Arab Jews, Layla Murad and Egypt. A Forgotten History.

Layla Murad and Egyptian Jewry in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries:

The Egyptian Jewish community was said to peak at around 80,000 in the mid-1940s. Some members of the community were writers, directors, and political activists, and they were highly influential in the budding Egyptian film industry. They made up a diverse and vibrant community which had an iconic presence in the now distant cosmopolitan era of early twentieth century Egypt. Gudrun Kramer divides the Jewish community into three subdivisions, beginning from the middle of the nineteenth century into the first quarter of the twentieth. She states that in addition to the 7,000 indigenous Egyptian Jews who had lived there for centuries, there was a rise of immigration of many Sephardi Jews in the mid-nineteenth century. These immigrants predominantly came from southeastern Europe and provinces of the Ottoman Empire such as Syria, Greece, Italy and the Balkans, along with other Sephardi and “Oriental” Jews from North Africa and Yemen. Lastly, there was a small group of Ashkenazi Jews who also immigrated to Egypt after being expelled from Jaffa by the local Ottoman commander.

In parallel to this mass influx of international Jewry was the sociocultural differentiation that it caused from the time of the British occupation of Egypt in 1882 up until the 1930s and 1940s. This process was closely linked to economic and cultural development within the country that furthermore improved the social status of the Jews, meanwhile it did not facilitate a unified, socially and culturally hegemonic community. Perhaps the most interesting divide was the vast employment of different languages for different situations, ethnic groups and classes.  Kramer suggests that indigenous Jews spoke Egyptian Arabic, not a Judeo-Arabic hybrid dialect, and some were also literate in Modern Standard Arabic as used in the press and literature. The various non-Egyptian, Arab Jewish immigrants in Egypt also continued to speak their respective Arabic dialects. The remaining Sephardi immigrants spoke Ladino, but also knew French, Italian, Turkish or Arabic. This led to a bout of linguistic chaos; the Greek Jews spoke Greek, the Italian Jews spoke Italian, while the Turkish Jews spoke Ladino, and the Ashkenazim spoke either Yiddish, Polish or Russian. Upper and middle class Jews often adopted one of the leading European languages. Initially this was Italian, particularly in Alexandria, until French took its place around 1905 as the lingua franca of the local foreign minorities and Turkish-Egyptian elite. English was also used in business and official contacts. Kramer claims that colloquial Egyptian Arabic was just enough to deal with local or domestic “employees” and was never able to replace one of the European languages as a mother tongue. Knowledge of Hebrew was equally low.

  In her closing argument, Kramer asks whether there was still a chance to integrate the Jews in Egyptian society in the 1940s as it became increasingly defined in terms of religion and ethnicity. She argues, “Even if the Jews had all become Egyptian patriots, learned Arabic and applied for Egyptian nationality, it would still not have changed the basic fact that they overwhelmingly were not of Egyptian origin, not “real Egyptians” and not Muslim.” I wish to question this statement with two names: Um Kulthum and Layla Murad. If Egyptian Jews had not been integrated into society on a large scale, they would not have been able to interject on the entertainment industry such as they had, particularly in film and theatre, and reach stardom like Layla Murad, as a preeminent singer and actress, second only to Um Kulthum in the 1940s. Furthermore, the immense popularity of Um Kulthum, a non-Jew who was brought to Israel by Egyptian Jews, and did not diminish after the mass migration. I would like to now take a closer look at these stars. 

Layla Murad, “The Guitar of Arabic Song”, as she became known in the Egyptian press of the day, was born Lillian Zaki Mordechai in cosmopolitan Alexandria in 1918. Her father Ibrahim Zaki was a famous and well respected musician, composer and religious cantor. She was trained by her father and Dawood Hosni (1870-1937), another towering figure in Egyptian music, also a Jew, who was responsible for composing the first operetta in Arabic, “Samson and Delilah.” He was associated with the first generation of Egyptian nationalist composers like Sayyid Darwish. It has been said that Layla was discovered in 1938 by Mohammed Abdel Wahab, the leading male vocalist and composer of the interior period, who chose her to play opposite him in the film, Yahya al-Hub. Under Togo Mizrahi, another prominent Jewish director, her acting skills developed, where she was cast in five musical romance films directed and produced by him between 1939-1944 that featured her name. In 1945, she married actor-director-producer Anwar Wagdi, and a year later converted to Islam. This was said to be out of love for her husband or out of concern for the children they might conceive. In 1949, Murad’s arguably most famous film was released, Ghazal al-Banat. 

