ISIS burns Mosul library: Why terrorists target books - CSMonitor.com

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  By Husna Haq, Correspondent February 25, 2015

  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  

  
  

From the destruction of the Library of Alexandria in 391 AD, to
the burning of Kabul libraries in 2002, to the the obliteration of the
Library of Baghdad in 2003, oppressive regimes have historically
targeted libraries.



In the latest example, on Sunday, in northern Iraq, Islamic State militants burned the Mosul public library, which housed more than 8,000 rare old books and manuscripts.



According
to reports, ISIS militants rigged the entire building with explosives
and carried out multiple detonations to raze the historical landmark and
its contents. Among its lost collections, according to the Fiscal Times,
were manuscripts from the 18th century, Syriac books printed in Iraq's
first printing house in the 19th century, books from the Ottoman era,
Iraqi newspapers from the early 20th century, and treasured antiques
like an astrolabe and sand glass used by ancient Arabs. Read more...

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Return Of ‘Stolen’ Jewish Trove From Iraq Fueling Anger | The Jewish Week

On eve of D.C. exhibit, community wants ‘illegally expropriated’ material to remain in Jewish hands in U.S.

10/16/13

 

Stewart Ain

Staff Writer 

Jewish trove found in an Iraqi government building. Photos courtesy of Harold Rhode

The treasure trove of materials tells the story of the rich history of Iraqi Jews, stretching back 2,500 years to Babylonia. There are Torah parchments, a Hebrew Bible with commentaries from 1568, a Babylonian Talmud from 1793 and a Passover Haggadah from 1902.

The material, believed to have been seized by former Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein, was found in the flooded basement of Iraq’s intelligence agency in Baghdad two months after the March 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq. Eventually rescued by U.S. troops, it was preserved and restored at the National Archives and Records Administration in Washington, with help from philanthropists and foundations as well as $2.9 million in federal funds.

Now, as the trove is about to go on view at the National Archives, the prospect that the material will be returned to Iraq after the show — under an agreement between the U.S. and Iraqi governments — has sparked anger in the Jewish community.
Harold Rhode, who discovered the trove while working as a Defense Department policy analyst assigned to Iraq’s transitional government, said he is “horrified” to think the material would be returned when it had been “stolen by the government of Iraq from the Jewish community.”

“It would be comparable to the U.S. returning to the German government Jewish property that had been looted by the Nazis,” he told The Jewish Week.
Read article...

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• Saving Iraq's Jewish Scolls
• Is Iraq Entitled to the 'Jewish Archive?'
• Point of no return: Returning archive is just plain wrong