Shorja or Al-Shorja (

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...

, الشورجة) is a marketplace in

Baghdad Baghdad (; ar, بَغْدَاد , ) is the capital of Iraq and the second-largest city in the Arab world after Cairo. It is located on the Tigris near the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon and the Sassanid Persian capital of Ctesiphon ...

Iraq Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq ...

. Located near Bab Al Sharqi market, Shorja is Baghdad's largest and oldest market. Before the

Farhud ''Farhud'' ( ar, الفرهود) was the pogrom or "violent dispossession" carried out against the Jewish population of Baghdad, Iraq, on June 1–2, 1941, immediately following the British victory in the Anglo-Iraqi War. The riots occurred in a ...

or anti-Jewish

pogroms A pogrom () is a violent riot incited with the aim of massacring or expelling an ethnic or religious group, particularly Jews. The term entered the English language from Russian to describe 19th- and 20th-century attacks on Jews in the Russian ...

of 1941, Shorja was the primary and historic Jewish quarter of Iraq. The area east of Hennouni street was totally Jewish complete with historic

synagogues A synagogue, ', 'house of assembly', or ', "house of prayer"; Yiddish: ''shul'', Ladino: or ' (from synagogue); or ', "community". sometimes referred to as shul, and interchangeably used with the word temple, is a Jewish house of worshi ...

and Jewish workshops and business. In 1950 and then 1968, the entire Jewish population was deported from Baghdad and Iraq. The neighborhood was renamed "Shuriyyah." The name Shorja comes from Persian شورچاه ''Shurchah'' and means "salty well". This market place is a landmark established long ago by Iranian merchants. The adjacent neighborhood of Ab-Khana (cistern/water tank) is likewise Persian, although now Arabicized into "Aba Khana." Both of these neighborhoods are part of the Rusafa district of eastern Baghdad in the downtown area.

During the U.S. occupation

Shorja was the site of several major attacks. The

12 February 2007 Baghdad bombings Two car bombs exploded in Baghdad, Iraq at 12:20 on 12 February 2007 in the Shorja market district, killing 76 people, and injuring 155–180. The explosions set market stalls, shops, and an adjoining 7-storey building on fire, causing furth ...

killed 76 people and injured 155–180. Near the marketplace on March 26, 2007, a suicide car bomber killed two people and injured five others. Snipers hidden in Shorjh's bazaar killed several people around the same time and gunfights erupted between militants and the Iraqi security forces in the area. On 1 April 2007, American presidential candidate

John McCain John Sidney McCain III (August 29, 1936 – August 25, 2018) was an American politician and United States Navy officer who served as a United States senator from Arizona from 1987 until his death in 2018. He previously served two terms ...

, in an effort to illustrate that the security situation had improved, visited the Shorja marketplace. The visit was criticized by the

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

as giving a false indication of how secure the area was due to the extremely heavy security forces McCain brought with him.

Indiana Indiana () is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States. It is the 38th-largest by area and the 17th-most populous of the 50 States. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th s ...

Representative

Mike Pence Michael Richard Pence (born June 7, 1959) is an American politician who served as the 48th vice president of the United States from 2017 to 2021 under President Donald Trump. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as the 50th ...

was also criticized for visiting the market, under large security including helicopters overhead, and saying it was "like a normal outdoor market in Indiana in the summertime."
Al-Shorja Market

References

Baghdad {{Iraq-geo-stub