Yaakov Elyashar. Megilath Paras.

(IRAQ).

Ezra Dangoor

Baghdad

1906

Title within typographic border and elephant motif. Opening two leaves in Judeo-Arabic.

Yaari, Baghdad 146.

An account of “Purim of Basra,” the community celebration commemorated on the 2nd of Nissan, 1775, wherein Karim Khan of Persia was deposed from his regional territorial aggression in general and his assault against the Jewish community of Basra in particular. The Megillah was composed by the celebrated emissary (Shadar) from Hebron, Yaakov Elyashar who was visiting at the time. Southern Iraq’s ancient port city of Basra (the suggested site of the Garden of Eden) is located on the Shatt al-Arab, the outlet into the Persian Gulf of the rivers Tigris and Euphrates. The Jewish community of Basra is equally ancient and more significantly, was well educated over the centuries with many rabbinic scholars emanating from there. By the 18th-century and the time of the original “Megilath Paras,” the community was also exceedingly wealthy and highly influential within the country’s political echelon. See D. Yeroushalmi, The Jews of Iran in the Nineteenth Century (2009) pp. xlii-xliii.