Restoring Heritage to Jews

 "It is unfortunate that Iraq is simply not prepared to openly chronicle this tragic history as a monument for the people of Iraq, towards a meaningful reconciliation, or towards the historical preservation of archives and other items that document the ancient heritage of Iraqi Jewry."
"There also ought to be justice for those who were forced to leave with nothing and have an opportunity to reclaim not only their irreplaceable personal property, but crucial pieces of a past that is so vulnerable to being forever lost."
"For the last Jews in Baghdad and their descendants in Canada and beyond, Iraqi Judaica is ultimately their history to preserve and cherish."
John Baird, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Canada

It would seem to make sense that the community which owned and cherished objects of personal meaning be given the opportunity to reclaim them. They did not, after all, abandon these objects deliberately. They had little choice. To preserve their lives they were forced to leave a country that they had lived in for well over two thousand years, a country of which they were citizens, and to which they pledged their loyalty. Unfortunately, that pledge was not reciprocated.

And while Iraqi Jews lived in great numbers in that country of their heritage through the greater diaspora when they were displaced from their own land of Israel in ancient times, they found refuge in neighbouring countries and there they lived throughout the millennia, and long before the appearance of Islam. In the 1930s about one-third of Baghdad were Iraqi Jews. For that population of 150,000 Jews there were 60 Jewish schools, and a Jewish hospital in the country's capital alone.

Hitler's fascism attracted the attention of a number of Middle East countries; Iran was named by Hitler as an Aryan nation, like Germany, and like Japan, an honourary Aryan nation, as a members of the Axis. The Arab Palestinian elite were enamoured of Nazi Germany and honoured by it. Although Jews were well integrated into the professional life of Baghdad, as teachers, doctors, lawyers, and had Muslim and Christian friends and colleagues, Arab nationalism responded to fascism.

All the more so when a pro-Nazi government took power in Baghdad in 1941, resulting in an anti-Jewish pogrom and Jewish civil rights being stripped, and successive Iraqi governments accusing the Jews of undermining Iraqi society. That was the signal for tens of thousands of Iraqi Jews to leave in the early 1950s to seek haven in Israel. Jews were never compensated for the property and belongings left behind, all left in the hands of the state.

During the American invasion of Iraq thousands of Jewish documents, books and artifacts were seized from the flooded basement of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's secret police headquarters in Baghdad by American Forces. The U.S. informed the Iraqi provisional government the items were to be transported to the U.S. National Archives in Washington. They would be restored, preserved and returned to Iraq at a future date.

A Hebrew Bible printed in Venice in 1568, recovered from the Iraqi Jewish Archive. Photo BEFORE treatment. (photo credit: The National Archives)

Some of the artifacts -- Torah scrolls, a Babylonian Talmud, Hebrew calendars, rabbinic commentaries, are being displayed at the Washington Archives. Much, much more, comprised of private individuals' belongings, like children's school report cards, marriage and bar-mitzvah certificates, have been catalogued online for an exhibit portraying Iraqi Jewish heritage. And the salvaged items are due to be returned to Iraq in 2014.

The 1568 Hebrew Bible DURING treatment. (photo credit: The National Archives)

"I have very few good memories of Iraq. I never ate in a restaurant, went to a movie theatre or slept over at a friend's. I went to my Jewish school and came straight home. Jews weren't allowed telephones, or passports. Every letter we received had already been opened. We carried yellow identity papers. My father, David, couldn't work for a Muslim, or hire a Muslim. All our neighbours in Baghdad were Muslims and Christian. But I don't ever remember talking to them. By the time I was old enough to be aware we were already so isolated as Jews. I was a little girl and I was always afraid. My parents, on the other hand, have some very fond memories of Iraq. My father was an accountant and worked for a Christian family until it became too dangerous for them to employ him."
Dr. Caroline Bassoon,-Zaltzman, Toronto

American and former Iraqi Jews now living worldwide are hoping the U.S. government will listen to their pleas to return the Jewish items to those to whom it rightfully belongs. On November 13, a petition signed by 47 members of Congress was delivered to Secretary of State John Kerry, insisting that the "Government of Iraq has no legitimate claim to these artifacts".

• A Hebrew Bible with Commentaries from 1568 – one of the oldest books in the trove;
• A Babylonian Talmud from 1793;
• A Torah scroll fragment from Genesis - one of the 48 Torah scroll fragments found;
• A Zohar from 1815 – a text for the mystical and spiritual Jewish movement known as "Kabbalah";
• An official 1918 letter to the Chief Rabbi regarding the allotment of sheep for Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year);
• Materials from Jewish schools in Baghdad, including exam grades and a letter to the College Entrance Examination Board in Princeton regarding SAT scores;
• A Haggadah (Passover script) from 1902, hand lettered and decorated by an Iraqi Jewish youth ; and
• A lunar calendar in both Hebrew and Arabic from the Jewish year 5732 (1972-1973) - one of the last examples of Hebrew printed items produced in Baghdad.

Thousands of waterlogged Jewish books and documents shortly after their discovery in a flooded basement of Saddam Hussein's former intelligence headquarters, May 2003. (Photo credit: courtesy The National Archives)

Reuters news agency was informed by an advisor to Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki that the Jewish documents represent part of an "Iraqi legacy owned by all of the Iraqi people and belong to all the generations, regardless of religious, ethnic or sectarian affiliations". Quaint that notion is beyond belief; Jews are not wanted in the ancient land of their heritage, their very presence would represent an insult to Islam, and they would be in mortal danger.

The legacy of their presence over 2,500 years in Iraq and the objects they owned, another story altogether.