Last Days in Babylon: The Story of the Jews of Baghdad [Paperback]

The literature of the twentieth century, since Proust, was concerned with memory and loss, and these two themes coalesced in Jewish writing, particularly since the Second World War. Many of the themes of a lost home, and a lost language, familiar from the writings of European Jews, emerge in Naïm Kattan's `Adieu Babylone', Albin Michel, Paris, 2003 (first edition 1975, not to be confused with film of same name), translated into English as `Farewell Babylon'. So much did I enjoy this novel, that I set about reading other memoirs of Iraqi Jewry, as Amazon recommended them to me, and I soon discovered that the once thriving Jewish community in Baghdad has spawned a substantial and very satisfying sub-genre, in English and French, by men and women living in Israel and elsewhere, of memoirs of a centuries-old civilization destroyed by the vagaries of history, in which Britain in particular was often at fault.

Among others, we might mention: Nissim Rejwan, `The Last Jews in Bagdad', University of Texas Press, Austin, 2004; Edmond Samuel, `Mémoires d'un Juif de Bagdad', L'Harmattan, Paris, 2010; Violette Shamash, `Memories of Eden', Forum, Virginia Water, 2008; Sasson Somekh, `Baghdad Yesterday', Ibis Editions, Jerusalem, 2007 (Hebrew edition, 2003). If Kattan was a precursor, it will be seen that most of these memoirs, coincidentally or not, come since the invasion of Iraq.

The story they tell agree in most points: roughly a third of the population of pre-Second World War Baghdad was Jewish; the Jews were mostly engaged in commerce or employed in clerical functions in the civil service and banks; they were mostly educated, often in the schools of the Alliance Israélite Universelle, and although they used their own dialect at home, tended increasingly to identify with Arab(ic) culture. Though they looked to Europe in many of their cultural attitudes, the role of women was limited. Their families observed the major festivals, which structure the year, but were not always assiduous worshippers at the Synagogue. The subject of Zionism was discussed, but is said to have only limited support in the community.

The memoirs differ slightly in the importance they give to the `farhud' (pogrom) and the exact reasons for which they or their family eventually left Iraq, they generally see the collapse of Baghdadi Jewish culture in the early 1950s.

Now Marina Benjamin adds a new memoir with `Last Days in Babylon: The Story of the Jews of Baghdad'. In many ways, it covers the same ground as the others, and in any event diverges little from them. However, unlike the other authors, British-born Marina Benjamin is not recalling her own childhood, but is recounting the life of her grandmother Regina and her extended family, building on information from her relatives. Curiously, this in no way diminishes the `authenticity' of her memoir, but adds a new level of melancholy to this recreation, added to by the grainy black-and-white family photos that illustrate it.

She recounts her grandmother's happy arranged marriage, the vast house to which she went as a bride, and her grand-father's eventual ruin during the Second World War, his death, and the way her grand-mother emerged from the seclusion woen usually lived in, to become a successful business woman.

It would be quite wrong, however, to suggest this `memoir' has nothing new to offer. It is remarkable by extending beyond the departure from Iraq. Like many Iraqi Jews, the author's family had connections in India, and it was via that country that her grandmother was able to leave Iraq and, in the fullness of time, find her way to England.

Marina Benjamin finally recounts her own trip to war-torn Iraq in search of the final remnant of the Jewish community, which consists of just a few tens of souls, with a cemetery, one closed synagogue, and bizarrely, quite a substantial fortune from the rental income from community properties (former schools, synagogues &c). There are `pen portraits' (and photos) of many of the few survivors, who mostly seem determined to stay put.

However, there are two temptations open to them, represented on the one had by Rachel Zelon, who wants to assist Jews to emigrate to Israel, and U.S. government counselor Carole Basri, herself of Iraqi descent, who thinks that now Iraq is `free', the community might again flourish in the new Iraq. Marina Benjamin is scathing about this optimistic view, and sees the Jewish presence in Baghdad as on the point of vanishing. She is equally scathing about the conditions under which the Iraqi Jewish community was settled in Israel, and the two-tier state in which oriental Jews come a poor second to Jews of European origin.

