Iraqi Jewish archive exhibition in Florida

IRAQI JEWISH ARCHIVE WATCH: Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU presents Discovery and Recovery: Preserving Iraqi Jewish Heritage.

Just in time for Art Basel Miami Beach, the Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU (JMOF-FIU) unveils the Discovery and Recovery: Preserving Iraqi Jewish Heritage exhibit on December 3, 2015. The exhibition, which runs through February 14, 2016, details the dramatic recovery of historic materials relating to the Jewish community in Iraq from a flooded basement in Saddam Hussein’s intelligence headquarters, and the National Archives’ ongoing work in support of U.S. Government efforts to preserve these materials.

In both English and Arabic, the 2,000 square foot exhibition features 23 recovered items and a “behind the scenes” video of the fascinating yet painstaking preservation process. The entire collection includes more than 2,700 Jewish books and tens of thousands of documents in Hebrew, Arabic, Judeo-Arabic and English, dating from 1524 to the 1970s. A special website makes these historic materials freely available to all online: www.ija.archives.gov. This work was made possible through generous support from the U.S. Department of State.

The National Endowment for the Humanities in partnership with the Center for Jewish History were very helpful in providing key start-up support for the project.

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With a video on the conservation efforts for the exhibition. Background on the Iraqi Jewish archive is here, with links going all the way back to the first report of the archive's discovery in 2003.