The Flying Camel: Essays on Identity by Women of North African and Middle Eastern Jewish Heritage (Live Girls) [Paperback]

Loolwa Khazzoom (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 2, 2003 | ISBN-10: 1580050956 | ISBN-13: 978-1580050951 | Edition: 1St Edition

Many of us have stereotypes of what “Jewish” looks like—and for many of us that image is white and European. Yet, with the blossoming Jewish multiculturalism movement, led by the dynamic Loolwa Khazzoom, the myth of a “monolithic Jewish community” is about to be debunked. Focusing on the experiences of Jewish women of two rich and varied regions, The Flying Camel reveals the hidden worlds of Jewish women often misunderstood or maligned by both the cultures in which they live and the European-Jewish community. Stories include one woman and her family’s flight from persecution in Libya, a writer’s exploration of the category “Arab Jew,” and a lightskinned, Moroccan-born woman trying to “pass” in order to gain acceptance among European Jews in Tehran.

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Seal Press; 1St Edition edition (December 2, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1580050956
• ISBN-13: 978-1580050951
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,077,039 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #45 in Books > Religion & Spirituality > Judaism > Women and Judaism

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Extraordinary collection of essays--a fascinating book, April 3, 2004

By 

Joanna Daneman (Middletown, DE USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 10 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Flying Camel: Essays on Identity by Women of North African and Middle Eastern Jewish Heritage (Live Girls) (Paperback)

I got the chance to hear author Khazzoom give a concert of Judeo-Arabic music and a lecture about the Judeo-Arabic experience while visiting Seattle recently. The author, raised in Palo Alto, California, is the daughter of an Iraqi-Jewish father. So she was raised, not with the more familiar Ashkenazi (European) Jewish traditions, customs and music, but with those of the Middle East. She explained about Sephardim ("Spanish" Jews who left the Mideast and returned later in history)and Mizrahim, Jews who never ever had left the Mideast. And there is strife among the groups, who engage in discrimination based on widely different cultural values and lifestyles, though all believe in the same G-d and follow the same scriptures.

The essays go into much detail about individual lives of women who experienced this discrimination or outright, terrible oppression at the hands of local people in their homelands -- Iraq, Iran and other places. Some of the stories are frightening; in one essay, the writer describes a horrifying massacre in Iraq. Her parents were then left literally stateless, their passports invalid and no land accepting them for refugee status. It's hard not to cry while reading this story. Others talk about a shameful treatment of returnees to Israel, and the division in the communities there. Some of the writers tried to "pass" as French Jews rather than Moroccan, to avoid being treated as an underclass exactly as African-Americans experience in the United States. These stories made me so angry.

The essays are also a unique view inside Jewish traditions that are probably as unfamiliar to most Jews as they would be to non-Jews. It was a revelation that some Hebrew is spoken with an Arabic accent, using Arabic words. I couldn't put this book down, and I think anyone interested in the struggles in the Mideast ought to read this, and definitely, if you are Jewish, you should not pass up this book. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars kicks ass!!!, January 15, 2004

By 

"divajewgirl" (silver spring) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Flying Camel: Essays on Identity by Women of North African and Middle Eastern Jewish Heritage (Live Girls) (Paperback)

i think everyone needs to read this book in hebrew school, so they know that dark jewish girls like me are not freaks of nature!!! i wish the book had essays by teenage girls, but i like it that a lot of the essays talk about growing up as a jewish girl in different countries. it was cool to read about the amazing things they did when they were my age.

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thank you from one who's been there, January 15, 2004

By 

Esther DuBarry "Esther" (California United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Flying Camel: Essays on Identity by Women of North African and Middle Eastern Jewish Heritage (Live Girls) (Paperback)

I am one of the "dark" Jews. I remember going through the disbelief of my "jewishness" at work. I have 3 Jewish co-workers, and they all were told for 12 years "I'm Jewish" whenever they'd be talking about Jewish things. I always got "YOU ARE??? oh, that's right, I forgot" How can people "forget " for 12 years, I ask you?
I was also trying to explain to the doctor at the lab one day, when I had to have dye for the CT scan that I was Jewish, and I had understood that the dye is made form shell fish, was this correct? So, he looks at me and says "what kind of Jew are you?" So, no, this is not something that happened ages ago, the doctor "incident" happened 3 months ago; and no, I am not whining just because I am *stating* things that have happened to me.
Thank you so much Loolwa, for presenting the thoughts feelings and words which I had not been able to bring from my heart.