A few days ago, about a year and eight months after I wrote in Al-Monitor about an exhibition of Iraqi Jewish artifacts I had seen in New York, I received an email with information I had been seeking about a photograph that had been on display. “The photo of the couple, which you described so wonderfully, shows my parents, may they have a long life, back in 1959,” wrote Yair Dor from the village of Matan.
On May 6, 2003, US Marines found a hidden archive at the headquarters of Saddam Hussein’s General Intelligence Service. It included rare holy books, photos, documents and various Judaica (designed for the Jewish ritual) that once belonged to the ancient Jewish community of Iraq. This treasure, in an advanced stage of deterioration, had been stored in a moldy cellar.
