Barefoot in the kibbutz: From Siria to Israel and Italy. The exceptional life of an arab jew who became a psychologist

By Masal Pas Bagdadi

The dramatic memoir of Masal, a young Jewish girl violently uprooted from her native Syria at the age of five, who grew up in a kibbutz in Israel during the war of Independence. After Palestine became the State of Israel, Masal served her military service, and followed her husband to Italy, where she became a renowned child psychologist. This moving autobiography of a young girl thrust into extraordinary circumstances and forced, as a woman, to not only overcome her traumatic childhood, but to thrive because of it, is profoundly inspiring.

• Language: English
• Publisher: VandA edizioni
• Release date: Nov 5, 2013
• ISBN: 9788898475704

Masal Pas Bagdadi

Masal Pas Bagdadi è nata a Damasco nel 1938. A soli cinque anni fugge dalla Siria per le persecuzioni antisemite ed entra illegalmente in Palestina. Cresce in un kibbutz in Israele, dove impara a diventare una persona adulta, quindi si trasferisce in Italia. Psicoterapeuta e scrittrice, ha pubblicato molti saggi di psicopedagogia per genitori e educatori. Con Bompiani sono usciti le autobiografie A piedi scalzi nel Kibbutz (2003) e Mamma Miriam (2013). Dal libro Chi sono io?, edito da Franco Angeli (2006), sono nati il programma televisivo andato in onda sul canale Sky 137 e l’associazione Onlus che promuove iniziative sulla creatività nell’infanzia, di cui Masal è presidente. MASAL Pas Bagdadi was born in Damascus in 1938. At the age of five, when the anti-Semitic climate had reached alarming levels, she was illegally smuggled into Palestine. Although she was eventually reunited with her family, Masal grew up in a Kibbutz in Israel. She later moved to Italy where she now practices psychotherapy full time and writes a popular series for parents and teachers on child psychology. Bompiani published her memoirs: Barefoot in a Kibbutz (A Piedi Scalzi nel Kibbutz) in 2003 and Mother Miriam (Mamma Miriam) in 2013. Her book Who Am I?, illustrated with children’s drawings and published by Franco Angeli (2006), became a television series produced by Sky and an exhibition in Roma and Milan. Masal is the President of a non-profit association that promotes infantile creativity.

Book preview

I

Haret el Yehud

I was born in the ghetto of Damascus, Syria, on the day of Tisha be-av a time of fasting, crying and mourning for the Jewish people, who, on that date, remember the destruction of Beth ha-mikdash, Jerusalem’s Temple, at the hands of the Roman legions, led by Titus, the future emperor. According to popular creed it will be on this very day that our millenary hope will be appeased with the appearance of the Messiah.

The emotions that mark such a recurrence of mourning and hope, are deeply imprinted in my personality, that has always revealed a sort of double nature and is the reason why I live in full, pain, sadness, joy and happiness.

As a child I was joyful and always smiling which attracted the benevolence of relatives and strangers alike, but at the same time I cried, with such ease that my mother nicknamed me Eikhah, the one who cries, alluding to both my date of birth and to the association with the book called Eikhah, purposely written by the prophet Jeremiah to express his suffering for the Temple’s destruction.

The area in which I was born in Damascus was called Haret el Yehud, the street of the Jews, named as such, as of the end of the eighteenth century when Jews were forced to move, abandoning their ancient habits, to the outskirts of the city. Up to then in Syria Arabs and Jews had cohabited somewhat complaisantly for centuries, even if, difficult and cruel episodes had occurred signalling a strong radical anti-Semitism which, with the spreading of Arab nationalism, would provoke evermore frequent and violent aggressions. In the twenties, fanaticism unleashed a ferocious anti-Semitic hate to the extent that in a few years, Syrian Jews were stripped of their well being and flourishing commercial activities to find themselves much poorer and isolated.

