In a bustling district of Baghdad, staff are labouring diligently to revive the centuries-old shrine of a revered rabbi, looking for to revive the long-faded heritage of Iraq’s Jewish neighborhood.
Just some months in the past, the tomb of Rabbi Isaac Gaon was crammed with garbage. Its door was rusted, the home windows damaged, and the partitions blackened by many years 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 identify, and the 12 months of his demise: 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 top of Iraq’s Jewish neighborhood.
Iraq’s Jewish neighborhood was as soon as among the many largest within the Center East, however at present 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 neighborhood, at an estimated price of $150,000.
The venture will deliver “a revival for our neighborhood, each inside and out of doors Iraq”, Elyahu mentioned.
With the help of Iraqi officers, she expressed hope to revive additional uncared for websites.
There may be 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 outstanding determine through the Gaonic interval, often known as the period of Babylonian academies for rabbis.
The title “Gaon” is prone to confer with his position as the top of 1 such academy.
His identify was cited within the tenth century by one other rabbi, who recounted a narrative that isn’t identified from every other supply, based on Professor Simcha Gross of the College of Pennsylvania.
In keeping with 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 in every of his conquests in central Iraq.
“We’ve got 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 spiritual views.
In keeping with 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 international locations, 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 neighborhood.
Right now, 50 synagogues and Jewish websites stay in Iraq, based on Elyahu. Most are in ruins, with some repurposed as warehouses.