Iraq’s Jewish community saves a long-forgotten shrine

In a bustling district of Baghdad, workers are labouring diligently to restore the centuries-old shrine of a revered rabbi, seeking to revive the long-faded heritage of Iraq’s Jewish community.

Just a few months ago, the tomb of Rabbi Isaac Gaon was filled with rubbish. Its door was rusted, the windows broken, and the walls blackened by decades of neglect.

Now, marble tiles cover the once-small grave, and at its centre stands a large tombstone inscribed with a verse, the rabbi’s name, and the year of his death: 688. A silver menorah hangs on the wall behind it.

“It was a garbage dump, and we were not allowed to restore it,” said Khalida Elyahu, 62, the head of Iraq’s Jewish community.

Iraq’s Jewish community was once among the largest in the Middle East, but today has dwindled to just a handful of members.

Baghdad now has only one synagogue remaining, but there are no rabbis.

The restoration of the shrine is being funded by the Jewish community, at an estimated cost of $150,000.

The project will bring “a revival for our community, both within and outside Iraq”, Elyahu said.

With the support of Iraqi officials, she expressed hope to restore further neglected sites.

There is little information about Rabbi Isaac. During a visit to the tomb earlier this year, Iraq’s National Security Adviser Qasim al-Araji stated that the rabbi had been a finance official.

Rabbi Isaac was a prominent figure during the Gaonic period, also known as the era of Babylonian academies for rabbis.

The title “Gaon” is likely to refer to his role as the head of one such academy.

His name was cited in the 10th century by another rabbi, who recounted a story that is not known from any other source, according to Professor Simcha Gross of the University of Pennsylvania.

According to the account, Rabbi Isaac led 90,000 Jews to meet Ali ibn Abi Talib, the fourth Islamic caliph and a relative of the Prophet Muhammad, who is revered by Shia Muslims as the first imam, during one of his conquests in central Iraq.

“We have no other evidence for this event, and there are reasons to be sceptical,” Gross noted.

Nothing else is known about Rabbi Isaac, not even his religious views.

According to biblical tradition, 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.

Thousands of years later, under Ottoman rule, Jews comprised 40 percent of Baghdad’s population.

As in other Arab countries, the history of Iraq’s Jews shifted dramatically after the Palestinian Nakba, meaning “catastrophe” in Arabic, and the founding of Israel in 1948. Soon after, almost all of Iraq’s 135,000 Jews went into exile.

Decades of conflict and instability — Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship, the United States-led invasion in 2003, and subsequent violence — further diminished the community.

Today, 50 synagogues and Jewish sites remain in Iraq, according to Elyahu. Most are in ruins, with some repurposed as warehouses.