Rare Iraqi Jewish books 'surface in Israel'

[Barrett808]

Source: AFP

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.

The volumes are part of a massive collection of books confiscated by the secret police of the executed Iraqi dictator and stored in security installations in the Iraqi capital until the US-led invasion of 2003.

Many volumes were damaged during the bombing of government buildings in the opening weeks of the war, and after the fall of Baghdad most of the books were sent off to be temporarily stored at the Library of Congress in Washington.

Others however ended up in the hands of private dealers.

"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).

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080627/wl_mideast_afp/israeliraqjudaismhistory

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A welcome bit of good news rising out of the catastrophe.

[Xipe Totec]

1. Yea, confiscated I bet.

Nothing to do with the pillage and plunder of the Baghdad Museum.

[Indenturedebtor]

2. Maybe, but if that's the case someone would likely speak up about it

Personally I think that the books belong in Israel, if that's where the Babylonian Jews want them. Much as I think that we don't have a right to take ancient copies of the Quran and hold them in the US. I also think that the greeks have a right to parts of the Parthenon that were shipped to England.

Now if anyone were to have these books besides Israel, then they belong in Venice where they were created.

[atreides1]

7. So What You're Saying

Is that the ends justify the means? How many times has that been used as a justification in the history of man?

Stealing from a thief still makes you a thief!

[Indenturedebtor]

9. Um that's not what I'm saying at all

First of all - how do you identify who the private owner was?

Second - the historical artifacts of a culture belong to that culture.

Who do you return these to? Has the museum even made a claim to them? Do you give them to some random Iraqi?

And how do you call it theft? They weren't stolen.

If the original Declaration of Independence was stolen 200 years ago and sold to a private owner, then it was stolen again and the US bought it back would you feel differently about it?

[YankmeCrankme]

12. They belonged to Iraqi Jews. So the culture they belong to is Iraqi culture. nt

[Taverner]

13. Show me some Iraqi Jews who want them in Iraq and I'll agree with you

Truth is - most Iraqi Jews have fled to Israel.

[YankmeCrankme]

17. Maybe nobody in Iraq wants them back, I can concede that point.

Doesn't mean that pillage loot can be bought on the blackmarket and the buyers get to keep it. Does it make any difference what the item is? What if it was some ancient Christian or Hindu writings confiscated from Iraqi people by Hussein, should the buyer of stolen goods get to keep them?

[Indenturedebtor]

18. Ancient Hindu Texts belong to all Hindi. It's a simple case of where you draw the nationalistic lin

The most recent prior "owner" hasn't stepped forward. I personally believe, as I stated a couple times upthread, that cultural treasures belong more to that culture than to any individual or to any nation-state.

[YankmeCrankme]

22. Hindus live just about everywhere, where would this text be located?

India? Does that work for everyone else? So everything ever written, painted, sculpted by a Catholic belongs to the Vatican? And that to get it there it is okay to loot where it is stored and then buy it on the black market?

Wow, we really do have different values.

[Indenturedebtor]

24. You're trying to bend and stretch what I said

The sistine chapel belongs to the Vatican. The original Papal Bulls belong to the Vatican.

And in this case where is the evidence of looting? For that matter who has stepped forward to claim it for Iraq? Does it belong more to Iraq or to the Iraqi Jews who brought it there in the first place and now live in Israel?

I didn't say that it was ok to loot to get these texts, but if they are on the black market why shouldn't they be bought by an Israeli?

[Indenturedebtor]

14. There are nearly no Iraqi Jews left in Iraq

If the Iraqi Jews move back to Iraq, then you're right these books should go back with them.

In reality, with the Shariah government we've created there any non Muslim religious texts will likely be destroyed in any case.

[islandmkl]

3. reminiscent of the art spirited out of europe at the end of WWII...

not to mention all the confiscated jewish property, jewelry, gold, etc....

funny how this kind of stuff 'just shows up'....

[notadmblnd]

5. not to mention the individuals that just happen to run into the theives that stole them

[Purveyor]

4. I wonder if these books arrived along with a shipment of millions of cash dollars that came up

missing during the early days of the invasion?

[Mika]

6. Bought from FAUX news crews?

Newsmen Face Smuggling Charges for Iraqi Loot
http://www.talkleft.com/story/2003/04/23/779/29057

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[Behind the Aegis]

8. "A welcome bit of good news rising out of the catastrophe"

So, one might think, until the news is "crapped on" by certain types of people.

