Scroll Read at the Grave of the Prophet Ezekiel, [Al-Kifl (Iraq), ca. 1869]

A rare example of a uniquely Iraqi Jewish religious object.

In the town of Al-Kifl on the Euphrates River, located about 100 km south of Baghdad, is a building believed to house the tomb of the biblical prophet Ezekiel. Documentation of Jews visiting the synagogue/tomb of Ezekiel goes back to at least the tenth century, and two hundred years later we read of a custom to go on pilgrimage there between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. In more recent times, a yeshivah comprising ten Torah scholars, funded by Baghdadi Jewry, maintained a constant presence at the site, and pilgrims—men and women, wealthy and poor, young and old, from Baghdad, Basra, Iran, and elsewhere—typically arrived both around the High Holidays and ahead of the holiday of Shavuot, when the haftarah (lection from the Prophets) is taken from the first chapter of Ezekiel. 

Custom dictated that shoes be removed before approaching the gravesite, where the devout would prostrate themselves and beseech God for their needs. Some would carry with them specially produced liturgical scrolls containing excerpts from the books of Ezekiel, Isaiah, and Psalms, as well as prayers for personal health, success, and sustenance, Ezekiel’s speedy resurrection, national protection, and messianic redemption. Such scrolls often bore an inscription giving the name of the person who commissioned them and the year.

On Sunday, December 4, 1910, during a family heritage trip to Iraq, David Solomon Sassoon visited Al-Kifl, where he prayed the afternoon service in the synagogue that had been refurbished by his grandfather David Sassoon in 1859. He spent that evening searching for manuscripts and succeeded in finding and purchasing a small group of what he calls megillot haftarat yehezkel. One of these was the present scroll. Its inscription reads: “Dedicated by Aga[?] Hillel ben Rahamim ben Shemaiah ben Aaron in honor of our master, the prophet Ezekiel, of blessed memory—may his merit protect us, amen—in the year 5629 [1869].”

Physical Description

Scroll (7 1/4 x approx. 81 7/8 in.; 184 x approx. 2076 mm) on gevil; text written in Baghdadi square script in black ink; arranged in 11 columns with 17-18 lines to a column on 5 membranes stitched together; (faulty) Tiberian vocalization and accentuation of biblical text in columns 1-6; Tetragrammaton at times written in full, at others abbreviated to two yodin. Scattered staining; some discoloration on verso; short tears in upper and lower edges of membranes 1-2; last line of column 3 erased, weakening the writing support; small repairs at beginning and midpoint of membrane 3 at foot. Tapered outer edge of membrane 1 ending in a worn and torn gevil strip used for wrapping.

Literature

Abraham Ben-Yaacob, “Eid al-ziyara be-bagdad,” Edot 1 (1946): 37-40, at pp. 37-39.

Abraham Ben-Yaacob, Kevarim kedoshim be-bavel: tei’urim shel kivrei ishim mi-tekufat ha-tanakh, ha-talmud ve-ha-ge’onim (Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 1973), 38-98, esp. pp. 80-81.

David Solomon Sassoon, Ohel Dawid: Descriptive Catalogue of the Hebrew and Samaritan Manuscripts in the Sassoon Library, London, vol. 1 ([Oxford]: Oxford University Press; London: Humphrey Milford, 1932), 559 (no. 195).

David Solomon Sassoon, A History of the Jews in Baghdad (Letchworth: Solomon D. Sassoon, 1949), 98, 140, 150, 155-156, 181, 184.

David Solomon Sassoon, Massa bavel be-tseiruf inyanim le-toledot ha-kehillah he-yehudit be-bagdad, ed. Meir Benayahu (Jerusalem: Azrieli, 1955), 158-167, 272, esp. pp. 161-162, 272.