BAGHDAD – Dozens of Iraqis visit Baghdad’s first Jewish museum daily to see faded school certificates, handwritten paperwork, and family portraits. The exhibits offer a glimpse into a once-important part of Iraqi life, now nearly extinct.
The museum is housed in the ancient Shamash Jewish School, founded in 1928 on Al-Rashid Street, one of Baghdad’s main arteries. Iraq’s Jewish community opened the museum last month in a rare public commemoration of the country’s Jewish past.
Inside the renovated building, visitors can see a display case with personal portraits, identity cards, graduation certificates, and records of Jewish pupils who studied at the school founded by the Jewish philanthropist Yacoub Shlomo Shamash. There is a metal menorah on top of archive records and another seven-branched candelabrum is on show against polished oak panels. The walls are lined with framed black-and-white photos, including one of Sassoon Heskel, a Jew born in Baghdad who became Iraq’s first finance minister after the modern state was created in 1920.
The museum also pays respect to leading people of Iraq’s Jewish past, including the famed vocalist Salima Murad. Murad was born to a Jewish family in Baghdad. He rose to fame in the 1920s and 1930s as one of Iraq’s most recognised vocalists, singing the traditional Iraqi Maqam, a classical Arabic musical genre, and lighter popular melodies.
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