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Cargando... Three Worlds: Memoirs of an Arab-Jew (edición 2023)por Avi Shlaim (Autor)
Información de la obraThree Worlds: Memoirs of an Arab-Jew por Avi Shlaim
   Ninguno Actualmente no hay Conversaciones sobre este libro.  HistoryToday | Aug 14, 2023 |  sin reseñas | añadir una reseña
"In July 1950, Avi Shlaim, only five, and his family were forced into exile, fleeing from their beloved Iraq into the new state of Israel. Now the rump of a once flourishing community of over 150,000, dating back 2,600 years, has dwindled to single figures. For many, this tells the story of the timeless clash of the Arab and Jewish civilisations, the heroic mission of Zionism to rescue Eastern Jews from their backwards nations, and unceasing persecution as the fate and history of Jewish people. Avi Shlaim tears up this script. His mother had many Muslim friends in Baghdad, but no Zionist ones. The Iraqi Jewish community, once celebrated for its ancient heritage and rich culture, was sprayed with DDT upon arrival in Israel. As anti-Semitism gathered pace in Iraq, the Zionist underground may have inflamed it - deliberately. This memoir celebrates the disappearing heritage of Arab-Jews - caught in the crossfire of secular ideologies."--Amazon. No se han encontrado descripciones de biblioteca. |
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 Google Books — Cargando...GénerosSistema Decimal Melvil (DDC)956.7004924History and Geography Asia Middle East IraqClasificación de la Biblioteca del CongresoValoraciónPromedio: (4)
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Some were more Jewish Iraqis than Iraqi Jews. Stripped of their savings, homes and cultural environment, they did not see Israel as a land of salvation, but as a foreign entity that had no meaning for them. Trying to make sense of their predicament became a lifelong preoccupation for many.
Shlaim himself morphed from Iraqi toddler to Israeli soldier to Anglo-Jewish student to Oxford don. This memoir is centred on his first 18 years, trying to cope with the psychological damage inflicted by history – ending with his parents’ loss of status and divorce in Israel.
Iraq came into existence after the First World War as an unwieldy patchwork of ethnic and religious minorities, Sunni and Shi’a, Kurds, Turkmens, Yazidis, all under the control of the British. Pan-Arab nationalism emerged and several adherents looked to Hitler and Mussolini during the interwar years on the basis of ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’.
The rights of minorities vanished in the haze of an all-consuming nationalism. When Iraq became independent in 1932, it was followed by the massacre of Christian Assyrians by the Iraqi army in the village of Simele. Its commander, Bakr Sidqi, eventually became prime minister while the British authorities tried to bury the incident for fear of another mass killing. In 1934, Jews were dismissed from the civil service, there was a quota system for Jewish students entering educational institutions and a tax had to be paid when leaving Iraq. The Iraqi authorities even banned the Jewish Chronicle. The stand of the Chief Rabbi of Baghdad, Sassoon Khadduri, a staunch anti-Zionist who affirmed the loyalty of Iraqi Jews to the Arab cause in Palestine in 1936, made little difference.
Read the rest of the review at HistoryToday.com.
Colin Shindler is Emeritus Professor at SOAS, University of London.