Israel 101 - Iraqi Jews

I met Israeli Jews of Iraqi descent on two separate occasions, by accident.

The first was in the market in West Jerusalem, in a spices store. I heard the vendor, a forty-ish man wearing a kippa, joking in Arabic with the delivery boy. His old shop, smelling like every spice you can think of and a little more, with a black-and-white photo of his father in the back seemed too much like home for me to stand there silent.
I introduced myself, and asked him how long he's worked here.

Abu Najah, he said, was his name. He had worked in the spices shop for 15 years: the shop, however, has stood and the same place for 60.
"My grandfather came from Iraq", he explained, gently passing his fingers over the sacks that make up his counter. "He arrived on May 8th 1948". A week before the declaration of the State.
The shop has been there since, and Abu-Najah works there with an aide he introduced as "Mahmoud".

The other time was on a bus. I had heard this elderly man speaking in Arabic to the driver as he boarded the bus. He sat next to me. And as he asked me something in Hebrew - I replied in Arabic, which he found very surprising, for some reason.
I told him I was from Egypt, he said he was from Iraq.

I wasn't sure whether he was an Arab or a Jew, so I asked him whether he was Palestinian; "No", he quickly answered, then added proudly: "I am Baghdadi!"

He quizzed me about my work - and my salary -and as every old person in Palestine had asked me, he asked me if I were married, said that I should, if not to have children as beautiful as I am (:-) so at least to please my parents. He sighed, as if thinking about his own family, and quickly confirmed it by adding: "I have three kids - two daughters and one son. They don't have children and don't want to hear anything about it. Back in the day, in Baghdad, parents would have a say in everything. Not anymore. Now my kids tell me that it's their life and that I should butt out".

He sighed again.




(for those interested, here's a rather good story on Iraqi Jews. Once nearly 120,000, they are now the staggering statistic of... 7 or 8.
Probably 6 by the time I post this article...)