Haret el Yehud was, hence, a ghetto relegated to the border of the city, surrounded by equally poor Arab areas, whose inhabitants would vent their anger for their misery against the descendants of David in the most primitive form of violence. If in the first years of the nineteenth century, incursions were sporadic, as time passed, they became frequent and as bloody as real ‘pogroms’ forcing our community, even if there were no walls or doors to mark a boundary, to live penned in, severed from the rest of the city and in terror. Life, especially, for women and children, evolved within this universe, except for rare occasions. For me little Tune, named after an aunt who died while giving birth, the world outside the ghetto, even if I could see it from across the street, seemed far and as unreal as a fairytale. I watched the trams on which I would never set foot, observed the men while they played sheish-besh, a sort of drafts, and followed with my eyes my Arab contemporaries who ran free on the sidewalk. My existence, instead, was limited to the ghetto among the members of the community in a compact and reassuring ambience in which the precepts of Judaism were scrupulously followed. Everyone was religious and ate kosher and observed the Shabbat, the Jewish Saturday.

The roads were dirt tracks with small low houses made of mud and bricks. We lived in a building which in the past must have been used as a stable or warehouse. There was a large, stone paved, courtyard on which more than ten huge rooms looked over, and in the most hidden corner there was a sole narrow dark lavatory which was simply a hole dug in the floor. It was closed by a beaten up wooden door that creaked on its hinges, emitting a horrific piercing noise much to the terror of the children who dreaded being locked there, in punishment. It was thought that in that dark pit hole, mice multiplied by the dozens and it was really the most terrible thing to imagine. I also kept out of mischief, scared as I was, and as far away as possible from that dump.

Every room hosted a whole family, but everyday life, was spent mainly outside by the fountain, in the centre of the courtyard which swarmed with people, on the move, and continually echoed to the voice of young and old alike in an uninterrupted soundtrack that orchestrated quarrels, chatter and jokes. Women, animated that varied existence by doing the washing and hanging it out to dry, cooking on small oil stoves or sewing and repairing the few garments owned. Even Rivcha the dressmaker, who was a young woman with black curly hair, worked outside, singing melancholic Jewish melodies that filled the air, together, with the smell of the coal she used, to keep her iron stoked.

The house I lived in, together, with my parents was formed by a single room, divided in two, by a step because the floor was uneven. In the higher side there was a trunk and against a wall there were piled mattresses and carpets which at night would be placed on the floor to sleep on. In the lower side, there stood the only item of furniture we owned, a cupboard with a mirror. That mirror allowed me to play with my reflection. Sometimes, while pretending to sleep, I would spy on the adults by staring into it, in an attempt to understand their secrets.

At the time my family nucleus, aside from my mother and father, comprised five children, Noemi was the eldest and she looked after me with particular fondness, then came Moshe and Eli, my big brothers who were close to one another and protective of us toddlers, they were followed by Shifra and finally by me. I was four when my brother Rafi was born. Later on, when the family moved to Israel, the last daughter Simi, arrived.

Rafi’s arrival disturbed my infancy and remained impressed in my mind in every detail. All of a sudden one morning, to keep me from getting in the way, I was thrown out of the courtyard onto the road. Women hustled, water was put on the boil and Noemi ran out to fetch the midwife. Around noon I heard my mother scream. I grasped the window railing and also started to yell, calling out to her with all my strength. I was angry, and at the same time despaired, until I heard the wail of a baby. Shortly thereafter, someone remembered me, picked me up in their arms, brought me home and told me I had a new brother. When, with the delicacy that accompanies precious revelations, the brim of the bandages that covered him were lifted and he was shown to me, I carefully observed his face, in an instant, every fear I had, vanished.

