Three Worlds: Memoirs of an Arab-Jew, by Avi Shlaim, tells how the Oxford historian left Iraq at the age of 5 in 1950 to live in Israel and eventually England. Importantly, the book offers a perspective on Arab Jews that is often forgotten today but offers hope for future peace in the Middle East.
A review of the memoir by Canadian Professor Yakov M. Rabkin was posted on April 5 in Informed Comment, which also published an excellent earlier review by Marc Martorell Jouyent in October 2023.
Professor Rabkin writes: “During my stay in Iran in 2016, I heard from several Muslims that Jews are good businessmen because they are trustworthy, and their word weighs more than a notarized contract.”
I recalled these comments when I read [in Avi Shlaim’s memoir] about Yusef, the author’s father. A self-made man and a wealthy supplier of building materials, he earned a sterling reputation not only among his customers, but also among his employees, whose welfare, not only their productivity, he constantly cared about.
Rabkin says Yusef “embodies the concept of the Arab-Jew. Active in the Jewish community, sponsor of synagogues and various charities, he was respected and exercised influence.” The reviewer continues:
Yusef’s Jewish affiliation was more cultural than religious. Yusef also embodies the gentle and harmonious modernization that is quite different from the often defiant and conflict-ridden modernization of European Jewry.
In his memoir, Avi says that like most Iraqi Jews, Yusef was indifferent to Zionism. In the family, this political ideology was considered “an Ashkenazi thing.” The reviewer offers these details about the author’s father after he left Baghdad for Israel:
Yusef felt like a fish out the water. He remained alien, unemployed and unaccustomed to the Ashkenazi-dominated society. But he never compromised his sense of humility, self-respect, and decency, never complained or asked for favors.
The fate of this noble man illustrates that of many non-Ashkenazi Jews brought to Israel unaware of what awaited them in “the Promised Land.”
The reviewer says “The uprooting of Iraq’s Jewish community is the leitmotif of the entire book.” Dr. Rabkin says that in addition to carefully recounting the history of the effort to bring Arab Jews to Israel, Avi Shlaim “candidly recounts the intimate story of his family.”
Albeit landed in Israel in relatively comfortable circumstances, Avi as a child experienced humiliation and discrimination like all Mizrahi population in Israel. His self-worth was severely undermined, he barely passed from one grade to the next, and the Zionist society saw in this underachievement a proof of his “primitive” background.
However, when Avi Shlaim moved to England he was warmly welcomed by the Jews there. The reviewer says “it is striking that this articulated and nuanced memoir was written by someone who consistently failed in the English language at the Israeli school.”
No less striking is the contrast between the rough Zionist culture of the muscular New Hebrew Men forged to fight wars and the culture of genteel and caring British Jewish culture he encountered, which preserved the Judaic values of mercy, modesty and beneficence codified in the Mishna.
The reviewer says Avi “imbibed nationalist myths” as he grew up in Israel, but in his book, he “depicts his personal evolution from a self-righteous Zionist to a thoughtful proponent of a democratic state for all the inhabitants between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean.”
In conclusion, Dr. Rabkin says Avi Shlaim hopes that
the collective memory of the centuries-long Arab-Jewish social and cultural integration should enable such a project to come true. In this case, the heritage of Iraqi, Moroccan and other non-European Jews will be not only rehabilitated, but also put to good use to build a peaceful future.
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Yakov M. Rabkin is Professor Emeritus of History at the Université of Montréal. His publications include over 300 articles and books such as A Threat from Within: a Century of Jewish Opposition to Zionism and Judaïsme, islam et modernité. (www.yakovrabkin.ca)