It appears that many of the manuscripts, Torah scrolls and books were confiscated from synagogues and libraries after the mass exodus of the Iraqi Jewish community in 1950-51. Most went to Israel. With the permission of the interim Iraqi Culture Ministry, the Coalition Provisional Authority had the water-damaged documents shipped to Texas, whereupon they were freeze dried and sent to the US National Archives and Records Administration in Washington for restoration and preservation. Archives officials are presently seeking between $1.5 million to $3 million in donations to further the restoration work. The final disposition of the documents remains an open question.

The Americans also discovered documents in the General Intelligence headquarters basement relating to Jewish property in and around Baghdad, property that had been sequestered by the Iraqi government beginning in 1951, during the mass emigration. The Israeli government has long campaigned to have the value of Jewish property abandoned in the Arab world deducted from any compensation the Israelis may one day pay to Palestinian refugees for the property they abandoned in Israel in 1948. Indeed, Israeli Diaspora Affairs Minister Natan Sharansky asked the Americans in 2003 to look for anything relating to Iraq's Jewish community after conquering the country.

After the property records were discovered in Baghdad, the State Department in late May 2004 passed along to Sharansky 800 black-and-white photocopies of the Arabic-language documents. After translation, they will be turned over to the Israeli Justice Ministry, whose director-general, Aharon Abramovitz, co-chairs the Israeli government's Compensation Committee for Jews Who Left Arab States. The Justice Ministry maintains an archive of 12,000 files dealing with property claims of Jewish immigrants from Arab countries and Iran. The unit responsible for this archive was first established in 1969, disbanded in the early 1990s, and recently revived.

A leading Jewish scholar offers the latest on the afterlife

By RICHARD N. OSTLING
The Associated Press
September 01. 2004 8:11PM

Western religions that believe in the one God traditionally teach that after the present life, individuals will exist eternally in resurrected bodies. Eastern religions believe the soul is embodied in either human or animal forms in numerous past and future lives.

Now comes Alan F. Segal of Barnard College in New York with the latest if not the last word on the Jewish, Christian and Muslim concepts: "Life After Death: A History of the Afterlife in Western Religion" (Doubleday). As one of the leading Jewish analysts of first-century Judaism and Christianity, Segal is admirably equipped to produce a 731-page blockbuster on this central, powerful theme of civilization.

He tells how Christianity borrowed and reshaped the Jewish belief in a mind-plus-body afterlife and carried it to many nations, and how Islam did the same with the Christian belief. But before the Jews, resurrection was being taught by Zoroastrians in pre-Islamic Persia (Iran), the forebears of India's present-day Parsees.

[...]

In modern times, belief in bodily eternal life has faded among Segal's fellow Jews and he shares some of that skepticism. But the concept, long an essential Jewish tenet, remains a pillar of Jewish Orthodoxy.

Segal says many modern Christians have retreated to the ancient pagan belief in which the body gets little attention, our souls are immortal by nature and all will be saved. He says it's a very appealing message to Americans.

Segal concludes that belief in eternal life seems to be an essential human need and ideal.

This concept, he writes, "exists in our minds rather than the world and gives a sense of meaning to our lives. Like beauty and justice, life after death is no less important for being unverifiable."

Active damage of the historical record is ongoing at several archeological sites occupied as military camps. At Babylon, I have seen the continuing construction projects, the removal of and digging into the ancient mounds over the past three months, despite a coalition press release early in June stating that work would halt, and the camp would be removed.

A helicopter landing zone, built in the heart of the ancient city, removed layers of archeological earth from the site. The daily flights of the helicopters rattle the ancient walls and the winds created by their rotors blast sand against the fragile bricks. When my colleague at the site, Maryam Moussa, and I asked military personnel in charge that the helipad be shut down, the response was that it had to remain open for security reasons, for the safety of the troops.

Between May and August, the wall of the Temple of Nabu and the roof of the Temple of Ninmah, both sixth century BC, collapsed as a result of the movement of helicopters. Nearby, heavy machines and vehicles stand parked on the remains of a Greek theatre from the era of Alexander of Macedon. The minister of culture has asked for the removal of military bases from all archeological sites, but none has yet been relocated.

