Lost Language of Iraqi Jews Really Lost?
By Mardean Isaac On the anniversary of the Farhud of 1941, when Iraqi Jews’ violent dispossession began, a look at how the Baghdadi diaspora’s eventual return to Israel fostered scholarly interest in a rich Babylonian heritage Is the Lost Language of Iraqi Jews Really Lost? Between 1948 and 1951, the vast majority of Iraq’s […]
How Iraqi Jews are Reclaiming their Cultural Legacy in Israel
By Pablo Jairo Tutillo Maldonado Last December, after Shabbat ended, I was walking near the Machane Yehuda, Jerusalem’s famous open-air market, when I saw people celebrating the beginning of the week with drinks in hand and music blasting in the background. What drew my attention to the scene was a vibrant song in Arabic. […]
Iraqi Jews, Al Jazeera and Theft
by Lyn Julius, author of UPROOTED: How 3,000 years of Jewish Civilisation in the Arab World Vanished Overnight After taking control of Baghdad from Saddam Hussein, US troops discovered what came to be called the Iraqi-Jewish archive in the waterlogged basement of the Iraqi secret police headquarters. This priceless collection of Jewish books and documents was shipped to the […]
The Baghdadi Jewish Dish that was Created in Mumbai and Kolkata
the taste was sour and sweet, a smooth, compelling aroma filled my mouth and nose, the texture was silky, a depth in it. i’d never tasted a chicken dish like this before. i’d never tasted anything like this before. the first time i had chicken chitannee, i certainly didn’t think of aurangzeb, or the […]
In Queen Esther’s Time, Persia’s Baghdad Was the Center of the Jewish World
by Maria Bywater Happy Purim! To mark the occasion, I’m posting this piece about the Jews in one of the cities of Queen Esther’s Persian Empire: Baghdad. It’s an excerpt from an article I wrote in 2003 on an exhibit about the Jews of Iraq at London’s Jewish Museum. The exhibit was called “By […]
Iraqi-Jewish archive triggers ‘traumatic memories’
A battle is ongoing over a collection of Iraqi Jewish heirlooms, as few agree on where it should be based. by Dalia Hatuqa Baltimore, United States – A group of men and women celebrate a young man’s bar mitzvah, the Jewish rite of passage when boys turn 13, as a rabbi wraps “tefillin” […]
Protagonists of ‘Remember Baghdad’ feel Jews have ‘unfinished business’ in Iraq
By Eliana Rudee/JNS When thinking of the words “refugee” and “Middle East,” many displaced groups come to mind. But few know that some of the original refugees of the region were a million Middle Eastern and North African Jews whose history often entails hangings, imprisonment and finding refuge in Israel. The critically acclaimed documentary “Remember […]
