Book Review: The Wolf of Baghdad by Carol Isaacs

´Even if we could go back to Iraq, it would be as Jewish ghosts´.

For 2,600 years, Jews lived continously in the territory defined as Mesopotamia, a region encompassed between Tigris and Euphrates rivers. They lived together with the other religions and cultures, although life was not always easy and violent outbursts were frequent. Prophet Ezekiel´s tomb is located there, However, everything changed dramatically in the 1940s, when Jews in Iraq were hit by the Farhood - pogrom, in Arabic. The main contribution for this change of heart towards Jews is attributed to the growing influence in the region of the infamous Mufti Mohammed Amin al-Husseini, one of the biggest Nazi supporter in the Middle East. Nowadays, there are only a few Jews living in Iraq, from around 147,000 at the end of the 1940s. 

I had the priviledge to meet and talk with Jews born in Iraq - in Baghdad or Mosul - and I cannot forget the nostalgy of their voice when sharing their childhood memories from places that are no more. Through their stories they transmitted the love for Iraq to their children and grandchildren, some of them feeling the homesickness for the country that they never seen. 

The Wolf of Baghdad by Carol Isaacs - known also as The Surreal McCoy - is, as according to the undertitle, the Memoir of a Lost Homeland. Based on various accounts of the life in Baghdad, where Jews represented around 1/3 of the population before moving - being forced to move - out of the country, some in Israel some in London, Australia, Singapore, Ireland, Canada or America. The ethnography of Iraqi exiles does not have necessarily a religion, but it cries with the same tears of sadness. Through those stories, the Baghdad or the Mosul takes shape moulded by dreams and memories and memories of the memories shared. This is how The Wolf of Baghdad was written and illustrated. 

The wolf enters in the story as a protector from demons, according to the local superstitions, spread around the entire Middle Eastern region. Amulets made of wolf teeth used to be kept near the baby cribs to protect them from the evil eye and other bad occurences. It seemed that in Baghdad, the evil was too powerful to be beaten by the wolf. 

The story unfolds almost like a ghost story, with a fast-forward overview of the everyday life changes the Jews in Iraq experienced in the 1940s. Sooner, the images populated with voices and children playing or watching from the top of the roofs are replaced by shattered glasses and keys of houses that were long destroyed by hate. 

There is hardly anything that cannot be convened in the form of the graphic novel. The Wolf...is beautifully convening through the drawings and the texts - very sparse, actually - decades of heartbreaking homesickness. The images summon the present and the past, in a dream-like graphic conception. The story it is based on the author´s personal experience. Born in London, she witnessed the traditions and the stories of other Iraqi - not all of them Jews - hosted by her parents. The memories, tastes and fragments of stories, were turned into a song-like story of love for a country that once was. The book is sometimes presented also as a slideshow, with its own musical soundtrack, often performed live by an ense,ble playing music of Iraqi and Judeo-Arabic origin. In this setting, the author herself plays the accordion.

When the Temple was destroyed, the rituals and memories were internalized. What was left from the Temple was the learning and the rituals applied in the home. For the Jewish communities dispersed in the Middle East after the destruction of the Temple(s), being forced to live their homes after thousands of years created another dramatic memory rift. The keys from the houses soon to be destroyed epitomized the longing for a home where they can never come back. Stories and the images are small fragments of the shattered glasses they carry with, in their hearts and minds. Their children can only dream about the dreams of their parents.

As for now, writing and keeping the memory is all that´s left. It can mean a lot though for preparing for those times when hopefully, a return will be possible. The Wolf of Baghdad is one of the many stones against forgetfulness. 

Rating: 4 stars

Recognition for the Jewish Refugees from Arab Lands

I´ve become acquainted with the reality of the Jewish refugees from the Arab lands relatively late in my life. Growing up in my European priviledged society, focused on the deep trauma Shoah left in our everyday life none of the people I grew up with displayed any sign of interest towards other Jewish identities. Some did, but in a disrespectful way, a chapter that I will develop maybe on another occasion.

Our maternal grandfather´s Turkish roots did not count as he was French-educated, spoke some Ladino and was anyway fully educated in Europe. 

I´ve approached the stories of the Jews from Arab countries and Iran with a deep humility. They were talking mostly about countries were they could not return. About places where they grew up they would not be able to see again. They were spoken languages that were adding to their daily longing because those neighbours they share the language with, but not the religion, either turned against them or become impossible memories.

I´ve actually learned what means to really miss your old countries from their vivid memories of my friends and acquaintances born in Arab countries. Compared to me, that I was enjoying at least the freedom of a passport that gave me, again, priviledges, they lost everything: their citizenship, their memories, the streets of their childhood, their friends, the graveyards where they relatives were put to rest. I felt sometimes ashamed that my connection with my ´old country´ was so poisoned by resentment and indifference and sometimes haughtimess too. 

From their stories I learned to look at places like Iraq, Syria, Morocco, Lybia, Yemen, Algeria, Tunisia or Egypt with completely different eyes. Those may be countries where once in a while demented rulers decide to attack, force to wander and expel their Jews - as it happened with almost 820,000 people between 1948 and 1972 - but the everyday people may differ. 

Nowadays, this history is part of my little family too and I am proud of my son´s history that myself I am doing my best to learn more about. Hopefully, times will change and he will be able to visit the places where part of his relatives were born before being expelled or forced to leave.

Since 2014, on 30 November in Israel is celebrated the Day to Mark the Departure and Expulsion of Jews from the Arab Countries and Iran. It takes place one day after the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine was adopted. For many of those refugees, life in Israel was not easy and they had a lot to fight for, including for their rights to differ, in a country founded by European Jews. There is still a lot to be done in the field of fighting discrimination and the equality of chances but those Jews from Arab lands and Iran do not have anywhere else to go. They are there to stay and make Israel a better place because they don´t have any other country. 

The world should hear their stories and learn the lessons. We should all do...

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