SASSOON (David Solomon).
A History of the Jews of Baghdad.
A REMARKABLE WORK ON THE JEWISH COMMUNITY OF BAGHDAD
A scarce and valuable history of the Jewish community of Baghdad. This example has the rare dust-jacket.
At the time of its publication, there was very little English-Language scholarship on the Babylonian heritage of Jewish communities in the Near and Middle East. Solomon Sassoon, whose ancestors had lived in Baghdad, decided to compile a history of that community: “This, I believe, is the first attempt which has been made to collect and group together various data about the Jews in Baghdad in order to describe their literature, their spiritual lay leaders, their synagogues and shrines, schools and charities.” (p.vi).
The resulting work is a landmark in Jewish studies, with particularly strong sections on important individuals in the community from around 1750 to 1900, describing their lives and contributions.
