A few days ago, about a year and eight months after I wrote in Al-Monitor about an exhibition of Iraqi Jewish artifacts I had seen in New York, I received an email with information I had been seeking about a photograph that had been on display. “The photo of the couple, which you described so wonderfully, shows my parents, may they have a long life, back in 1959,” wrote Yair Dor from the village of Matan.

On May 6, 2003, US Marines found a hidden archive at the headquarters of Saddam Hussein’s General Intelligence Service. It included rare holy books, photos, documents and various Judaica (designed for the Jewish ritual) that once belonged to the ancient Jewish community of Iraq. This treasure, in an advanced stage of deterioration, had been stored in a moldy cellar.

One member of the Pentagon staff in Iraq was a yarmulke-wearing researcher of Islam named Harold Rhode. He immediately recognized the historical value of the find and how important it was to save it, so he contacted the White House and received permission from Vice President Dick Cheney to ship the items to the United States, to the National Archives. Once the artifacts were preserved, the decision was made to exhibit them. When I went to see the exhibition, the photo of the young couple at their wedding ceremony, surrounded by their excited family, immediately caught my eye.

This is how I described the photo: “A photo of a bride and groom at their wedding ceremony. The rabbi is holding the groom’s hand, and the bride is clutching a bouquet of white flowers. The excited guests, apparently family, can be seen behind them looking up. My parents have a picture exactly like this … Do any of the readers recognize the people in the photograph above?”