Three worlds memoirs of an arab-jew
Three Worlds: Memoirs of an Arab-Jew
Description
In July 1950, Avi Shlaim, only five, and his family were forced into exile, fleeing their beloved Iraq to the new state of Israel.
‘Remarkable.’ Max Hastings, THE SUNDAY TIMES
Today the once flourishing Jewish community of Iraq, at one time numbering over 130,000 and tracing its history back 2,600 years, has all but vanished.
Why so? One explanation speaks of the timeless clash between Arab and Jewish civilisations and a heroic Zionist mission to rescue Eastern Jews from backward nations and unceasing persecution.
Avi Shlaim tears up this script. His parents had many Muslim friends in Baghdad and no interest in Zionism. As anti-Semitism surged in Iraq, the Zionist underground fanned the flames. Yet when Iraqi Jews fled to Israel, they faced an uncertain future, their history was rewritten to serve a Zionist narrative.
This memoir breathes life into an almost forgotten world. Weaving together the personal and the political, Three Worlds offers a fresh perspective on Arab-Jews, caught in the crossfire of Zionism and nationalism.
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A TLS AND NEW STATESMAN BOOK OF THE YEAR 2023
‘A beautifully written book
Avi Shlaim: ‘Three Worlds – Memoirs of an Arab – Jew’
This beautiful, inspiring, elegiac book is the story of the author’s journey – a journey from Baghdad to Israel in 1950, aged five, and from Israel to England. But Avi Schlaim’s journey was at different levels. It was geographical and it was cultural. It also became a political journey to his own position today.
His personal experiences illustrate a bigger story of the Jewish exodus from Iraq to Israel in 1950 following the creation of Israel in 1948. His story and his words speak more eloquently than any reviewer can, and so for the most part, I quote directly from his memoir.
The book is “a glimpse into the lost and rich world of the Iraqi-Jewish community”. Perhaps, coming from what he describes as a prosperous, privileged family, he may see the past through rose-tinted glasses. But his memories are precious.
“We belonged to a branch of the global Jewish community that is now almost extinct. We were Arab-Jews. We lived in Baghdad and were well integrated into Iraqi society. We spoke Arabic at home, our social customs were Arab, our lifestyle was Arab, our cuisine was exquisitely Middle Eas
Three Worlds: Memoirs of An Arab-jew
In July 1950, Avi Shlaim, only five, and his family were forced into exile, fleeing their beloved Iraq to the new state of Israel.
Today the once flourishing Jewish people of Iraq, at one period numbering over 130,000 and tracing its history back 2,600 years, has all but vanished.
Why so?
One explanation speaks of the timeless clash between Arab and Jewish civilisations and a heroic Zionist mission to rescue Eastern Jews from backward nations and unceasing persecution.
Avi Shlaim tears up this script.
His parents had many Muslim friends in Baghdad and no interest in Zionism.
As anti-Semitism surged in Iraq, the Zionist underground fanned the flames.
Yet when Iraqi Jews fled to Israel, they faced an uncertain future, their history was rewritten to help a Zionist narrative.
This memoir breathes life into an almost forgotten world.
‘A beautifully written book which artfully blends the personal with the political’ – Justin Marozzi, Spectator
‘Three Worlds, by the Oxford historian of the modern Middle East Avi Shlaim, is an often enchanting memoir of his childhood in Baghdad…a gripping account…a lost world Three Worlds: Memoirs of an Arab-Jew, a memoir by Avi Shlaim In writing his most personal book to date, British-Israeli revisionist historian Avi Shlaim has taken the most political of positions. Shlaim, an Emeritus Fellow at St. Antony’s College, Oxford, has written various works of Middle Eastern history, including The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World and Israel and Palestine: Reappraisals, Revisions, Refutations. Three Worlds is the memoir of one member of an ancient civilization, the Iraqi Jews, whose community was ripped apart in the years following World War II. The author has since lived as a member of a minority, both in Israel and then in England. The world of Shlaim’s childhood in Baghdad was rich both materially and culturally. “Iraq’s Jews did not live in ghettos, nor did they experience the violent repression, persec If I had to identify one key factor that shaped my early relationship to Israel society, it would be an inferiority complex. I was an Iraqi boy in a land of Europeans. Perhaps surprisingly, in my early years, this did not engender a rebellious streak. On the contrary, the status quo seemed the natural order of things: I unquestioningly accepted the social hierarchy that placed European Jews at the top of the pile and the Jews of the Arab and African lands at the bottom. Nor did I believe that I had any special abilities or talents that Israeli society failed to recognise. I entirely lacked the burning sense of injustice that may propel some marginalised children to prove themselves. I saw myself as an ordinary boy with some handicaps and limitations and no prospect of a bright future. I was lazy, apathetic, alienated from my environment but at the same time resigned to my fate. The notion of pulling myself up by the bootstraps was totally alien to my whole way of thinking. At that time, I had no idea that being an Iraqi in Israel might have advantages as well as disadvantages. The main advantage for me, in later life, was the ability to transcend national stereotypes and to tak
Palestinians in my experience, have been forced into an obsession with Israel, particularly for those living under occupation as Israeli law and military control every aspect of their lives. Meanwhile, Israel has educated its people to not see Palestinians at all.
One World 2023
ISBN 9780861548101Selma Dabbagh