Ruth Attar
In March 1997 we began a survey of the Babylonian Jewry heritage in the Far East from the beginnings of settlement there to the present. The work is being conducted as part of the Center's research work in preparation for the establishment a wing at the Museum on Jewry in the Far East.
The following areas of activity were set for the survey:
Firstly: a review of material to be found in the library, in collections, and in the Center's archives, including the picture archive. This task was assigned to Mr Yaakov Zamir and Ms. Tmima Hillel. They retrieved the subject matter from the Center's and the National Library database, classified it, and filed it according to the various communities. At the same time I went over the card index of objects and items that reached the Center, and I located those belonging to Babylonian Jews in the Far East.
Secondly: a check of documentary material and surveys by various institutions in Israel. We began by examining collections and surveys carried out by the following museums: Beit Hatefutsot, Eretz Israel Museum, Israel Museum, and the Museum of Cochin Jewry. These bodies provided us with the assistance we needed. Ms Ofra Slepak, Curator of the Jews in India exhibit at the Israel Museum, was most helpful, sparing the time for five meetings, and allowing us to photocopy the card index she had prepared as part of her many-year survey on the Jews in India. Ms Slepak also provided us with material from a large assembly of addresses of informants and sources living in Israel and abroad. I take this opportunity to thank her for the great assistance she afforded us.
Thirdly: meetings with informants. This activity is still only beginning, but it is steadily expanding. At each such meeting with an informant we obtain addresses of new sources that we did not have. Here I mention two meetings. The first was with Joe Twoeg of the Benyamin Shamash Synagogue in Tel Aviv. Mr Twoeg recruited his aunt Katie Levy (nee Twoeg), a member of kibbutz Beerot Yitshak, and his sister Rebecca Twoeg of Haifa. I met both women at Kibbutz Beerot Yitshak, and received from them much information and pictures. Mrs. Twoeg, who for the past two years has herself been engaged in documenting the Jews of Iraq in Shanghai, presented me with a list of about fifty addresses, and promised to let us have all the material she had collected on this subject. Another interesting meeting was with Sima and Shaul Ezra of Pisgat Zeev in Jerusalem. They have a large collection of written material, pictures, and objects, and I have already received material from them for photographing and documentation.
Finally, I wish to note that it is certainly possible to find interesting material in Israel, and I sense that people in the Far East originating from Babylonian Jewry, the "Baghdadis", will help me to gather informative matter, especially objects and items that are important to us in designing the exhibit.