Growing up in Interwar Iraq: The Memoirs of Naim Kattan and Heskel Haddad
Résumé
In recent years, the historical Jewish presence in Arab lands has become a contested site of memory, with contemporary disagreements over the merits of the Zionist project, the continuing Arab–Israeli conflict, and the legacy of European colonialism informing the ways in which different groups reconstruct their collective past. Among the Jews of Arab lands, Iraqi Jews were distinguished both by their high level of cultural integration into Iraqi society, as well as the abrupt and traumatic nature of their departure from the country after 1948. These dramatic extremes have made Iraqi-Jewish history particularly subject to politicized narratives. Some point to the history of Muslim anti-Judaism and relegation of Jews to second-class dhimmi status as paving the way for the rise of an Iraqi nationalism that was both sympathetic to Nazi Germany and virulently anti-Zionist. For others, both European colonialists and Zionists share much of the blame for the Jewish exodus, as they created rifts between Jews and Muslims who had traditionally enjoyed harmonious relations.