Rare Iraqi Jewish books 'surface in Israel'The article says that these items are part of the Iraqi Jewish archive, the rest of which is now awaiting restoration at the Library of Congress (background here). Jeff Spurr has some useful comments on the Iraq Crisis list. He is skeptical of the claimed provenance for this new find.
Fri Jun 27, 9:29 AM ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) - Some 300 rare and valuable books confiscated from Iraq's Jewish community by Saddam Hussein's regime have been secretly spirited into Israel, an Israeli newspaper reported on Friday.
The books include a 1487 commentary on the biblical Book of Job and another volume of biblical prophets printed in Venice in 1617, the Haaretz daily said.
[...]
"We bought them from thieves," Mordechai Ben-Porat, an Iraqi-born Jew and the founder of Jerusalem's Babylonian Jewry Heritage centre told the newspaper, adding that the foundation paid some 25,000 dollars (16,000 euros).
In the beginning, Ben-Porat sent an emissary to Baghdad who shipped the books directly to Israel, but once the Americans caught wind of his activities they forbade further shipments, forcing him to smuggle the rest, he said.
[...]
UPDATE (4 July): More here.