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Author Ariel Sabar grew up in California, but his father's family were Kurdish Jews who came from a mountainous village called Zakho in northern Iraq. The people of this region were among the last to speak the ancient language of Aramaic, and Sabar's father is a pre-eminent scholar in this field.
While life in Zakho was peaceful between the Arabs and the Jews, by the 1950's things began to change. Anti-Semitic behavior was on the rise, and made it's way throughout Iraq. It seemed to hit isolat ...more
While life in Zakho was peaceful between the Arabs and the Jews, by the 1950's things began to change. Anti-Semitic behavior was on the rise, and made it's way throughout Iraq. It seemed to hit isolat ...more
A son’s quest for his father’s beginnings and his Jewish heritage takes us back to Kurdish Iraq and the town of Zakho where Jews, Muslims and Christians lived in harmony decades ago and where the ancient language of Aramaic was spoken. Amidst the Middle East conflicts following World War II, Zakho Jews were airlifted to Israel, exposing them to the challenges that the new state of Israel was faced with – making arrangements to house, feed and deal with the thousands of Jews streaming in from all
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Now here is an application of the law of unintended consequences: I learned and understood more about the dispersion of the Jews in ancient history by reading this book than I did from years and years of hearing about it in Sunday School and Church. This isn’t what the author had in mind, but it blows my mind that finally, “I get it” in such a readable package.
I cannot remember where it was that I first read a review of this book, but I know for sure that what caught my eye then was not the anci ...more
I cannot remember where it was that I first read a review of this book, but I know for sure that what caught my eye then was not the anci ...more
Iraq.
So very interesting.
So very interesting.
Jun 10, 2010
Julia
marked it as to-read
Aug 01, 2010
Krista the Krazy Kataloguer
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Jan 13, 2012
Julie
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Jun 25, 2012
Dee
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Jan 26, 2013
Diane
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Shelves:
middle-east,
21st-century,
memoir,
non-fiction,
national-books-critics-circle,
kindle,
iraqi
Oct 13, 2013
RinTinTin
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Feb 15, 2015
Melissa Lindsey
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May 17, 2018
Irene
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Jul 02, 2020
Pragya
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Aug 12, 2020
Karen Witzler
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Apr 29, 2022
Sharon L. Sherman
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Jun 13, 2022
K
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