Shamash Museum Baghdad: Iraq's First Jewish Heritage Museum Opens on Al Rasheed Street

A new museum in central Baghdad is attracting Iraqi and international visitors with an account of a community whose history in the country stretches back some 2,600 years. The Shamash Museum, the first in Iraq dedicated to Jewish heritage, was opened by the Jewish community on the capital's historic Al Rasheed Street.

What visitors can see

The museum occupies a former Jewish school that is nearly a century old. Its collection includes historical documents, photographs, school certificates and personal records belonging to Iraqi Jews.

Among the displays are photographs of prominent figures from the community. They include Sassoon Eskell, described as Iraq's first finance minister, and Dr Dhafer Fouad Eliyahu, a physician remembered for treating patients free of charge.

At present the museum consists of a single exhibition hall. Even so, the material on show covers the community's educational traditions, professional achievements and long presence in Baghdad.

Ammar Al Tamimi, a lawyer who serves on the administrative committee of Iraqi Jews, said Shamash was the only museum in the country devoted to the community. He said interest from Iraqi and international visitors was already growing, as people look to learn about a largely overlooked chapter of Iraqi history.

A school founded in 1928

The building's story begins in 1928, when Yacoub Shlomo Shamash established and financed a school that taught in English. It admitted pupils from different religious communities, with Jewish families particularly well represented.

The school became part of Baghdad's educational landscape. In the 1970s, however, the state confiscated it and turned it into a government institution. According to Al Tamimi, a court ruling in 1992 ordered the property returned to the Jewish community.

Restoration did not follow quickly. Efforts to renovate the building and other Jewish heritage sites met repeated obstacles during decades of political upheaval and violence. The source lists several of these:

• the economic sanctions imposed on Iraq in the 1990s;
• the US-led invasion of 2003;
• sectarian violence in 2006 and 2007;
• the rise of Daesh between 2014 and 2017.

Each of these complicated attempts to protect the community's remaining landmarks.

Wider preservation efforts

In recent years, representatives of the Jewish community, among them Khalida Fouad Eliyahu, have stepped up work to restore neglected synagogues, shrines and other historic properties. Some of these sites had been turned into storage facilities, while others were damaged or destroyed in successive conflicts.

The opening of the Shamash Museum is presented as a significant step in that effort. A former school has become a place where visitors can learn about the lives and achievements of generations of Iraqi Jews, and where the community's memory can be kept for the future.

Background on Iraq's Jewish community

Historical records indicate that the community's roots go back around 2,600 years. It was once among the largest Jewish communities in the Middle East. Its numbers fell sharply after the Farhud riots of 1941, in which more than 100 Jews were killed, according to the report. Another wave of mass emigration followed the establishment of Israel in 1948.

Today only a few dozen Jews are believed to remain in Iraq, most of them in the Kurdistan Region, and many do not openly disclose their religious identity. Several synagogues and Jewish heritage sites still stand across the country, mostly in Baghdad and in Hillah, in Babylon Governorate.

For visitors, the museum offers a way to explore a part of Iraq's diverse cultural and religious heritage that has received little public attention.