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4.28 AVERAGE
4.28 AVERAGE
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
informative
slow-paced
I deeply appreciate that this book exists, both for my own learning and connection to my Iraqi Jewish lineage, and for the important histories it tells that are largely forgotten, rejected or ignored in popular discourse about Jews, Israel/Palestine, Zionism and the SWANA/MENA region (aka the “Middle East”). Shlaim’s writing is well researched and offers nuanced and layered perspectives into the interplay of Zionism, antisemitism, and Arab nationalism in the exodus of Jews from the region in the mid 1900’s (and he uncovers with evidence the role of the Zionist underground in several bombings of Jewish sites in Iraq during that period). All that said, I struggle with the writing style as is tries to weave memoir, history and political analysis in a way that lands pretty clunky and circular for me. Nonetheless, very much worth reading.
It is a recent concept for me, the Arab-Jew; i.e., people who were Arab in nationality and culture and Jewish in religion. Shlaim uses his New Israeli Historian lens to look at his family history, a combination that allows for questioning received wisdom. He acknowledges that his family's history in Iraq is an upper class one and recommends a novel to expand the narrative to working class Iraqi-Jews, a novel based on experience and research: Victoria by Sami Michael. I've requested it from InterLibrary Loan.
The three worlds are Iraq, Israel, and London. The Iraq experience was mostly idyllic, the experience in Israel disorienting, in London a time for regaining self-confidence. In Israel, Arab-Jews were not treated as equal to Ashkenazi Jews, the latter forming the dominant society and seeking to assimilate all others in the quest to create national unity out of the mix of immigrants.
His family's experience in Iraq gives him hope that a one-state solution could work, one state where all citizens are equal. The last sentence of the book is ". . . I believe that nations, like individuals, are capable of acting rationally--after they have exhausted all other alternatives" (302).
The three worlds are Iraq, Israel, and London. The Iraq experience was mostly idyllic, the experience in Israel disorienting, in London a time for regaining self-confidence. In Israel, Arab-Jews were not treated as equal to Ashkenazi Jews, the latter forming the dominant society and seeking to assimilate all others in the quest to create national unity out of the mix of immigrants.
His family's experience in Iraq gives him hope that a one-state solution could work, one state where all citizens are equal. The last sentence of the book is ". . . I believe that nations, like individuals, are capable of acting rationally--after they have exhausted all other alternatives" (302).
hopeful
reflective
sad
fast-paced
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
I have read Avi Shlaim's political history books and have followed his lectures and interviews for some time now. His one the most formidable Jewish, anti-Zionist scholars of the Zionist occupation of Palestine, the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, the continued Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza and of the actual history of Arab-Jewish experiences within that colonial enterprise.
His memoir makes the political very personal. It's the story of a rich and rooted Arab Jewish life in Iraq through the experiences of his family as they navigated the British colonial occupation and its ultimate retreat, the rise of Arab nationalism and the devastating impact of the European colonial Zionist movement on his family. They are eventually forced to leave Iraq through Zionist terrorism and Iraqi backlash and become exiles in a racist, Arab -hostile Israel. A blend of memoir and political history, this is a great introduction to the Arab-Jewish experience that Israel has tried so hard to disappear.
His memoir makes the political very personal. It's the story of a rich and rooted Arab Jewish life in Iraq through the experiences of his family as they navigated the British colonial occupation and its ultimate retreat, the rise of Arab nationalism and the devastating impact of the European colonial Zionist movement on his family. They are eventually forced to leave Iraq through Zionist terrorism and Iraqi backlash and become exiles in a racist, Arab -hostile Israel. A blend of memoir and political history, this is a great introduction to the Arab-Jewish experience that Israel has tried so hard to disappear.
informative
reflective
medium-paced
emotional
informative
reflective
medium-paced
emotional
hopeful
informative
informative
reflective
medium-paced
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
Content Warnings
Graphic: Xenophobia, Colonisation, War
Moderate: Violence, Antisemitism, Islamophobia