New Documentary Film Has Premiere

"Saving the Iraqi Jewish Archives
A Journey of Identity"
We are proud to announce the Premiere of our latest film in our Iraqi Jewish Film Series September 13, 2020 at the
23rd Annual New York Sephardic Jewish Film Festival Released 2020 56 minutes

In 2003, a few courageous individuals, with the cooperation of the US military, ventured into the basement of Saddam Hussein’s secret police headquarters in Baghdad. There they found, and rescued, nearly 20,000 confiscated personal and religious artifacts from Iraq’s 2700-year-old Jewish community. Severely damaged by water and poor storage, it took a series of miracles to restore and partially digitize the items including religious books, some dating back to the 1600’s, marriage and birth certificates as well as educational records and library books from the last Jewish school in Iraq, The Frank Iny School.

Today the collection, known as the Iraqi Jewish Archives, are in peril once again as the US and Iraqi governments have agreed, within the next year, to return the entire Archives to a politically unstable Iraq. If this happens, there will be little hard evidence for the community to prove they ever existed in Iraq and certainly nothing to cling to for future generations. “Saving the Iraqi Jewish Archives" is a journey to rescue the identity of Iraqi Jews and a story for all those determined to preserve their unique religious and cultural heritages.

 Audiences will be emotionally rapt as they witness Iraq’s Jews literally come face to face with a past, they thought long ago lost or destroyed when they were forced from their homeland. In 2020, only five Jews remain in Iraq, making this issue more than a rescue against time; it is a rescue of time itself.