FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 22, 2014
Congregation Kahal Joseph and JIMENA Present:
The Last Jews of Baghdad Screening with Filmmaker and Middle East Expert Carole Basri
Thursday, May 1, 2014
Congregation Kahal Joseph
10505 W. Santa Monica Blvd, Los Angeles, CA
7:00PM
LOS ANGELES – The Jewish community of Los Angeles invites you to view The Last Jews of Baghdad, a film by Carole Basri, a Jewish American lawyer and filmmaker of Iraqi-Jewish descent, at Kahal Joseph synagogue, a predominantly Iraqi Jewish congregation. This film captures the story of the plight of over 160,000 Iraqi Jews and their persecution, torture, and escape from Iraq between the years of 1940 and 2003. Ms. Basri will engage the audience in a conversation about the history of Jewish Baghdad and its rapid disappearance after 1940. This timing of this event is especially relevant due to the recent collective efforts of JIMENA and other Jewish organizations strongly urging US Government officials to keep the Iraqi Jewish Archive from returning to Iraq.
An adjunct professor at Fordhan University Law School, Ms. Basri is a highly respected Middle East and anti-corruption expert. In 2003, Ms. Basri was a member of the US State Department’s “Future of Iraq” Project and was a member for the Coalition Provisional Authority working with the Iraqi Reconstruction Development Council. In September 2004, she worked with the Iraqi Ministry of Health and the Iraqi Red Crescent on health and legal issues. Ms. Basri has lectured and taught at Cairo University School of Law, Hebrew University Law School, Harvard Kennedy School, New York Law School and Benjamin N. Cardozo Law School. A former President of World Organization of Jews from Iraq, Carole has been an outspoken advocate for the return of the Iraqi Jewish archive to Iraqi Jews.
In a November, 2013 interview with NPR’s Larry Abramson Carole is quoted saying, that anything would be better than returning the Iraqi Jewish archive to Iraq. “I don’t think the situation in Iraq is safe enough for it to go back now,” Basri said. In a later interview with the Jewish Daily Forward Basri said she “supports setting up a commission to locate owners of the objects while signing a long-term loan agreement with the Iraqis.”
For further information and to set up an interview with Carole please contact:
Natalie Farahan, JIMENA Los Angeles Program Director
Natalie at jimena.org
