Memoirs of a Baghdad Childhood

By Victor Sasson

Memoirs of a Baghdad Childhood depicts personal and family scenes, episodes, experiences, and impressions of the authors early life in Baghdad. Topics include the authors life in a newly-built house in Kutchet es-Saad, his al-Azeel and al-Watani school experiences, his passion for American and British films, his merchant brothers in the Shorja market, his familys enduring interest in Arabic music and musical instruments, observance of Sabbath and holy days, swimming lessons in the Tigris, the bustling al-Rasheed Street, trips to Kifel and Baquba, and delightful nights on the Jazra

.

The authors childhood in Baghdad, from early 1940s to about mid-1951, is viewed and portrayed in generally positive and happy light.

Blame for the displacement and gradual liquidation of Babylonian Jewry is put on European political Zionists and their machinations.

Memoirs of a Baghdad Childhood is an autobiographical, personal account of the authors childhood in his beloved city of Baghdad.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jun 24, 2011
• ISBN: 9781462017348

Victor Sasson

Victor Sasson grew up in Baghdad. He is British-educated, with degrees from the University of London, and a Ph.D. from New York University. A biblical scholar, specialist in Hebrew and Aramaic Epigraphy, he has also published fiction, no-fiction, and poetry. His three verse plays, Shylock of Venice, King Caliban, and Elijah the Tishbite, were published in 2012, 2013, and 2018, respectively.

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Contents

PREFACE

Baghdad: My Birthplace

My Mother: Nana Lulu

Giving My Mother a Hard Time on the Sabbath

Mizzala: My Maternal Grandmother

A Newly Built House at Kuchat es-Sa’ad

Salih: My Father

Summertime and Our Open Flat Roof

A Family with a Sportive Bent

The Neem, Jillalah, and an Unwelcome Intruder

‘Torture’ at Kindergarten

No Demonstrative Affection for Children

Lullabies, Nursery Songs, and

Pranks of Childhood

The Farhood

Walking to al-Watani Primary School

English Teaching at al-Watani

A School Principal

Arabic at School and Beyond

A Trip to Ba’qubah, and Lost Pyjamas

A Trip to Kifel and the Shrine of Prophet Ezekiel

Ezra the Scribe

Learning to Swim in Tigris River

School Friends and Park es-Sa’doon

My Family and Reading

American and British Films v. Arabic Films

Abd el-Wahab and the Magic of his Music and Songs

My Brother Hesqail

Kingdoms Under the Sea and Zorro Films

At Roxy Cinema – Red Skelton and Esther Williams

Jimmar, Baqilli, and Laffa

Home Cooking: Iraqi Jewish Cuisine

Nuns in the Neighbourhood

French-based Education v.

English-based Education

The Two Salimahs – and Shopping

at Orosdi-Back

A Mysterious Ailment

My Cousin Kareem

Haron the Merchant Brother and his Young Wife

Seeing a Shi’a Procession from a Window

Cows at the Door, and Laban and Qemar Galore

Yosef: Haberdasher and Musician

Once Again: Films and Film Stars

and their Impact on Me

My Peaceful Ventures in Baghdad

Chanced to See Two Men in Mortal Combat

The Jazra – a Summer Islet on Tigris River

Babylonian Jews Steeped in

Middle Eastern Music

My Musical Family

Braving Winter Weather in Baghdad

Summer Heat, Sand Storms, and

Evenings by Tigris River

Alcohol and the Proverbial Baghdadi Drunkard

Poverty and Prostitution among Baghdadi Jews

The Opposite Sex

A Leap into the Technological

Twentieth Century

My Brother, Fuad, and his Injured Foot

Jumping from the Bridge

My Love for River and Sea

Observance of Sabbath and Holy Days

Keeping one’s Health in Baghdad

Some Memorable Household Words and Phrases

The House of Bibi

The Passing of Father and Mother

Hidden Agendas

EPILOGUE

PREFACE

To be a Babylonian Jew these days appears to be something quite desirable. Suddenly a great interest has emerged among some Iraqi Jews to write their memoirs. This has assumed some kind of a passion after September 11, 2001, and especially after the bombing of Baghdad by the United States and the toppling of Saddam Hussein. Iraq and Baghdad became a daily news item, and that may have prompted some Iraqi Jews living in the West to look back at their personal history. The trauma of displacement from one’s original homeland – Iraq — could be another reason for this interest. However, there are those who were born and bred in the West and have practically nothing to do with Babylonian Jews, except for some near or distant relative, and yet crave to have a prominent place in the picture. Thus, we have an American lawyer, apparently born and raised in the United States, never lived in Baghdad, does not speak Arabic, and yet claims to be an authentic Babylonian Jew. More seriously, as a political Zionist she pretends to represent all Iraqi Jews. She calls them ‘refugees’, when in fact it was the Zionists who agitated the Jews of Iraq, drove them into panic, displaced them, and then engaged, directly or indirectly, in their cultural and ethnic cleansing.

