Racing Against Time: Documenting Jewish Sites in the Middle East with Jason Guberman

Since the expulsion of nearly all Jews from of Muslim-majority countries over the past 75 years, most Jewish sites (schools, cemeteries, synagogues, shrines, and other structures) were abandoned, left without caretakers, and decayed. In “a race against time,” the Diarna Geo-Museum of North African and Middle Eastern Jewish Life has documented cataloged, often covertly, some 2,800 remains through digital mapping technology, traditional scholarship, and field research. Warming ties between Israel and several Muslim countries ease the work of Diarna (Arabic, our homes), even Saudi Arabia. But severe challenges remain. How has warm peace helped Diarna’s work and what more can be done in countries such as Iraq and Yemen unlikely soon to experience a shift in attitude?