Afifah: A Bedouin Odyssey

By Dr. David Rabeeya

This novel looks at history through the eyes of an uneducated but dearly perceptive Bedouin women whose life begins in a traditional and safe environment and ends in the drastically changes and shattered world of today. With no dialouge, the story unfolds throught the thoughta and experiences of Afifah, who is overcome by forces beyond her control that result in the oblivion of both herself and her people.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Feb 12, 2004
• ISBN: 9781477179147

Dr. David Rabeeya

While Dr. David Rabeeya has dedicated his life to preserving the history and culture of Jews born in Arab lands, he has also written books for children and teenagers as well as detective stories, poetry, music and even comedy. This, his 50th publication, is from a Jew born in Baghdad Iraq who lived in Israel and now resides in America. His work reveals the soul of men and the universality of mankind.

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Copyright © 2003 by Dr. David Rabeeya.

ISBN : Softcover 1-4134-3708-7

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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Contents

Acknowledgements

Author’s Note

Book I

Afifah: A Bedouin Odyssey

Part One

Afifah

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Epilogue

Part Two

Najiyyah

Part Three

Amal

Part Four

Jamilah

Epilogue

Book II

Askar: A Bedouin Pharaoh

Chapter One

Chapter Two

To My Beloved Arlene

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I wish first to thank Arlene for her encouragement and support of my writing. I also would like to thank my daughter, Naomi Abigail, for challenging and inspiring me. I further wish to thank Shadi Hamid for his typing, editorial work, intelligence, and dedication to this project. Without him, this book’s completion would not have been possible. Thanks also to Ms. Olivia Cardona for her ability to, once again, capture the essence of my ideas in illustrations for this publication. Lastly, I wish to thank all of my students who continue to assist and challenge me with their observations about issues related to reality and faith.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

Never being able to fit into a preconceived stereotype regardless of where I have lived during my life, I have always been culturally Arab and religiously Jewish. I have always refused to allow anyone to define me otherwise. Anyone in my situation will suffer racism, discrimination and alienation. Only a person who lives this life can tell you the truth and not the academic niceties and rationalization. It is possible for me to write thousands of pages on this topic and speak about it for long periods of time. My experience as an Arab-Jew, in both Israel and America, has always been very unsettling and often confrontational, leaving me with continuous frustration.

Having never been able to escape or hide the color of my skin or the Arab culture of my youth, I have always seen the humanity of everyone, including the Arabs. My concept of Israel is not the typical Zionist perception because many people like myself were treated harshly there. I see Jewish history though the historical prism of confrontation between the Muslim and Jewish inhabitants of the Near East. Until recently, most people both inside and outside of Israel did not recognize the need to include people of my background in the dialogue to achieve peaceful coexistence of Jews and Arabs in the predominantly Arab region. The truth about the mistreatment of Arab-Jews is finally being told, removing many mythological concepts about the birth of the Israeli nation.

I did not plan to be an outsider in three cultures (Iraqi, Israeli, and American). One cannot control the circumstances of his or her birth, nor the location of this incredible event. We are cast into the world because of the accidental meeting of others outside of ourselves and we are all the results of the circumstances of that meeting. In general, an outsider is a person with several identities, unable to fit into the one-dimensional identities imposed on individuals in many societies. Often, no side wishes to be associated with a person possessing multiple ethnic, cultural, religious and national identities.

Frequently, the outsider is rejected by many and accepted by very few and is left to rationalize his/her position within the realms of isolation, frustration and despair. This position forces the outsider to find constructive ways to overcome the serious mental pressures resulting from acceptance being unattainable. It is not surprising that some outsiders are psychologically crushed by these uncontrollable events. People who live and die in this struggle deal with unpredictable events as do so many others. But others are not often so wholly uprooted from their roots.

Outsiders have to carry the additional burden of displacement from their native land into new and strange environments. Historical circumstances beyond the control of any individual often force people to become refugees, leaving their roots to wither like green branches in the burning sun. The usual scenario is that many do not know about the outsiders in their communities, few do, and those who do often do not care about their fate. Last but not least, the majority do not recognize the voices of outsiders. Adding to the cosmic silence is the following: in general, many Arabs do not show specific interest in Arab-Jews, especially after they left their countries and settled in Israel. On a practical and psychological level, Arab-Jews are perceived as Israelis and are considered enemies of their states. An Arab-Jew such as myself, who was embedded in the Arab culture, was left to carry the Arab culture alone in European Israel, a new nation uninterested in my Arab heritage. I could not miraculously obliterate my Arab culture because I found myself in European Israel and I could not continue to keep my contacts in the Arab world due to hostility between the two sides.

