Assessment of the Website of the Jewish Community Heritage in Iraq and the Iraqi Kurdistan Region

Abstract

On May 6, 2003, a specialized American force proceeded to access the subterranean level beneath the Iraqi intelligence headquarters, where they discovered a substantial quantity of documents and books that had been immersed in water. Notably, among the submerged materials were those from the National Archives pertaining to the Jewish community of Iraq. Based on an agreement between the Iraqi Department of Antiquities and the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), which was responsible for governing Iraq at the time, the archive was transferred to the United States of America. The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) in the United States has developed an action plan to protect the archives. After great technical efforts made by the American Archive to restore and maintain the Iraqi Jewish Archive, a website was created containing the documents of this archive. This research studies the website of the Iraqi Jewish Archive and measures the extent of its contribution to introducing this archival collection and accessing its documents.