Heritage
The vanished Iraqi Jews
by Joseph Samuels I was born in “Taht El Takia” in the Jewish quarter of the old city of Baghdad in December of 1930. My mother tongue is Arabic. My […]
Custody battle over rare Iraqi-Jewish historical documents
by Tom Tugend | On May 6, 2003, 16 American soldiers of a special unit searching for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction entered the flooded basement of Saddam […]
Ancient tablets reveal life of Jews in Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylon
By Luke Baker | JERUSALEM A new exhibition of ancient clay tablets discovered in modern-day Iraq is shedding light for the first time on the daily life of Jews exiled […]
Long Island Jews Unite To Keep Artifacts Seized From Saddam Hussein’s Police
Treasures, Including Torahs, Dating 500 Years Supposed To Be Returned To Iraq March 17, 2014 6:36 PM These artifacts were seized by the U.S. in the headquarters of Saddam Hussein’s […]
Montreal’s Iraqi-Jewish Community Pieces Together Fragments of its History
by Leah Balass Lisette Shashoua looks at her elementary school diploma and family photos from when she lived in Iraq. Lisette Shashoua looks at her elementary school diploma and family […]
My Iraqi Jewish heritage: What’s left?
By Robert Fattal It is a pity that many observant Middle Eastern Jews have adopted the symbols of a 200-year-old tradition over their own, much older ones. Last month the […]
Return of Jewish artifacts to Iraq sparks outrage
By Dan Pine Who is the rightful owner of a stunning collection of Iraqi Judaica known as the Iraqi Jewish Archives: the descendants of that country’s exiled Jewish community now […]
Don’t Return the Iraqi Jewish Archive
by Joe Samuels My Arabic name is Yusuf Sasson Shumail. I was born in Taht Al Takia, in the old city of Baghdad, Iraq on December 31,1930. In 1941, I […]
Iraq, Babylon, and Baghdad in Jewish History and Thought
by Steven Bayme, National Director, Contemporary Jewish Life Department at ajc.org The recent Iraq war has once again focused world attention on Mesopotamia (literally, “the land between two rivers”), evoking […]
The Iraqi Jewish Archive, as it became known, is both proud and pitiful.
By Alex Joffe To whom do antiquities belong? Are they the property of modern states, current proprietors of the real estate where they were created, however many centuries or millennia […]
Baghdadi Jews in Early Shanghai
by Maisie J. Meyer Many Baghdadi Jews (the term “Baghdadi” in this context encompasses Arabic speaking Jews from the Middle East, Aden and Yemen, and non-Arabic speaking Jews from […]
Celebrating Rosh Hashanah in Baghdad
by Yochi Dreazen The sound of the shofar rang out incongruously in Iraq as an eclectic bunch of Jews sat down to celebrate the Jewish New Year in a land […]
