Iraq opens its first Jewish museum as country's community faces extinction

Iraq has opened its first Jewish museum dedicated to preserving the history and heritage of Iraq's Jewish community. The Shamash Museum is located in Baghdad, in a former school on Al Rasheed Street. Locals and tourists have been thronging to the newly opened museum, where historical documents, photographs, old school records, academic certificates and personal records have been kept that highlight the community's cultural and economic contributions.

The museum has been opened by Iraq's Jewish community and offers a rare glimpse into the community that once thrived in the country. Jews have been living in Iraq for 2,500 years and once made up nearly a quarter of Baghdad’s population. They helped shape Iraq's cultural, educational and economic life.

The historic Shamash School was opened in 1928 and had 900 students by 1939. The school no longer existed in the building by 1951 and operated somewhere else till 1973. The museum has now been opened in the same building. Screens have been set up at the museum that display recorded interviews and other videos in which people of the Jewish community talk about their history and experiences. According to local reports, more than 1,000 people visited the museum on opening day.

Dwindling Jewish community in Iraq

The history of the Jews dates back to the Babylonian exile more than 2,500 years ago. The population peaked in the early 1900s when the Jews comprised nearly a quarter of Baghdad’s population. Around 100,000 to 150,000 Jews are estimated to have lived in the country before they were attacked and murdered under the 1941 Farhud (pogrom). Operation Ezra and Nehemiah saw around 120,000 Iraqi Jews leaving for Israel between 1950 and 1951.

Today, only four to six Jews live in Baghdad and around 50 Jewish families reside in Iraqi Kurdistan. They also have a head, a woman named Khalida Elyahu, who is a dentist at a health centre in Baghdad. She is the chairwoman of the Administrative Committee for Iraqi Jews, a body responsible for administering the Jewish community’s financial affairs.