Tug-of-war erupts over planned return of Jewish archives to Iraq

BY SYLVIA WESTALL AND JONATHAN SAUL BAGHDAD/LONDON Tue Nov 26, 2013 Reuters (Reuters) - Jewish books and documents found by U.S. soldiers in the flooded headquarters of ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and sent to the United States for restoration have touched off a dispute between Baghdad and Iraqi Jews who fled the country. After a $3 million restoration, the collection has been put on display at the Washington-based National Archives. But bowing to demands from Iraq's Shi'ite Muslim-led government, the United States says it will return the collection next summer. Some of the artifacts date to the 16th century. A National Archives spokeswoman said the materials, whose removal from Baghdad was agreed in 2003 - when a U.S.-led invasion toppled Saddam and the country lurched into widespread sectarian turmoil - would be going back to Iraq and the decision was made by the U.S. State Department. Members of Iraq's Jewish community, many of whom fled the country in previous decades, say the materials were forcibly taken from them and should not be returned. Edwin Shuker, 58, who escaped to Britain with his family from Baghdad in 1971, said he had discovered his long-abandoned school certificate on display as part of the National Archives exhibition. "This is more than a school certificate - it is the identity we were forced to leave behind," he told Reuters, likening the document's journey and survival to his own. "I would like to be reassured that my children and future generations will have unrestricted access to this collection." Cynthia Kaplan Shamash, from the New York-based World Organisation of Jews from Iraq, said Iraqi Jews were grateful for the restoration but did not want the archive to go back. "Returning the collection to a Jewish-free Iraq in the current conditions is incomprehensible and unacceptable," she said. Shuker said: "It is not a sectarian issue. Nothing is safe, no shrine or holy place let alone a site where Jewish artifacts are stored. There is a complete breakdown in safety and security in Iraq now." Sectarian-motivated bombings and shooting attacks by Shi'ite and Sunni Muslim militants continue almost daily today. Ali al-Moussawi, an adviser to Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, said procedures for the archives' return from the United States were "in full swing". Read More...November 26, 2013Posted on No Comments

BY SYLVIA WESTALL AND JONATHAN SAUL
BAGHDAD/LONDON Tue Nov 26, 2013

Reuters

(Reuters) – Jewish books and documents found by U.S. soldiers in the flooded headquarters of ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and sent to the United States for restoration have touched off a dispute between Baghdad and Iraqi Jews who fled the country.

After a $3 million restoration, the collection has been put on display at the Washington-based National Archives. But bowing to demands from Iraq’s Shi’ite Muslim-led government, the United States says it will return the collection next summer. Some of the artifacts date to the 16th century.

A National Archives spokeswoman said the materials, whose removal from Baghdad was agreed in 2003 – when a U.S.-led invasion toppled Saddam and the country lurched into widespread sectarian turmoil – would be going back to Iraq and the decision was made by the U.S. State Department.

Members of Iraq’s Jewish community, many of whom fled the country in previous decades, say the materials were forcibly taken from them and should not be returned.

Edwin Shuker, 58, who escaped to Britain with his family from Baghdad in 1971, said he had discovered his long-abandoned school certificate on display as part of the National Archives exhibition.

“This is more than a school certificate – it is the identity we were forced to leave behind,” he told Reuters, likening the document’s journey and survival to his own.

“I would like to be reassured that my children and future generations will have unrestricted access to this collection.”

Cynthia Kaplan Shamash, from the New York-based World Organisation of Jews from Iraq, said Iraqi Jews were grateful for the restoration but did not want the archive to go back. “Returning the collection to a Jewish-free Iraq in the current conditions is incomprehensible and unacceptable,” she said.

Shuker said: “It is not a sectarian issue. Nothing is safe, no shrine or holy place let alone a site where Jewish artifacts are stored. There is a complete breakdown in safety and security in Iraq now.”

Sectarian-motivated bombings and shooting attacks by Shi’ite and Sunni Muslim militants continue almost daily today.

Ali al-Moussawi, an adviser to Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, said procedures for the archives’ return from the United States were “in full swing”.

Read More…