Iraq is ancient Mesopotamia, otherwise called the "cradle of civilisation". It has more than 10,000 listed archeological sites, as well as hundreds of medieval and Ottoman Muslim, Christian and Jewish monuments. The coalition did not establish a means of guarding the sites, though they would be protected in any other country rich in antiquities. As a result, archeological sites are being looted to an extent previously unimagined.

Gibson's Passion on track for DVD records

Staff and agencies (The Guardian)
Wednesday September 1, 2004

The mantle of most popular Aramaic-language DVD of the year already looks to be in the bag, after Mel Gibson's The Passion of The Christ sold 2.4m copies by noon yesterday, the first day of its American release. Industry analysts are expecting to receive figures for the first full day of sales late on Wednesday.

[...]

Profile: Shimon Gibson's Belief That He Has Found The Site Where John The Baptist Might Have Performed His Baptisms

All Things Considered: August 30, 2004

McCARTHY: Gibson and other experts spent three years excavating the cave. Among their finds, a quarter of a million shards of small vessels dating back to the first century, perhaps used in baptismal rights. They unearthed a stairway leading to a large immersion pool and a stone bearing a deep indentation in the shape of a foot that according to one theory was for ceremonial foot washing. Biblical scholar James Tabor says the cave was used for rituals, rituals he believes were associated with John the Baptist and his many disciples.

Mr. JAMES TABOR (Biblical Scholar): If we can show that there was this ritual baptism kind of activity going on in the cave in the first century, and it's the period of John and it's in the region where John lived, it's not such a stretch, then, to think that people are going there in association directly with John if not John himself.

McCARTHY: The Israel Antiquities Authority, which licensed the dig, says the science of the excavation is solid and that the cave is unique. But the director of excavations at the Antiquities Authority, Gideon Avni, says it is a stretch to conclude that John the Baptist was here, and says while the drawings likely depict John, their significance is questionable.

Mr. GIDEON AVNI (Director of Excavations, Israel Antiquities Authority): It's a kind of graffiti. It should be treated as a kind of a local archaeological phenomenon, which means there was a village nearby, maybe a monastery, some hermits going, wandering down hills and choosing this place for these depictions.

Pennies from heaven, or elsewhere (Ha'aretz)
By Danny Rubinstein

How did hundreds of thousands of bronze coins from the reign of Alexander Jannaeus (Yannai) end up on the bottom of the Dead Sea?

[...]

Archaeologist and antiquities dealer Lenny Wolf of Jerusalem says that until just a few years ago, coins of the sort found at the Dead Sea were valued at between $10-20, depending on the mint condition and the coin's state of preservation (their value dropped to as low as $5 per coin in the past few years because the market was flooded; it has lately rebounded). A few years ago, Wolf also heard about the big hoard found at the Dead Sea. An Arab merchant told him he had purchased many coins from that hoard, and after lengthy negotiations Wolf took tens of thousands of coins off his hands.

What's special about the Dead Sea hoard is the sheer number of coins. Wolf estimates, and several scholars concur, that there are 300,000 coins. That is an unprecedented number by Israeli and perhaps worldwide standards. Another interesting aspect of this hoard is that all of the coins, with a few exceptions, are from a single series: Pruta coins minted in the reign of the Hasmonean king Alexander Jannaeus (Yannai), who ruled from 104-76 BCE.

The average weight of each coin in the hoard is less than a gram. There are larger coins weighing over 3 grams and tiny ones weighing a tenth of a gram. Most are relatively well preserved because they rested for over 2000 years on the floor of the Dead Sea, with its low-oxygen waters.

One side of the coin displays a ship's anchor surrounded by the Greek inscription "King Alexander." The anchor is a royal symbol of the Seleucid rulers (heirs of Alexander the Great), and Ariel believes that Jannaeus adopted it to give his coinage standard value. In his book "A Treasury of Jewish Coins," numismatist Yaakov Meshorer maintains that Alexander Jannaeus may also have wanted the anchor symbol to highlight the fact that he conquered the coastal towns in the Land of Israel, from Acre in the north to Gaza and Rafah in the south.

The flip side of the coin displays an eight-pointed star, surrounded by a crown; in the spaces between the star points appears the Hebrew inscription "Yehonatan the king" (the Hebrew name of Alexander Jannaeus).

[...]