Fellowship Video: The Jewish Knešta in Erbil/Hawler (Ancient Arbela), Archaeological and Historical Field Survey

Assist. Prof. Dr. DLshad Aziz Marf and Dr. Ziyad Ahmad Mohammed

Departments of Archaeology, Sulaimani University and Salahaddin University - Erbil

Abstract

The long history of the Kurdish-Jewish community in Erbil that continued for more than 2700 years began in the 8th century BC and lasted up till 1948 AD is a history that needs to be studied from different perspectives. In this project we deal with the public buildings that are called locally Knešta کنێشتە, a Kurdish term for the Jewish synagogue. In Erbil there are remains of two synagogues, in addition to another synagogue recorded in the historical records but unfortunately disappeared among the residence buildings in the Tophkhana District in the Erbil Citadel.

In this field research we focus on one of these synagogues, the neglected one that was built by the Kurdish Jewish residents (community) of the Taajeel/ Taa’jeel(تەعجیل) district (Jewish district) in Erbil, located in the downtown of Erbil just to the southeast of the citadel in the Bazar of Erbil.

The synagogues of Erbil are rarely mentioned in the historical and archaeological researches that dealt with the heritage and architecture of the citadel and the lower old town around the citadel. In this research we study the remaining architecture of the synagogue, its original plan, the used materials in this building, estimate the damages and the changings that faced the building since 1951 onward, and analyze the historical records that dealt with the Kurdish Jewish community in Erbil and their synagogues.

Acknowledgements

As the authors of this field research paper, we would like thank TARII Institute (The Academic Research Institute in Iraq) and their scientific committee, the donors who supported this fellowship and the administrators. Special thanks to Amanda Long who supported us from the first step of the application when we applied for the fellowship and after we received the TARII Fellowship of the year 2020, we really appreciate their support and we hope to be able to produce a field research that is worth their kind support. We would like to thank the family who are still using the synagogue as a living house, who gave us important information and always greeted us with open the doors to do our field research in our continuous visits to the building.

This video was produced by Drs. DLshad Marf and Ziyad Mohammed as part of their research.