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The Last Jews in Baghdad: Remembering a Lost Homeland

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This is certainly one of the most amusing masterpiece books I have read in a while.
Rejwan is an Iraqi Jew who left his homeland heading to Tel Aviv, Israel in the 1950s. To write this book, he had to debrief his elder sister in Haifa, whom he thought retained better images of their days in Baghdad.
The end result is a marvelous book about a world that seems to belong to ancient times, yet it does not. The story of Jews of Iraq is still under covered. Who were they? Where they lived? How they lived? Why they left?
Rejwan articulates a wonderful account in this regard. He takes the reader to old time Baghdad of the 1920s and 1930s, Baghdad before plumbing or running water in houses or refrigerators. As you read this marvelous book, you can feel the smell and the taste of the dishes, most of them common Iraqi recipes, that mother Rejwan used to prepare.
Rejwan also delves on the feeling of community in Baghdad, how his family managed to pay its bills after his dad lost his sight. He recounts how his mom made half a chicken feed his big family, and last for more than one meal. He talks about the synagogue and how his family observed the Sabbath.
This book is worth every penny and every dollar. It is not only about the Jews of Iraq, but about one of the big Arab cities in the early decades of the past centuries.

This book is probably rife with errors. Throughout the book, the author displayed a penchant to capriciously impute appellations to others. I pointed out several of these errors in e-mails with him in the summer of 2006. He grudgingly admitted some of his mistakes. He labeled one of the most glaring ones as "silly", perhaps, a gross understatement by any standard.

These errors were compounded by his propensity to expatiate on a small Christian-Chaldean town (located in the Iraqi North) named Talkeif, a topic about which the author exudes crassitude. I am of Talkeifi origin.

The author regurgitated an insipid urban legend from the 1920s and alleged that "Nazzaahs", or drain/toilet cleaners were almost exclusively from Talkeif. He employed a convoluted and twisted understanding of the concept of national identity to conclude that "our nazzah [was] Talkeifi". Needless to say, Talkeifis seldom engaged in this kind of work. Rather, they had many stellar accomplishments, and were known for their entrepreneurial spirit during that time. The author went further and stated that the derogatory, indeed racist, epithet of Talkeifi nazzah was extrapolated so as to cover all Christians in Iraq. In doing so, the author has followed the example of the rabble in those days. Respectable segments of Iraqi society jettisoned such phraseologies. Based on research I conducted with highly educated and accomplished Talkeifis, many of whom are several years the author's senior, I endeavored to disabuse Mr. Rejwan from the myth of "Talkeifi nazzah". However, I fell on deaf ears. To the author his "impression", albeit dead wrong, is what counts. Facts, in this case, seem to be just beside the point.

Also, citing many excerpts from the "Shi'is of Iraq" by Yitzhak Nakash, I pointed out to the author that his statements about what calls the exclusive Persian character of the Iraqi cities of Najaf and Karbala are replete with problematic assertions, to say the least. He acknowledged Nakash's scholarly work, but dismissed his sources; an oxymoron indeed. By the way, Nakash's sources were an amalgam of Iraq's early generations of intelligentsia, blended with many well known Middle Eastern and Western scholars. Ironically, the author cites the very same book by professor Nakash to buttress the claim of Jewish domination of Baghdad's trade in the 1930s. However, he seems to have completely disregarded the main theme of Nakash's book, which directly flies in the face of his assertions about Najaf and Karbala. Rajwan's mere "impressions" are, again, paramount.

The author's "silly" mistake I mentioned above is, probably, tantamount to asserting that the Pope is an ardent communist. It deals with "Fahd" (nom de guerre), who is one the founding members of the Iraqi communist party. Fahd was executed in 1949. In previous writings the author almost made a habit of touting his personal knowledge of "comrade Fahd". In this book, and after elaboration, he concluded that Fahd was a Sunni Muslim. You guessed it: Fahd was a Christian, a well known fact among Iraqis, particularly the Christians. If I had not invoked the "Old Social Classes, and the Revolutionary Movements in Iraq" by Hanna Batatu, where Fahd is listed as a Christian, I wonder if the author would have still clung to his "impression" that Fahd is a Sunni Muslim.

The author strikes a cord with the vast majority of Iraqi expatriates by stating that his "deeper roots are firmly dug in the soil of Iraq". However, these roots and/or the renowned Iraqi karma seem to have done little to temper his proclivity to spew rather intimate details about himself, his family, and others. Believing that Sigmund Freud is in his corner, he saw fit to practically flaunt his alleged early potency (age 4), probably while still in diapers, soiling other Iraqi Jews in the process. Many of these details were superfluous. I wonder if members of the Iraqi Jewish community are offended or embarrassed by his account. In addition, and along these lines, the author's insinuation about the illness of his friend Adnan Al-Chalabi was utterly gratuitous.

I contacted the publisher, University of Texas Press, regarding these errors. Their response was very prompt and professional. I asked the author in the name of journalistic integrity to list these errors on an errata sheet to be kept by the publisher so that corrections can be made on future editions. He petulantly replied that he might submit two errors. The first was about Jabran Malkon, a Christian Journalist, whom the author whimsically designated as Talkeifi. The second was about Fahd. He left his most egregious one about Talkeif out of the list. My belief in his journalistic integrity may have been exaggerated. I doubt if he submitted any list at all.

I have come across Rejwan's writings almost a quarter of a century ago, and have indeed appreciated some of his previous work. I wish I could say the same about this one. I hope this book meets with the opprobrium it most certainly deserves.

Falah Yeldo

This wonderful book, adds to the paucity of literature on the Jewish community of Iraq, which vanished and was forced to flee following the creation of Israel. Forced to flee many of its members still harkens back to their times in Iraq, with fond memories of a Jewish community that had been deeply intertwined with the life of Iraq. The Jewish community of Iraq was the oldest in the world, stretching back to Abraham, who came from modern day Iraq and of course including the Babylonian exile as well as the great Sages who wrote the Talmud. This wonderful reminiscence of a time gone by and an era gone is a wonderful introduction to the lives of Jewish communities from Arab lands, and a great testimony to the Iraqi Jewish community and its legacy.

Seth J. Frantzman