Over the years Chronicle contributing reviewer Andrea Kempf has reviewed several books about Jews of Iraq. The list below may whet the appetite for the subject for those planning to visit the exhibition “Discovery and Recovery: Preserving Iraqi Jewish Heritage” currently on display at the National Archives through Aug. 15, or may be of interest to those who want to learn more about this Jewish community. Viewing hours for the exhibition, which is free and open to the public, are from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.
Editor’s note: All the annotations are taken from reviews Kempf published or annotations she wrote except for the review of “Almost Englishmen,” which she cited.
“Outcast,” by Shimon Ballas. (San Francisco: City Lights, 2007)
The novel tells the story of Haroun Soussan, an Iraqi Jew who converts to Islam in the 1930s and later publishes a book condemning the Jewish community for clinging to their religion as their primary identity rather than espousing Iraqi nationalism first. {mprestriction ids="1,3"}As an old man Soussan relives his life, his estrangement from his birth family, first wife and best friends as he steadfastly holds to his convictions that Zionism is a malignant ideal.
“Almost English Men: Baghdadi Jews in British Burma,” by Ruth Fredman Cernea. (Lexington Books, 2006)
“Almost Englishmen” offers a painstaking record of the rise, flourishing, and slow death of the prosperous community of Baghdadi Jews in Burma (today’s Myanmar.) With the keen eye and sympathetic ear of the anthropologist, Cernea has gathered the memories and contemporary impressions of a lost world of merchants at once devoted to tradition and enchanted by the cosmopolitan modernity of British India. (Taken from a review published in H-Net: Humanities and Social Science Reviews Online.)
“Flight from Babylon: Iraq, Iran, Israel, America,” by Heskel M. Haddad. (McGraw Hill, 1986)
The precocious son of a wealthy Iraqi-Jewish family, Haddad at 15 earned the highest grade in Iraq on the high school examinations, ensuring his acceptance in medical school as one of only 10 Jews admitted under quotas. Yet academic pursuits were not his only interest. By 12 he was actively involved in underground activities to defend Baghdad’s Jews from Muslim attacks and help those who wished to immigrate to Israel. Eventually Haddad was also forced to flee his homeland. In this narrative the reader is treated not only to the author’s adventurous life, but also to an intimate account of Iraqi-Jewish life, a rich culture of which little is known in the West.
“My Father’s Paradise: A Son’s Search for His Family’s Past,” Ariel Sabar. (Algonquin Books, 2008)
Sabar’s father Yona grew up in Zakho, a small community in northern Kurdish Iraq. In his town, Jews, Christians and Muslims coexisted peacefully, as they had for centuries. Yona’s grandfather Ephraim was a mystic who prayed all night and was believed to converse with angels. His father Rahamim was a prosperous merchant. To Yona, the village of Zakho, located on an island in a river, was paradise. All that changed after the founding of Israel. Within three years, the Iraqi government essentially evicted all its Jewish citizens. Operation Ezra and Nehemiah airlifted more than 105,000 Jews from Iraq. They were not precisely the Jews Israel had hoped to see emigrate. In the minds of Israelis with European backgrounds, this mass immigration was composed of backwards Middle Eastern peasants. Integrating the Iraqi immigrants into society was a challenge. However, bright young men like Yona Sabar eventually broke through the prejudices and gained educations.{/mprestriction}