The idea of writing some kind of childhood memoir occurred to me a long time ago. It has nothing to do with the political and military events mentioned above. On the 22nd of February, 1996, I wrote a couple autobiographical pages. Teaching responsibilities and scholarly research diverted me from further writing. More attempts were made to continue with the project but it was again put aside for want of time and necessary concentrated effort. Late July of 2008 I was resolute to resume writing on a daily basis and managed to produce thirty single spaced pages in Microsoft Word over a period of two months — August to end of September. From May to August 2010 I corrected and extended those pages and added completely new topics. This more recent work produced almost the same number of pages written two years earlier.

I made no special effort to group the episodes by connecting theme. I did so only when I did not have to go much out of my way. Generally, I wrote the episodes as they occurred to me, hoping that would contribute to some variety in reading them.

Some years ago I used to jot down words, expressions, and proverbs that were current among the Jews of Baghdad. Since these would not make a book, I have included a few in the episodes themselves, and also under a special heading in the memoirs.

Sometime end of November 2010, while the manuscript was ready for the printer, word came to me of the passing of our very dear brother, Hesqail. He was at least 92. I was fortunate to see him and talk to him again in November 2008. When I wrote about him in these memoirs, he was still alive. I’ve made no changes in the text.

V. S.

29 Elul, 5770

8th September, 2010

Baghdad: My Birthplace

I was fortunate to be born in one of the most famous cities in the world. Famous, on account of its antiquity and famous on account of the fabulous stories of One Thousand and One Nights. Had Sheherazade lost her head on that first fateful night, what would have happened to Baghdad and its fame? But perhaps I am exaggerating.

The fame and magic of Baghdad is also due to Haroon al-Rashid and his enlightened rule as Caliph. In his day Baghdad was the centre of the cultured, enlightened world.

In the eighteenth century, that little Baghdadi Jewish man, big merchant Sason (with one small s), produced the famous Sassoon dynasty, which branched out far afield, East and West. More recently, the infamous Saddam Hussein put Iraq — Mesopotamia, with its Babylon and Ur of the Chaldees – once again on the world map, and himself, after thirty years of oppressive rule as a modern Nebuchadnezzar, out of the picture.

For me, Baghdad is magical for the simple reason I was born there and grew up there but, perhaps more importantly, because I was taken away from her when I was a teenager — torn away from her embrace, rather. And that’s why her memories are precious — each and every little strand of it. But how and why I was taken away from her (decidedly against my own wishes) is a different story altogether.

Some of my memories of Baghdad are blurred by the passing of so many years. Others are so fresh as though the incidents they had recorded happened only yesterday.

Iraqi Jews usually opted for biblical names and particularly for the patriarchal ones, like Abraham, Ishaq (Isaac), and Ya’acoob (Jacob) and their twelve descendants, like Yehuda, Reuben and Yosef. Moshi (Moses), Haron (Aaron), Dawid (David), and Silman (Solomon) were of course very common. For women, biblical names like Ribqah, Miriam, Rahel (Rachel) were used. Western names became popular with some Jews when the British occupied Iraq, and so we have had Albare (for Albert), Adwar (for Edward), Maurice, Berta (for Bertha), Esperance, and so on.

Born in 1937, I was named Yactor, Arabic for Victor, but I was also called Shafiq (Arabic for ‘compassionate’) at home. The day and month of my birth are not known and I don’t know if this is also the case with my brothers. I’ve never enquired about this. Family photographs give an idea of my age, but the mystery still remains, unsolved.

My Mother: Nana Lulu

We called her Nana Lulu.

I don’t know the origins of the word Nana. Iraq and its capital, Baghdad, knew various military occupations by foreign powers, ancient and modern. The word Nana, thus, may be foreign in origin and may mean mummy. But my mother had an Arabic name — unlike many others who had Hebrew, usually biblical names. Lulu in Arabic means ‘pearls’.

I am not sure what my earliest memories of her were but I could see she was always very busy. Her hands were full, taking care of seven children — six boys and one girl. There were meals to cook and serve, cleaning to be done, chores to attend to. Twice a week a washerwoman (ghis-salah, in Arabic) came to do the laundry by hand in large, round, metal receptacles. She used special thick, square slabs of soap for the washing. We had no servants of any kind. Two of my brothers, Haron and Hesqail, were already twenty years old when I myself arrived on the family scene as the youngest and most fresh newcomer – a mere baby, to put it in