In a bustling district of Baghdad, staff are labouring diligently to revive the centuries-old shrine of a revered rabbi, searching for to revive the long-faded heritage of Iraq’s Jewish group.
Just some months in the past, the tomb of Rabbi Isaac Gaon was stuffed with garbage. Its door was rusted, the home windows damaged, and the partitions blackened by a long time of neglect.
Now, marble tiles cowl the once-small grave, and at its centre stands a big tombstone inscribed with a verse, the rabbi’s title, and the 12 months of his loss of life: 688. A silver menorah hangs on the wall behind it.
“It was a rubbish dump, and we weren’t allowed to revive it,” mentioned Khalida Elyahu, 62, the pinnacle of Iraq’s Jewish group.
Iraq’s Jewish group was as soon as among the many largest within the Center East, however in the present day has dwindled to only a handful of members.
Baghdad now has just one synagogue remaining, however there aren’t any rabbis.
The restoration of the shrine is being funded by the Jewish group, at an estimated value of $150,000.
The venture will deliver “a revival for our group, each inside and outdoors Iraq”, Elyahu mentioned.
With the help of Iraqi officers, she expressed hope to revive additional uncared for websites.
There’s little details about Rabbi Isaac. Throughout a go to to the tomb earlier this 12 months, Iraq’s Nationwide Safety Adviser Qasim al-Araji acknowledged that the rabbi had been a finance official.
Rabbi Isaac was a distinguished determine through the Gaonic interval, also referred to as the period of Babylonian academies for rabbis.
The title “Gaon” is more likely to consult with his function as the pinnacle of 1 such academy.
His title was cited within the tenth century by one other rabbi, who recounted a narrative that’s not recognized from every other supply, in keeping with Professor Simcha Gross of the College of Pennsylvania.
In response to the account, Rabbi Isaac led 90,000 Jews to fulfill Ali ibn Abi Talib, the fourth Islamic caliph and a relative of the Prophet Muhammad, who’s revered by Shia Muslims as the primary imam, throughout one among his conquests in central Iraq.
“We’ve no different proof for this occasion, and there are causes to be sceptical,” Gross famous.
Nothing else is thought about Rabbi Isaac, not even his non secular views.
In response to biblical custom, Jews arrived in Iraq in 586 BC, taken as prisoners by the Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar II, after he destroyed Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem.
In Iraq, they compiled the Babylonian Talmud.
Hundreds of years later, below Ottoman rule, Jews comprised 40 % of Baghdad’s inhabitants.
As in different Arab nations, the historical past of Iraq’s Jews shifted dramatically after the Palestinian Nakba, which means “disaster” in Arabic, and the founding of Israel in 1948. Quickly after, virtually all of Iraq’s 135,000 Jews went into exile.
Many years of battle and instability — Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship, the United States-led invasion in 2003, and subsequent violence — additional diminished the group.
At the moment, 50 synagogues and Jewish websites stay in Iraq, in keeping with Elyahu. Most are in ruins, with some repurposed as warehouses.
