[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 1]
[House]
[Page 9]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         IRAQI JEWISH ARCHIVES

  (Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
  Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Mr. Speaker, this morning I toured an exhibit at 
Florida International University's Jewish Museum of Florida, located in 
Miami Beach, which details the discovery and recovery of artifacts 
depicting Jewish life in Iraq over the centuries.
  I was privileged to be joined by members of the Iraqi Jewish 
community, including Hillel Shohet and his brother, Maurice Shohet, who 
played key roles in ensuring that these artifacts remain with the 
Jewish community.
  I was also proud to lead the effort here in Congress to keep the 
artifacts in the U.S. I led that effort along with my colleague, the 
gentleman from New York, Steve Israel, and other congressional 
colleagues.
  These treasures, Mr. Speaker, were confiscated from the Jewish 
community by Saddam Hussein's intelligence service and were discarded 
until they were discovered in a flooded basement by our American 
servicemembers in the year 2003. They were then brought back to our 
National Archives where they were painstakingly recovered and 
preserved.
  Mr. Speaker, this exhibit is an important piece of the Jewish 
community's collective memory and must continue to be preserved and 
shared for generations to come.

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