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Home , Arab Jews, Iraqi Communist Party

Iraqi Arab-Jewish Identities: First Body Singular Orit Bashkin

n the years 1921–51, the Iraqi- they read, and the social circles in party’s critique of Pan-Arabism), and cast their community thrived. This religious which they moved were increasingly Iraqi and as a choice of Iraqi patriotism. Igroup, numbering around 120,000 and Arab. Other , especially the lower-middle Furthermore, in such circles the evocation residing in urban centers for the most part, classes and the urban poor, were less exposed of religious difference was considered an figured prominently in ’s culture and to Western education, and remained more act of sectarianism, to which secular Iraqi economy. Desiring to cement their status as religious. How, then, are we to conceptual- intellectuals (nationalists and communists full-fledged Iraqi citizens, the community’s ize their Jewish-Arab identity in a way that alike) were vehemently opposed. However, leading thinkers evoked the concept of “the takes into account the various meanings of the within Iraq, and espe- Arab-” in various locations and contexts. being both Jewish and Arab? Moreover, how cially the support for Nazi Germany voiced Whether by the communists of the League for are we to determine when one begins to be, by certain Pan-Arab nationalists, pushed Combating or the Jewish nationalists or becomes, an Arab-Jew in Iraq: Does it begin Iraqi Jews towards communism. Often, join- claiming to identify with their Palestinian (as when one is born? When one begins school- ing the ICP marked an Iraqi, as opposed to opposed to their Jewish) brethren, the term ing? When one begins writing in ? an Arab, choice. Being an Iraqi communist was frequently used to negotiate the meanings Should we talk of a process of ? meant seeing the and the Turkmans, of Jewish national identity in Iraq. The Iraqi For Ballas, being an Arab Jew was an expe- the Shi‘is, the Sunnis, and the as educational system, which expanded tremen- rience that was mediated first and foremost comrades in a shared struggle. Thus, although dously during this period and emphasized by Iraq’s Arabic print culture. His reading of historians speak of Arab-, and Arab history as part of its the works of Egyptian intellectuals, especially at times people who do not identify them- curriculum, had fostered the notion that Iraqi Taha Husayn and Samala Musa, the hours selves today as Arab-Jews were very much Jews were part of an Arab-Iraqi nation. In this he spent reading various Arabic novels and a part of Arab culture, while Iraqi-Jewish short essay, I raise a few questions relating cultural magazines, and his writing of articles communists, although loyal to the party’s to the different significations of the concept for an Egyptian newspaper all helped shape internationalist, antireligious ideals, joined “the Arab-Jew” in Iraq. To do so, I quote briefly Ballas’s worldview as an Arab intellectual. At its ranks because of their Jewish identity. from Shimon Ballas’s fascinating autobi- the same time, this Arab and Iraqi identity was Ballas’s joining of the ICP was motivated ography Be-Guf Rishon [First Body Singular] also framed in a Western context: in addition by the ICP’s nonsectarian vision. He recalls (Tel Aviv, 2009). Ballas (b. 1930) joined the to his French education (as a bilingual product how his bourgeois family objected to his Iraqi (ICP) at the age of of the Alliance school), many of the writers becoming a member of the party of “these 16. In 1951, with the growing persecution whom Ballas favored belonged to an Arab elite barefooted people,” and how he himself came of both communists and Jews in Iraq, Ballas that firmly believed in the power of science, to feel solidarity with, and value the opinions immigrated to , where he has explored reason, and critical inquiry. This Arab cultural of, Iraqis of various classes through his party the Arab-Jewish experience in both Iraq and imprint, moreover, remained with Ballas activities. Ballas describes his participation Israel in works of fiction and nonfiction. even after he no longer resided in . in a wave of urban riots in Baghdad in 1948: To unpack the problematics of Arab- After having lived in Israel for some time and Jewish identity in Iraq, we need to turn to the having not read or written in Arabic for almost These were the days . . . when I marched terms “Arab” and “Jew.” The Arabic language two years, Ballas happened to look at a book arm in arm with demonstrators whom is typified by dyglosia, namely, by a separation by Taha Husayn just before falling asleep: I have not known before, and when I between a classical written language on the loudly called to topple the government one hand, and a variety of colloquial dialects After I turned off the light, I was flooded of national betrayal, to release political (Iraqi, Egyptian, Algerian, and so on) on the by a wave of Arabic words, phrases, and prisoners, and to have free elections…. other. In Iraq, a number of Arabic dialects were poetic verses, like a sudden break of a dam, They [the communists] courageously spoken, including a Baghdadi-Jewish one. which kept sleep away from me until the fought publications that incited against the Given these linguistic realities, an Arab-Jew light of morning. It was Arabic’s revenge Jews in the rightwing press. . . . In demonstra- could signify a Jew who was able to read and on me, I used to tell myself, a punishment tions along al-Rashid Street the demonstrators write in Arabic; an educated Jew who was able I rightly deserved for turning my back on called: “We are the brothers of the Jews; we to understand the Qur’an and appreciate clas- the affectionate, beloved mother tongue. are the enemies of imperialism and Zion- sical and modern and con- ism!” I remember this rare sight, how as the tribute to Iraqi letters; or an illiterate Jew who The tensions between the different compo- demonstration approached the commercial only spoke a local Jewish-Arabic dialect. Being nents of Arab-Jewish identity do not end at and banking area, and, as this slogan was Jewish also meant various things to different this point. Zionist Iraqis expressed in their chanted by the demonstrators, merchants and people, as many Jews at the time became secu- Hebrew autobiographies their love of Arab bankers, all Jews, came out to the balconies larized. As they joined the ranks of the middle music, cinema, drama, and literature. For and clapped their hands enthusiastically. and upper classes, they continued to celebrate their part, Iraqi-Jewish intellectuals who and visit on the joined the ICP felt that they were part of an Arab-Iraqi-Jewish identity thus grew out of high holidays—yet their leisure practices, the Iraqi nation and its Arab culture (despite the both national Iraqi and Jewish concerns. On

