According to tradition, the Great Synagogue of Baghdad , also known as the Shaf ve’Yativ Synagogue, is traditionally believed to stand on the site of a synagogue built by King Jeconiah

Jeconiah

Jeconiah "; ; ), also known as Coniah and as Jehoiachin , was a king of Judah who was dethroned by the King of Babylon in the 6th Century BCE and was taken into captivity. Most of what is known about Jeconiah is found in the Hebrew Bible. After many excavations in Iraq, records of Jeconiah's...

 who was exiled from the Land of Israel

Land of Israel

The Land of Israel is the Biblical name for the territory roughly corresponding to the area encompassed by the Southern Levant, also known as Canaan and Palestine, Promised Land and Holy Land. The belief that the area is a God-given homeland of the Jewish people is based on the narrative of the...

 to Babylon

Babylon

Babylon was an Akkadian city-state of ancient Mesopotamia, the remains of which are found in present-day Al Hillah, Babil Province, Iraq, about 85 kilometers south of Baghdad...

 in 597

597

Year 597 was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Julian calendar. The denomination 597 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.- Education :* The King's School is founded in...

 BCE. It is said that material gathered from the ruins of the Temple in Jerusalem

Temple in Jerusalem

The Temple in Jerusalem or Holy Temple , refers to one of a series of structures which were historically located on the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem, the current site of the Dome of the Rock. Historically, these successive temples stood at this location and functioned as the centre of...

was used in its construction.
The building now serves as a museum in which the synagogue had been reconstructed.