Iraq Opens First Jewish Heritage Museum in Historic Baghdad School

ERBIL (Kurdistan24) - Iraq's first museum dedicated to its Jewish heritage has opened in Baghdad, transforming a former school on al-Rashid Street into a space documenting a community whose history stretches back more than 2,500 years but whose presence in the country has dwindled dramatically.

The Shamash Museum displays historical photographs, school certificates, traditional clothing and Jewish religious objects. For its organizers, the restored building is intended to preserve an important part of Iraq's cultural history and present a message of coexistence to visitors at home and abroad.

A museum official told Kurdistan24 that the original Shamash School was founded in 1928 by Yaqub Shlomo Shamash, a wealthy Iraqi Jew who gave particular importance to science education.

The official said political developments eventually led to the school's closure in 1975, after which the state used the premises for Al-Risala Secondary School and other educational institutions. A court ruling in 1992 returned the property to the Jewish community, he added.

Other historical accounts distinguish the school's activities from its original building.

Syriac News reported that the school moved from al-Rashid Street in 1951, while The Jerusalem Post said it continued operating elsewhere until approximately 1973. The different accounts therefore do not establish a single agreed date for the end of its educational activities.

The building has now been converted into exhibition space, with documents, family photographs, student records and objects associated with Jewish religious and domestic life.

Syriac News also reported that a portrait of the founder is displayed inside, while The Jerusalem Post described screens carrying recorded recollections of members of the community.

The museum official described its purpose as both historical and civic. Beyond attracting visitors, he said, it was intended to show that Iraq values its minority communities and its religious and cultural diversity.

"It is also a message to other nations that Iraq is a diverse, non-sectarian country in which all ethnic and communal groups come together," he said.

A male visitor interviewed by Kurdistan24 welcomed the presentation of Jewish heritage, saying it reminded him of ordinary people who had formed part of Iraqi society.

"When you look at the history and heritage of the Jews, you are reminded that they were good, peaceful and ordinary people who did not wish harm upon anyone," he said.

The opening has also attracted attention on social media and in Israeli media, despite the lack of normal relations between Iraq and Israel.

The distinction between the Iraqi Jewish community and the Israeli state featured in local reactions to the museum.

For centuries, Jews contributed to Baghdad's commercial, educational, religious and cultural life.

Estimates cited in the reporting put Iraq's Jewish population at roughly 100,000 to 150,000 before the middle of the twentieth century, and at one stage Jews accounted for nearly one-quarter of Baghdad's residents.

That presence declined sharply following violence and persecution, including the Farhud attacks in Baghdad in 1941 and the mass departure of Iraqi Jews in 1950 and 1951.

The Jerusalem Post reported that approximately 120,000 left for Israel during Operation Ezra and Nehemiah.

Today, only a tiny community remains.

Kurdistan24's correspondent reported fewer than six Jews still living in Iraq.

Heller also reported that the Administrative Committee for Iraqi Jews, headed by Khalida Elyahu, oversees the community's remaining property and religious endowments. The same organization was involved in restoring the shrine of Rabbi Isaac Gaon in Baghdad in 2025, according to the report.

Yet the museum's opening has also prompted questions about whether Iraq's Jewish diaspora can visit and participate in preserving its own heritage.

The US-based organization JIMENA (Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa) welcomed the restoration but warned that preserving the school without including descendants of former students and families risked documenting their absence rather than restoring a connection with the site.

The museum's organizers have presented the project as evidence of respect for Iraq's diversity.

Whether it also becomes a place where the descendants of those who once studied, taught and worshipped in Baghdad can meaningfully reconnect with their history remains an important question alongside the preservation of the building itself.