Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

ISIS Fighters Close in on Ancient Jewish Site

The Iraqi site believed to be the burial place of the biblical prophet Nahum is in danger of being destroyed by the Islamic State, or ISIS.

Nahum’s Tomb in Al Ooosh, an annual pilgrimage spot for generations of Iraqi Jews, is 10 miles from territory controlled by ISIS, the Israeli daily Haaretz reported.

Until the early 1950s, thousands of Jews gathered at the site during the Shavuot holiday, some staying for as long as two weeks.

The tomb, inside an abandoned synagogue, is cared for by Asir Salaam Shajaa, an Assyrian Christian whose father and grandfather also cared for the site at the request of Jewish community leaders who fled, along with the majority of Iraq’s Jews, after the Iraqi government vowed to expel them following the establishment of the state of Israel in 1949.

Shajaa told Haaretz that he worries about the future of the tomb and the abandoned synagogue adjacent to it.

“I’m not sure how long my family will continue to stay in Iraq — we want to leave, most of the Christians want to leave,” Shajaa told Haaretz. “My brother says he will stay, though. If my family gets to leave Iraq, my brother and his children will look after the tomb. It will stay in the family, God willing.”

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.