The Jewish community of Iraq is of great antiquity; it is one of the oldest organized communities of Jews in a foreign land, going back over a period of 2500 years. The greater part of Jews were uprooted and exiled into Babylonia, at the time of the destruction of the first temple of Jerusalem, when the unfortunate exiles, sighing under the rod of Nebuchadnezzar's soldiers and taskmasters, stopped in this place, hung their harps on the willows of the brook, and wept bitterly at the remembrance of Zion.