This is clearly a very personal work, but it is also a work of scholarship, though not in the bad sense; it is well written, has a good number of discreet footnotes, and a hefty bibliography.

I heard snippets about life in old Baghdad from my wonderful "adopted" Iraqi Jewish aunty, now over 80. When she learned from cronies that memoirs were being published about life back then, she asked me to get some of them for her - and it turns out she knew each of the authors: they were actually her own old friends or relatives of old acquaintances.

In this book the author, a journalist, skillfully weaves in the history of Iraqi Jews in the first half of the 20th century with her own family history in a manner that is easy to read. She even traveled there, after the US invasions, to meet some of the last two dozen Jews, to finish off her discussion about why this important Jewish community, often a very large minority indeed in this Land of Two Rivers, was expelled after 2600 years in Babylon.

Whilst Benjamin details, in a journalistic manner (and some claim incorrectly), the rise of Arab nationalism from the fall of the Ottoman Empire to the Baathist regime of Saddam Hussein and sheds some light on the destruction of the relationship between "cousins", Arabs and Jews, who once lived in relative harmony in what is now Iraq, by contrast "Memories of Eden" by Violette Shamash tells - in a delightfully dreamlike manner - her own very personal story of Jewish life in Baghdad with great sensitivity and humanity. My aunty's entire family and predecessors were all born in Baghdad and she is actually only a few years younger than, and moved in similar social circles as, Violette Shamash so the book brought back many memories for her.

Both Benjamin and Shamash provide picturesque detail by taking us through the main streets and shopping areas and also covering many of the customs and practices of that era. I found the Shamash book offered a more touching and often amusing tale of daily life, a fascinating picture of a lost time.

I also sourced "Baghdad, Yesterday: The Making of an Arab Jew" by Sasson Somekh, "The Last Jews in Baghdad: Remembering a Lost Homeland" by Nissim Rejwan and "Farewell Babylon: Coming of Age in Jewish Baghdad" by Naim Kattan but these books did not recall her youth with nearly as much flavour for my auntie. They are more intellectual and less colourful, with more focus on educational challenges and leftist political leanings.

There are so few books on the Iraqi Jews that all these books are worth reading to obtain an introduction to the lives of Jewish communities from Arab lands. Together they make a great testimony to the Iraqi Jewish community and its legacy especially since so many Western Jews - let alone Westerners of other religions - apparently cannot even contemplate the possibility of pairing the words "Jewish" + "Arab" (to them an Arab Jew is an oxymoron) even though many millions can be so described (and in fact they actually form the majority in Israel, perhaps the only discriminated-against majority in any nation). Could this very inability be a component of what may become one of the worst tragedies of this century, the increasing demonisation of the Muslims?

'Last Days in Babylon' left me frustrated and disappointed with myself for not finding out more about my own relatives' lives as Jews in Baghdad, while I still had the chance.

'Last Days' superbly provided a moving true story, with a wonderful illustration of the social history of the lives of Baghdad Jewry between WW1 and the exodus of the 1950s. Reading it, I became so thoroughly absorbed in Benjamin's family's story that they felt like my own - and indeed - some of the traits and anecdotes of my late father began to make more sense.

Cleverly, the story doesn't end with the exodus from Babylon. It's brought straight up to the present through Benjamin's visit in 2004 to see the last remaining handful of Jews from what had been a thriving, prosperous and respected population.

If I have one small criticism, it's that Benjamin's negative critique of the attitude of the fledging State of Israel to the new immigrants from Iraq doesn't sufficiently consider the difficulties with which the State was faced in having to absorb so many refugees so quickly. (There were hundreds of thousands from other Arab countries as well as survivors from the European Holocaust). Whilst it is true that the European dominated government was somewhat prejudiced against the Mizrachi (Eastern) Jews in these early years, they were soon absorbed and now play the same role in society as their European counterparts.

Despite the above, "Last Days in Babylon" is a wonderful book that I would recommend to anyone whose family may originate from that area. Thank you Ms Benjamin for bringing my own family story to life.