Dozens of visitors have begun flocking to a new museum opened by Iraq’s Jewish community in Baghdad. This exhibition space is the first of its kind in the country, showing ongoing efforts by the religious minority to preserve its heritage.
The Shamash Jewish Museum opened inside a former Jewish school on Baghdad’s Al-Rashid Street. Founded in 1928, the property sits in the heart of the capital.
"It’s the only museum in Iraq belonging to the Jewish community," Ammar Al-Tamimi told reporters. He serves as a lawyer for the committee of Iraqi Jews that manages the community’s properties.
The museum features a large wooden entrance topped by menorahs and stained-glass geometric patterns. Inside, a main hall displays antique documents, old school certificates, and photographs of Iraqi Jews.
The walls are adorned with portraits of prominent Jewish figures. These include Iraq’s first finance minister, Sassoon Eskell, who lived from 1860 to 1932, and physician Dhafer Fouad Eliyahu, who died in 2021 and was well known for providing free medical services.
The Shamash Jewish School was originally started by Yaqub Shlomo Shamash nearly a century ago. It offered an English-language curriculum to students from various communities, particularly Jewish children.
The government confiscated the building in the 1970s and converted it into a public school. A court ruling eventually returned the property to the community in 1992, according to Tamimi.
Efforts to revive the school faced successive setbacks over the decades. These obstacles included international sanctions in the 1990s, the United States-led invasion in 2003, sectarian clashes in 2006 and 2007, and the rise of the Daesh group between 2014 and 2017.
Iraq has begun to experience relative stability alongside a growing interest in culture and entertainment. Jewish community leaders, led by 63-year-old Khalida Fouad Eliyahu, have used this period to bring their historical sites back to life.
The Jewish community in Iraq was once one of the largest in the Middle East. It numbered more than 130,000 people in the 1940s and traces its history back 2,600 years.
Tens of thousands of Jews left the country after a deadly 1941 massacre known as the Farhud. During that violence, mobs killed over 100 Iraqi Jews, and further departures followed the establishment of Israel in 1948.
Today, only a few dozen Jewish residents remain in the country, with most living in the Kurdistan region. Fewer than 50 synagogues and Jewish sites remain across Iraq, mostly concentrated in Baghdad and Hilla.
