Slogging through the water in the bombed-out basement of Saddam Hussein’s dreaded Mukhabarat intelligence agency, investigators on the lookout for those elusive WMDs found another an unexpected cache. When they saw the casing of an ancient Torah scroll floating by, they knew Saddam has secreted a treasure trove of Jewish history in the depths of his cellar.
Baghdad 1984: Two trucks arrive at theMeirTweig synagogue the only shul in use by the handful of Jews still remaining in Baghdad. The trucks have been dispatched bySaddamHussein the country’s ruthless dictator charged with the mission of delivering yet another slap to the face of the Jewish community.
Saddam’s men go upstairs to the women’s section where a large stash of Jewish seforim documents and artifacts have been consolidated and safeguarded — cherished relics of a Jewish community that has largely fled. The men confiscate everything they can find load the trucks and drive off leaving the synagogue’s occupants terrified and bereft.
Baghdad 2003: A coalition led by US and British forces invades Iraq largely on the pretext thatSaddamHussein has stockpiled weapons of mass destruction. Eventually Saddam is lifted out of an underground bunker and the Iraqi army is defeated but those famous WMDs are never found.
It’s a warm Monday in May with the US-led coalition forces and the Iraqi National Congress (INC) in control of Baghdad. An Iraqi informant probably seeking to curry favor with Iraq’s new leadership approaches INC leaderAhmedChalabiand tells him that he used to head the Jewish section of Saddam’s intelligence service. He claims there is an entire trove of Jewish artifacts including a seventh-century Talmud written on parchment still lying there in the Mukhabarat Saddam’s infamous intelligence agency.
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