18 AJS Perspectives the one hand, Ballas critiqued what most in new editions thanks to the efforts of Iraqi by contemporary , but presently have young Iraqi radicals criticized at the time: Jews, the newspapers and journals in which only a Hebrew-speaking audience (or Eng- the state’s comprador, pro-British elite, and these works first appeared and in which they lish readers of the works in translation). its antidemocratic nature, typified by its were reviewed and critiqued were based out- The reconstruction of the Baghdadi, Arab, violations of human and welfare rights. His side of Israel, mostly in Iraq. This created the Iraqi, and Jewish experience, which informed marching in the anonymous crowd facili- paradoxical situation in which Iraqi works Arab-Jewish identities, can therefore be only tated the feeling that his concerns were also written by Jews were often inaccessible to partial. It can be, and is, carried out by histo- the concerns of the nation. On the other Iraqi and Arab researchers, while the ways rians, sociologists, and literary scholars who hand, the communist, pro-Jewish position in which these works were received and con- consider the connections between texts, their made him proud of his political affiliations, sumed could only be reconstructed by Iraqis meanings, and the conditions of their produc- and, moreover, elicited the enthusiastic and other Arab scholars. Tragically, with the tion. It is also carried out by second-generation responses to the ICP on the part of Jewish ongoing destruction of the Iraqi archives , and other Israelis sympathetic merchants and bankers, who would not and national libraries since 2004, many of to the Arab-Jewish agenda. Most importantly, normally support a communist agenda. these collections have been lost. Another Ballas reminds us that within Israel, people Another question related to Arab-Jewish outcome is that very sympathetic depictions still carry the memories of their Arab pasts. identity is: When does one cease to be an of Arab-Jewish life, expressed in the works Arab-Iraqi Jew? Some Jewish-Iraqi intellectuals of Iraqi Jews such as Ballas, are unavailable Orit Bashkin is assistant professor of modern argue that the 1941 anti-Jewish riots, known to Arab audiences. Many of Ballas’s texts, Middle Eastern history at the University as the Farhud—in which nearly two hundred especially his historical novels about Arab- of Chicago. She is the author of The Other Jews were killed in the aftermath of a pro- Jewish intellectuals and activists and his Iraq: Pluralism and Culture in Hashemite German coup—changed their national visions evocation of Arabic literary texts within his Iraq (Stanford University Press, 2009). and caused them to turn their backs on their Hebrew novels would be much appreciated Arab-Iraqi identity. Others argue that when they immigrated to Israel, they ceased to be Arab-Jews. In the years 1948–67, the realities of the Arab-Israeli conflict rendered Jewish-Arab identity an oxymoron, and hence many Iraqi Jews adopted a Hebrew culture after discard- ing their Arab cultural heritage. Nonetheless, not all intellectuals went this route: Iraqi- Jewish communists, who joined the Israeli Communist Party, labored to maintain their

Arab-Jewish identity. They formed cultural Committed to an interdisciplinary, comparative, bonds with Palestinian writers, published in Arabic, and organized a literary club dedicated and theoretical approach to to Arab-Jewish coexistence. In their novels and • 35 Faculty Members • short stories, they commemorated Arab-Jew- ish identity in both Iraq and Israel. The works • Over 60 Courses • of Shimon Ballas, and his activities within the • Ph.D. Certificates in and Society & Holocaust, party, are prime examples of the continuation Genocide, and Memory Studies • of the Arab-Jewish project. Writing about his time in the Israeli Communist Party, Ballas, • Jewish Studies Major through Department of Religion • although highly critical of the party’s leader- ship, recalls fondly his first encounter with the • Jewish Studies Minor •

Palestinian novelist Emile Habibi; his contri- • Visiting Israeli Writers Program • butions to the party’s literary journal, al-Jadid; his meetings with Iraqi-Jewish communists • Initiative in Holocaust, Genocide, and Memory Studies • whom he had not known in Iraq; and cultural • Jewish Studies Workshop • activities in Arabic organized by Iraqi Jews in Israel in collaboration with other . Jewish intellectuals in Iraq produced a number of literary works in Arabic, and Ba‘thi historiography has acknowledged the seminal www.jewishculture.illinois.edu role played by Jews in the formation of and culture. While many of the texts by Iraqi Jews owe their survival to Israeli archives (most notably the archive in the Museum for the History of Babylonian Jewry in Or-Yehuda) and have been anthologized

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