History at its best told

My Father's Paradise:
A Son's Search for His Jewish Past in Kurdish Iraq

by Ariel Sabar

 
One of those great books that is so much more than any title can describe.  It's a family history of Mr. Sabar's great-grandfather, grandfather and father, told in chronological order up until the present, when focus shifts to the author and you learn how the story came to be told.   It's also the story of the lost tribes of Israel.  And it's the story of Aramaic--the language of the mighty Assyrian empire for over seven thousand years, but known to 1900's era scholars only by a few writings and a root in the linguistic family tree.

But Aramaic was alive and flourishing at the time--it lived in the everyday speech of the dispersed Jewish populations of northern Iraq, such as the Jews of Zakho's island.  Zakho's island--the old part of the town of Zakho--held at most 2400 Jews, five percent of the total population.  But for a time they called it "the Jerusulem of Khurdistan"--a holy place--a homeland. .

Miryam and Rahamim Beh Sabagha, the grandparents of the author, were born there and  lived until they were forced to leave Iraq in 1951.  Their son Yona was the last boy bar mitzvahed in Zakho, an act his father did in a a rush just as they were preparing to emigrate.  The boy was not yet thirteen, but somehow his father sensed it was best to do it then and there--at home.

Israel, the Holy Land, was populated with European jews who didn't exactly welcome the uncouth barbarians of Iraq.  People like the Beh Sabagha family were crammed in hastily built towns remote from the main centers of business, making it nearly impossible for the newcomers to find decent jobs, go to school and pray in a synagogue.  Their great-grandfather Ephraim's search for a synagogue to pray in sent him out late one night on a walk of several miles to Bethlehem...but he turned away short of the goal, uncertain of his reception late at night in a town under Jordanian rule.  He said the great queen Rachel herself told him to stay away--and you don't argue with mother Rachel.

Back to present time and the recognition by the author that a family history was vanishing before his eyes.  Soon it would be too late to hear his father's stories and visit the land that shaped his soul.  Mr. Sabar is a great journalist and I praise his brains, guts and skill in recording and reporting the story so well.  I wish I had done the same for my parents' stories...but I know it's too late.