Rosh Hashana in Baghdad, 1990s

Here is rare footage of a Rosh Hashana service in the Meir Tweg synagogue in Baghdad in the 1990s. By the time this video was taken there were some thirty Jews still living in the Iraqi capital. The service would have been conducted by ordinary members of the community who could read Hebrew. The last of these, Emad Levy, left in 2010.

The Meir Tweg was built in 1942. Of some fifty synagogues, it is the last synagogue standing in Baghdad.

There are no services held there today. The synagogue is almost permanently shut, as there is no longer a Jewish community in Baghdad. Indeed there are just five self-identifying Jews.