Catching up on the latest news concerning the Iraqi-Jewish archive: two volumes of undiscovered drashot (sermons) delivered by the famous Baghdad rabbi, the Ben Ish Hai, were found in the archive and have been transcribed and printed in two volumes, titled Birkat Hareiach. Report (using Ashkenazi pronunciation) in Matzav.
The famous Baghdad rabbi the Ben Ish Chai, who died in 1906
The manuscript was discovered by American troops among 2,700 seforim and tens of thousands of Jewish documents in a flooded basement of Iraq’s intelligence headquarters after Saddam Hussein’s downfall in 2003.
The Ben Ish Chai manuscript was taken to the United States where the partially damaged manuscript was restored and transcribed.
The Ben Ish Chai we have today is a collection of droshos Rav Yosef Chaim said during only two years of his half-century incumbency in Baghdad. The new one evidently includes droshos that he said during earlier or later years, which were never heard of until now.
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