A post from Israel Arabic (@IsraelArabic), an Arabic-language account covering Israeli and Jewish affairs, has drawn attention to a lesser-known chapter of Middle Eastern history: for roughly eight centuries, Iraq was home to the two most important centers of Jewish scholarship in the world. The post, shared in Arabic and translated for English-speaking audiences, traces the story of the academies of Sura and Pumbedita and the Jewish community of Baghdad that grew alongside them.

Two Academies, Eight Centuries of Scholarship

According to the post, the academies of Sura and Pumbedita — located near what are today Al-Qasim in Babylon Governorate and Fallujah in Al-Anbar Governorate — served as the world’s leading centers of Jewish learning from the third century until 1038 CE. Students traveled from as far as Al-Andalus (Muslim Spain) and North Africa to study under the sages associated with the academies, a scale of scholarly migration that underscores how central Iraq once was to Jewish intellectual life.

“Here sat thousands of students coming from Al-Andalus and North Africa and beyond, studying under great sages… up to Rabbi Hai who oversaw the compilation and editing of the Babylonian Talmud.” Israel Arabic (@IsraelArabic)

The post credits the academies with producing the Babylonian Talmud, one of the foundational texts of Jewish law and tradition, along with centuries of legal responsa — written answers to religious and legal questions — that shaped Jewish practice across the diaspora.

Baghdad’s Jewish Community

The post also points to the scale of Jewish presence in Baghdad specifically, noting that Jews made up roughly a quarter of the city’s population and were among the contributors to the modern Iraqi state up until the mid-twentieth century — a community whose roots in the region, the post notes, stretch back to the first millennium.

A Reminder of Deep Regional Roots

The post arrives amid continued public interest in the pre-modern history of Jewish communities across the Middle East and North Africa — a history that predates, and runs parallel to, the modern State of Israel by more than a millennium. Faith & Freedom News notes that accounts of the Sura and Pumbedita academies are well documented in Jewish historical scholarship, and that Baghdad’s Jewish community, once among the largest and most established in the Islamic world, was largely dispersed following mass emigration in the years surrounding 1948 and into the 1950s.

Faith & Freedom News will continue to highlight social media content and historical accounts that shed light on the region’s interconnected religious heritage.