The final result was that I was considered a suspicious Jew by European Israel, due to my Arab customs and mores, and was looked at as a traitor by the Arab world due to my arrival in Israel. Both sides (many European Jews and many Arabs) prefer not to associate themselves with my own human essence which has left me, allegorically, as an orphan in the indifferent streets of the universe. An outsider, like myself, who was supposed to be the bridge between Israel and the Arab world due to his knowledge and understanding of the culture and history of both sides has often become the mat on which everyone can step to clean his or her dirty shoes. The perception of many uninformed Arabs was that I had betrayed my Arab roots and my national loyalty to Iraq by departing my native country. The circumstances associated with my exodus from Iraq, due to the Israeli-Arab conflict, were determined by fate, outside of my control. The war between Iraq and Israel left me caught between the Zionist ideology and Arab/Iraqi nationalist fever.

The other side of the coin was the maltreatment of myself and my family by many European Jews upon our arrival in Israel. The general perception, which was based partially on a racist European foundation, was that my Arab cultural had no specific human value and there was a need to remove it from existence in order to open the supposedly civilized European world for me—the Ashkenazi universe. Deliberately and systematically, my Arab culture was ignored, dishonored and degraded in the name of Israeli nationalism. The worst part of this unbearable situation was not so much the nasty, verbal and written attacks against my Arab background, but instead the fact that I was what I still am today: culturally, an Arab.

I am now totally removed from the consciousnesses of most Arabs, since I found myself in Israel during my formative years. I escaped Iraq to arrive in foreign European Israel. I later would leave Israel because my Arab soul could not and would not associate with the secular, Zionist European concept of time and space. I arrived in America, which is considered the best place to breathe the air of acceptance for individuals possessing various identities. The scenario is not unusual in the United States, a country with immigrants who can choose to retain their cultural background while accepting their loyalty to American nationality and ideas.

Indeed, my triple background has served me well with regard to the interpretation of the Arab and Muslim world for Jews and non-Jews. My unique perspective of the Near East and its religions and culture is based on my personal experience. The presentation of a realistic and human picture of the complex situation there is appreciated by members of non-Jewish American communities. However, my encounters with established American Jewish communities have often been painful and difficult. Uninformed American Jews frequently prefer to wage personal attacks against me and my character instead of listening to a person embedded in Arab culture and familiar with the religious aspects of Islam. Recognizing the humanity of Arabs and Muslims is not popular with synagogue audiences that prefer to draw their conclusions about the Arab-Jewish conflict on the basis of emotional and sentimental attachment to Israel and not on the basis of historical or political analysis. Those with mythological and pseudo-religious perspectives of Arab-Jewish cooperation frequently reject my realistic analysis of the ongoing, bloody conflict based on demographic, economic and cultural considerations.

My usual experience in my presentations in various synagogues and temples in the United States has been disappointment and frustration, due to the illusionary and delusional view and perspectives of many members based on their self-deception and denial of reality. My job as an outsider among Jews in America is to collect new ironies based upon my birth in Iraq. Non-Jewish groups have always welcomed me with an open heart and respect in their churches and social organizations during my academic and informative lectures. I was always available to speak about the human reality in the Near East, which includes brutality, discrimination, racism and cruelty in the authoritarian regimes of Arab countries. However, I was never too tired to tell non-Jews (like Jews) about the human realities inside Israel and the occupied territories, which include confiscation of Arab land, the torture of suspected terrorists and discrimination against non-European Jews as well as Israeli Arabs.

Without any exception, I condemned the terrorist acts of some Arab and Muslim groups in the Near East on the basis of moral and ethical principles, since it is always criminal to actively destroy the lives of innocent people. However, I also suggested hearing and analyzing the strategic reasons for these inhumane acts. Here I am! A Jew born in an Arab country teaching Arabic and Hebrew in a respected university. I also had the opportunity to teach the Qur’an to Muslim students based on its linguistic, cultural and religious perspectives. Another small irony. Maybe it is not so small.

BOOK I

Afifah: A Bedouin Odyssey

PART ONE

Afifah

CHAPTER ONE

The sun in west Iraq was burning itself and everything in its way. Golden sand backed the poisonous snakes and the green lizards as they escaped this merciless, heating hell. The khamsin had hung over this for days now, converting the sun from its hot yellow color into a bloody red intensity. The temperature had reached immeasurable records while the skeletons of hundreds of camels, horses and donkeys were roasting in their hereafter. Yellow scorpions devoured the melted bodies of black ants. The sharqiyya (eastern wind) stood at constant attention, rolling marbled stones, thorns and thistles in random directions. The remaining wild shrubs and yellow grasses had succumbed to the