Once upon a time, Baghdad was home to a flourishing Jewish community. More than a third of the city's people were Jews, and Jewish customs and holidays helped set the pattern of Baghdad's cultural and commercial life. On the city's streets and in the bazaars, Jews, Muslims, and Christians-all native-born Iraqis-intermingled, speaking virtually the same colloquial Arabic and sharing a common sense of national identity. And then, almost overnight it seemed, the state of Israel was born, and lines were drawn between Jews and ...
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Once upon a time, Baghdad was home to a flourishing Jewish community. More than a third of the city's people were Jews, and Jewish customs and holidays helped set the pattern of Baghdad's cultural and commercial life. On the city's streets and in the bazaars, Jews, Muslims, and Christians-all native-born Iraqis-intermingled, speaking virtually the same colloquial Arabic and sharing a common sense of national identity. And then, almost overnight it seemed, the state of Israel was born, and lines were drawn between Jews and Arabs. Over the next couple of years, nearly the entire Jewish population of Baghdad fled their Iraqi homeland, never to return. In this beautifully written memoir, Nissim Rejwan recalls the lost Jewish community of Baghdad, in which he was a child and young man from the 1920s through 1951. He paints a minutely detailed picture of growing up in a barely middle-class family, dealing with a motley assortment of neighbors and landlords, struggling through the local schools, and finally discovering the pleasures of self-education and sexual awakening. Rejwan intertwines his personal story with the story of the cultural renaissance that was flowering in Baghdad during the years of his young manhood, describing how his work as a bookshop manager and a staff writer for the Iraq Times brought him friendships with many of the country's leading intellectual and literary figures. He rounds off his story by remembering how the political and cultural upheavals that accompanied the founding of Israel, as well as broad hints sent back by the first arrivals in the new state, left him with a deep ambivalence as he bid a last farewell to a homeland that had become hostile to its native Jews.
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Add this copy of The Last Jews in Baghdad: Remembering a Lost Homeland to cart. $21.13, very good condition, Sold by Lawrence Jones rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Nobby Beach, QLD, AUSTRALIA, published 2004 by The University of Texas Press.
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Seller's Description:
Near Fine in Near Fine jacket. 8vo. Foreword by Noel Beinin. xxii, 242pp, index of names of prsons. Cloth boards in jacket. In this memoir, the author recalls the lost Jewish community of Baghdad, in which he was a child and young man from the 1920s through 1951. 'He rounds off his story by remembering how the political and cultural upheavals that accompanied the founding of Israel, left him with a dep ambivalence as he bid a last farewell to a homeland that had become hostile to its native Jews. '
Add this copy of The Last Jews in Baghdad: Remembering a Lost Homeland to cart. $25.00, very good condition, Sold by Printed Garden, Booksellers rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Sandy, UT, UNITED STATES, published 2004 by University of Texas Press.
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Seller's Description:
NF in NF jacket. Octavo. Midnight blue boards and spine with shiny gilt lettering on the spine. Book has a very slight bumping at the head and tail of the spine. White endpapers. Binding is straight and tight. Pages are all clean, white, and crisp. 242 pages. Dust Jacket has a nearly unnoticable wrinkle at the head and tail of the spine-jacket otherwise clean, bright, and sharp.
Add this copy of The Last Jews in Baghdad: Remembering a Lost Homeland to cart. $28.60, very good condition, Sold by ThriftBooks-Dallas rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Dallas, TX, UNITED STATES, published 2004 by University of Texas Press.
Add this copy of The Last Jews in Baghdad: Remembering a Lost Homeland to cart. $137.67, new condition, Sold by GridFreed rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from North Las Vegas, NV, UNITED STATES, published 2004 by University of Texas Press.