[Indenturedebtor]

10. Yes I'm sure that if it was the original New Testament

There would be different responses on here.

[provis99]

19. I see. So DU is full of bigoted Christians, in your opinion.

Real open-minded of you. I hear the JDL is still taking members.

[LeftishBrit]

20. Very open-minded of YOU!

So if someone doesn't agree with YOU, they must belong with terrorists? Where have I heard things like that before????

[Indenturedebtor]

25. No that's not my opinion. But how exactly do you think these books

Ended up in the hands of a Non-Jewish Iraqi? And I don't think that you have to be Christian to hate Jews. There are pleny of Anti-Semites in the world who don't worship Christ.

[YankmeCrankme]

11. What good news is that?

Iraqi treasures confiscated by Hussein from Iraqi's get bought on the blackmarket and taken from the country. So your saying pillaging is fine?

How about those treasures stolen from Iraqis get returned to their original owners if they can be found and those owners that can't be located, their items go to a Iraqi National Museum. Oh, and how about the US try guarding archaeological, historical and art treasures since they are the ones responsible for order.

Since these aren't Israeli treasures why do they get to keep them?

[Indenturedebtor]

15. Because pretty much all Iraqi Jews have fled to Iraq

If the Cherokee relocate to Canada, then their cultural treasures should go with them imo.

[YankmeCrankme]

16. Ah, excuse me, the owners of these did not flee to Israel with them.

These were looted from Iraq. If the owners or descendants of the owners are in Israel they should be returned to them. If they aren't able to locate them doesn't mean that they become the property of someone who bought them off a thief.

If you buy stolen property, it isn't yours to keep.

[Phx_Dem]

23. These books were stolen from the Iraqi jewish community

Given that the entire Iraqi jewish community is in Israel now, the books should be housed there.

How they were acquired is irrelevant.

This is a good summary about Iraqi Jews:

In 1950, Iraqi Jews were permitted to leave the country within a year provided they forfeited their citizenship. A year later, however, the property of Jews who emigrated was frozen and economic restrictions were placed on Jews who chose to remain in the country. From 1949 to 1951, 104,000 Jews were evacuated from Iraq in Operations Ezra & Nechemia (named after the Jewish leaders who took their people back to Jerusalem from exile in Babylonia beginning in 597 B.C.E.); another 20,000 were smuggled out through Iran.

In 1952, Iraq’s government barred Jews from emigrating and publicly hanged two Jews after falsely charging them with hurling a bomb at the Baghdad office of the U.S. Information Agency.

With the rise of competing Ba’ath factions in 1963, additional restrictions were placed on the remaining Iraqi Jews. The sale of property was forbidden and all Jews were forced to carry yellow identity cards. After the Six Day War, more repressive measures were imposed: Jewish property was expropriated; Jewish bank accounts were frozen; Jews were dismissed from public posts; businesses were shut; trading permits were canceled and telephones were disconnected. Jews were placed under house arrest for long periods of time or restricted to the cities.

Persecution was at its worst at the end of 1968. Scores were jailed upon the discovery of a local “spy ring” composed of Jewish businessmen. Fourteen men, eleven of them Jews, were sentenced to death in staged trials and hanged in the public squares of Baghdad; others died of torture. On January 27, 1969, Baghdad Radio called upon Iraqis to “come and enjoy the feast.” Some 500,000 men, women and children paraded and danced past the scaffolds where the bodies of the hanged Jews swung; the mob rhythmically chanted “Death to Israel” and “Death to all traitors.” This display brought a world-wide public outcry that Radio Baghdad dismissed by declaring: “We hanged spies, but the Jews crucified Christ.”3 Jews remained under constant surveillance by the Iraqi government. An Iraqi Jew (who later escaped) wrote in his diary in February 1970:

Ulcers, heart attacks, and breakdowns are increasingly prevalent among the Jews...The dehumanization of the Jewish personality resulting from continuous humiliation and torment...have dragged us down to the lowest level of our physical and mental faculties, and deprived us of the power to recover.4

In response to international pressure, the Baghdad government quietly allowed most of the remaining Jews to emigrate in the early 1970’s, even while leaving other restrictions in force. Most of Iraq’s remaining Jews are now too old to leave. They have been pressured by the government to turn over title, without compensation, to more than $200 million worth of Jewish community property.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/iraqijews.html

[freedomnorth]

21. With one million Iraqis killed

Dusty books addressing the problem of evil seem to be treasure.