Jewish heritage museum opens in Baghdad, drawing crowds of local Muslim visitors

A museum of Jewish heritage has opened in Iraq's capital Baghdad for the first time. It has been established to preserve the fading history and heritage of the Jewish community that was once an inseparable part of Iraq's social, cultural and economic life. Since it opened, visitors have been crowding into the museum every day.

CNN reported on Thursday (November 12) that the museum has been built in the Shamash Jewish School building on Baghdad's historic Al-Rashid Street. Founded in 1928, the school was once an important educational institution for Jewish students in Iraq. Last month, the building was converted into a museum on the initiative of Iraq's Jewish community.

Exhibits in the renovated building include old Jewish family photographs, identity cards, handwritten documents, students' certificates and various historical records of the school. The school's founder was Jewish donor Yakub Shlomo Shamash.

The exhibits include the menorah, the seven-branched lampstand that is a Jewish religious symbol. Among the black-and-white photographs hanging on the walls is Sassoon Heskel, the first finance minister after the founding of the modern Iraqi state. He was a Jew born in Baghdad.

Singer Salima Murad, one of the representatives of Iraq's Jewish cultural heritage, is also remembered in the museum. In the 1920s and 1930s she was known as one of Iraq's most popular singers, particularly renowned for performing the traditional Arabic musical form 'Iraqi maqam' and popular songs.

Ammar al-Tamimi, legal representative of Iraq's Jewish community, said no Jewish visitor has yet come to see the museum. But there is great interest among local Iraqis.

Baghdad resident Nabil Abdul Hamid, 71, has already visited the museum twice. He said he came alone the first time, and later returned with his doctor daughter and his grandchildren. In his view, Jews were among the founders of the Iraqi state. He hopes that one day they will return to the country and play a role in rebuilding Iraq.

The initiative to establish the museum was taken by Khalida Fuad Eliyahu, 64. The Baghdad-born dentist now leads Iraq's remaining small Jewish community. She plans to restore more sites linked to Jewish heritage in the future. The entire cost of building the museum was borne by the Jewish community.

Historian Sadi al-Iraqi welcomed the initiative and called for the country's old synagogues and other places of worship to be opened as well.

From the Ottoman era to the first half of the twentieth century, Jews made up about one-fifth of Baghdad's total population. The history of the Jewish community in the Middle East is more than two and a half thousand years old. But from the early 1940s, the rise of Arab nationalism and anti-Jewish violence began a mass departure from the region.

In 1947, the number of Jews in Iraq was about 150,000. Between 1950 and 1952, about 125,000 Iraqi Jews were flown to Israel.

According to official figures, only a few Jews now live in Baghdad. For security reasons they live largely out of public view. In addition, about 90 Jews of Kurdish origin live in the Kurdistan region. Yet the 'Star of David', carved into the walls of Baghdad's old commercial areas, riverside houses and various buildings, still bears witness to the country's rich Jewish past.