The Decline of the Iraqi Jewish Community in the Novel Rokemet hachalomot mibagdad (The Embroiderer of Baghdad’ dreams) by Ezra Tsabani

Abstract

The pogrom in Baghdad in June 1941 serves as a backdrop for writer Ezra Tsabani who, in his first novel, confronts the reader with the drama experienced by the Jewish community in Iraq. His narrative takes place in the colorful streets of Baghdad's markets, where Juliet lives, the first-born of the Dashti family, a family that lives in the old Jewish quarter of the 1940s. Juliet, the young embroiderer, works hard to support the members of her family who live a reality of poverty and oppression in a city where there is a tense climate of suspicion between Muslims and Jews. The events unleashed by Farhud opened wounds that encouraged Jews to leave Iraq for Israel.