Ambassador Faily participated in the opening ceremony of the Iraqi National Jewish Archive special exhibition “Discovery and Recovery," and the press event on November 6 - 7, 2013. Both events were held at the National Archive Building in Washington, D.C.
Ambassador Faily stated in his remarks, “This Project is a great deal for Iraq, where it shows Iraq is the country of multi ethnicitcs & religions where all different communities lived in harmony. And when it says 'Discovery and Recovery', this means for other part of the world to discover and explore Iraq’s heritage, and for us as Iraqi is imperative to recover a precious piece of our cultural heritage that documents an era of our country’s history. This heritage was confiscated by the former dictator regime. The Jewish community like any other community in Iraq, played a key role in building the country and shared it’s thrives and prosperity, also suffered the exile and forced to leave because of the tyranny.”
The Ambassador thanked the NARA team and the United States Department of States for their continued contribution to preserve this heritage, and stressed that these important documents are not only valuable for Iraq but for all mankind.
The Iraqi Jewish Archive is a collection of books, manuscripts, and records in Hebrew and Arabic languages, found by the Coalition Forces in 2003 and salvaged from a flooded basement in Al Mukhabarat (Intelligent Agency) building in Baghdad after the fall of the regime. The Archive was transferred to the U.S. for treatment and safekeeping.