My maternal grandparents completed our family nucleus and lived at a short distance from us. Grandfather Mussa was tall, with light coloured eyes, a fleshy mouth and a handsome Semitic nose which gave strength to his face framed, by a white beard and by his peot, long curls along his temples. His head was always covered by a kipah, a small cap, in respect and in fear of God. He, in fact, was the real head of the family and a point of reference for us all, children and adults alike. The vicissitudes of life had not marred his soul but, to the contrary, they had reinforced his allure and wisdom, to the point of being called Rabbi Mussa.

Like a lot of Syrian Jews who had forewarned the coming catastrophe, grandpa had sought to emigrate and in 1905 left, to join his brothers who had already set themselves up in Argentina. On his return to Damascus, to collect his family and take them back to South America, he found, however, a dramatic situation. During his long period of absence his elder daughter had died and his wife, it was said, had become blind due to her uninterrupted weeping.

Rabbi Mussa, despairing at heart, tried in every way to cure my grandmother. Gold brought from South America, to pay for the return trip, was spent between doctors, healers and on all kinds of people as on anybody who promised to give her back her eyesight. Shortly, thereafter, persecuted by an adverse destiny, my grandparents lost, while giving birth, their second born, aunt Tune, whose name I inherited. They were left only with their youngest daughter Miriam, my mother, who was given in marriage at seventeen to a young Jew from Baghdad.

As to that wedding, I heard grownups whisper, on several occasions, a terrible story. In my imagination it sounded like a legend, out of time and unreal. While Miriam was still very young and beautiful, she was kidnapped by a young Arab, who was crazily in love with her. Her distressed parents, searched for her everywhere for days. They found her, after a great deal of trouble and a long negotiation with her kidnappers and in the end, paid her ransom with a huge sum of money. When she returned home, it was thought opportune, to find her, as soon as possible, a husband prepared to wed a girl who was no longer innocent. In that period of time, luck had it that a stranger from Baghdad, who was a Jew to all effects and purposes, consented to marry Miriam in exchange of a dowry.

My father was an impulsive strong man, always dressed in Arab fashion with a long striped tunic and a fez, the typical red head top. He was, neither religious nor very integrated in the Syrian Jewish community and after years, he was still considered a foreigner. Unlike the other Jews of Damascus, he frequented the Arab’s quarters, drinking coffee and playing sheish besh with them while toying with an amber bead collar. At home, he was quite abrupt but I succeeded in making him more docile. I was the only one who dared jump onto his lap. In exchange I received the rare gift of a few caresses.

Whatever story, as intricate as it may have been brought my parents to marry, the fact remains that it was my grandfather who, thanks to his small commerce of cloths, provided for our upkeep. He was always, with love and intelligence, the focal point of our family.

In the small world of Haret el Yehud, my life was happy. I felt protected by my mother and elder sister as by the whole community. Being as thin as a rake, curly, imaginative with big eyes and large smiles that illuminated a face sprayed with freckles, it was easy for me to be liked. I would spend long hours outside, absorbed, in games that I played by myself or in the company of my little friends. The elder children would often trace lines on the stones of the courtyard and jump in and out of them being careful not to step on them. Sometimes they would allow us kids to participate; they called it the sky game. It wasn’t the only one. To fool us, someone had said that by scrubbing date- stones on a slab, it was possible to make them as soft as gum to chew. As a result, we spent entire days scrubbing those stones on the pavement of the courtyard, ingenuously hopeful of having chewing gum. All our games were as simple as this one, invented out of nothing because none of us knew the meaning of a toy or had one, except maybe for a doll made of rags or of balls of cloth cuttings sewed together by loving mothers.

Every Wednesday, my mother would get up at dawn to light a fire under a huge blackened pot, filled with water and shavings of soap. Once she had submerged the washing in the boiling water, she quickly tided up the room and began to cook a bean’s soup which had soaked in water in a bowl as of the night before. Everybody knew that as of that moment, she could not be disturbed. I had learnt to keep away, hardly baring the strain of her disinterest, but content to look at her once in a while. My mother would sit on a tiny stool on a side of the courtyard with a