Iran-aligned militia threatens Iraqi Jewish museum

Iranian-backed Iraqi Shiite militia group threatens new museum in Baghdad dedicated to Iraq’s ancient Jewish community.

By World Israel News Staff

An Iranian-backed Shiite militia in Iraq has threatened a newly inaugurated museum dedicated to the country’s ancient Jewish community, accusing its organizers of promoting normalization with Israel and undermining Iraq’s national identity.

The Badr Organization denounced the Shamash Jewish Museum in central Baghdad this week, warning those responsible for authorizing its opening that they would be held accountable.

Muhammad Naji Muhammad, identified in Israeli reports as a representative of Badr, condemned the museum in a social media statement, describing the preservation of Iraq’s Jewish heritage as an attempt to advance Israeli influence in the country.

“Baghdad is not a testing ground for the projects of the Zionists,” Muhammad declared, adding that the city’s identity must not be compromised.

He accused the museum’s organizers of disguising a political initiative as a cultural project, pointing to favorable coverage of its opening by Israeli media and Jewish organizations.

The militia representative described the museum as a “security and cultural breach” and said those who permitted its establishment bore responsibility for what he characterized as a threat to Iraq’s national identity.

The statement was reported Wednesday by Israel Hayom and comes less than three weeks after the museum first opened to visitors.

The museum occupies the restored Shamash School, an educational institution established in 1928 by Iraqi Jewish philanthropist Yaqub Shlomo Shamash on Baghdad’s historic al-Rashid Street.

The school once served generations of Jewish children and also welcomed students from other religious communities. The Iraqi government confiscated the property during the 1970s, converting it into a public school before a court ordered its return to the Jewish community in 1992.

Today, the restored building houses Iraq’s first museum devoted specifically to the history of its Jewish population.

The museum contains photographs, historical documents, school certificates and religious artifacts, including menorahs, prayer shawls and traditional Jewish head coverings.

Among the figures commemorated are Sassoon Eskell, Iraq’s first finance minister, and physician Dhafer Fouad Eliyahu, who was widely remembered for providing medical treatment to impoverished Iraqis.

Speaking to AFP following the museum’s opening, Ammar al-Tamimi, a lawyer representing the committee responsible for Iraqi Jewish communal properties, described the institution as a historic achievement.

“It’s the only museum in Iraq belonging to the Jewish community,” Tamimi said.

The museum has attracted considerable local interest, with reports indicating that more than 1,000 Iraqis visited around the time of its opening.

Its establishment has also drawn attention because of the near-total disappearance of Iraq’s Jewish population, which maintained a continuous presence in Mesopotamia for approximately 2,600 years.

Iraq was home to more than 130,000 Jews during the 1940s, making its Jewish community one of the largest and most historically significant in the Middle East.

However, decades of persecution, violence and discriminatory legislation led to the community’s virtual disappearance.

The 1941 Farhud pogrom in Baghdad left more than 100 Jews dead and hundreds injured, while Jewish homes and businesses were attacked and looted.

Following Israel’s establishment in 1948, escalating persecution and government restrictions contributed to a mass exodus. Approximately 120,000 Iraqi Jews immigrated to Israel during 1950 and 1951, leaving behind homes, businesses, communal institutions and centuries of cultural heritage.

Today, only a few dozen Jews are believed to remain in Iraq, most of them in the autonomous Kurdistan Region.

The restoration of the Shamash School has consequently been welcomed by organizations seeking to preserve the memory of Iraqi Jewry, although the project has also highlighted the continued exclusion of Iraqi Jews and their descendants from their ancestral homeland.

In a statement issued on October 26, JIMENA, an organization representing Jews from the Middle East and North Africa, welcomed efforts to safeguard Jewish heritage while raising concerns about access to the restored building.

“What does it mean to preserve a Jewish school that Jews cannot visit?” the organization asked.

JIMENA said it had met with Iraqis involved in the restoration project earlier in October but deliberately withheld identifying information because of concerns for their safety.

The organization also noted that Iraqi legislation enacted in 2022 criminalizes normalization with Israel, with penalties potentially extending to life imprisonment or execution.

The legislation creates a particular difficulty for Iraqi Jews living in Israel, many of whom are descendants of families who attended the Shamash School or maintained communal property in Baghdad.

The post Iran-aligned militia threatens Iraqi Jewish museum appeared first on World Israel News.