Walter Armbrust’s article “The Golden Age Before the Golden Age” examines this relatively simple film’s cultural importance. He states that “religious affiliation was not a prominent part of their (the actors) public images”; it is likely that the audience knew they were watching a film starring a Muslim (Anwar Wagdi) and Christian (Nagib Rihani) and a Jew (Layla), despite her conversion to Islam in the mid-1940s. Armbrust claims that Ghazal al-Banat “was history” and suggests it was an “excellent example of the power of commercial cinema to construct a national community,” regardless of religious affiliation, or even ethnic background. Furthermore, he concludes that “this was Egyptian nationalism in the making. It was a completely synthetic system of communication that was instrumental in defining what Egypt was”. Layla Murad was part of this national narrative, despite Kramer’s argument against it.

While for several years her romance with Anwar made them the darling couple of the Egyptian entertainment industry, it did not last and the couple got divorced in 1951. She appeared in twenty-seven films and sang over 1,000 songs, many of which became classics.  She decided to retire at the age of 38, after her last song was banned and her last film failed. She passed away in a Cairo hospital in 1995. Her legacy lives on today with her face plastered all over nostalgic cafes and memorabilia of this long passed Golden Era of Egyptian cultural history. Remakes of her most classic songs continue, such as "Ana Albi Dalili" (My Heart Is My Guide), which inspired the name of a soap opera about her life in 2009. It debuted on Jordanian TV and on Egypt's privately owned Dream channel every night during Ramadan that year and attracted a great amount of attention. Despite Murad’s disappearance from the stage in the early 1950s and her alleged Zionist connections, her memory is still alive and well and exists despite political conflicts. Today dozens of website are dedicated to her, her films are constantly aired on Egyptian TV and her songs are still listened to and revived. 

Arguably one of Murad’s best-known songs, "Ana Albi Dalili”, has been sung by many contemporary stars such as the Egyptian Carmen Soliman, the first winner of Arab Idol, Syrian Superstar Asalah Nasri on her own TV show Soula, and in 1974 a very young Majida Roumy, the Lebanese legend, as a trophy winner on Studio al Fan, a precursor to the modern day Arab Idol. The original was sung in a film by the same name in 1947, directed by and starting alongside her then-husband Anwar Wagdi. These clips are important because they bring attention to the widespread knowledge and admiration for Layla Murad, all over the Arab world and in different generations and contexts. This song and singer are therefore synonymous with each other, such as Um Kulthum and “Inta Omri” or Fairouz and “Nassam Alayna al-Hawa”. Layla Murad’s status as a cultural icon, personality and moment in contemporary Arab history is unimpeachable, regardless of her Jewish heritage, because she was an assimilated Egyptian and a cultural treasure. 

Arab Jews, The Kuwaiti's and Iraq. A Forgotten History.

The Kuwaiti Brothers, Salima Murad and Iraqi Jewry in the Twentieth Century

Nassim Rejwan opens his memoir, The Last Jews in Baghdad, with a powerful comparison, “It has often been said that New York is a Jewish City. I think one can safely say the same about Baghdad of the first half of the twentieth century.” An Ottoman census in 1917 numbered Baghdad’s Jews at 80,000 out of the city’s 202,000 residents. By 1947, according to the national census, the Jews were numbered at 118, 00 of Iraq’s population of 4.5 million. Unofficial sources estimated the number as high as 130,000. While smaller communities resided in provinces all over the country, communities were highly concentrated in the largest cities with 77,500 in Baghdad, 10,500 in Basra and 10,300 in Mosul. Nassim Rejwan notes that “[i]n 1904, the French vice-consul of Baghdad gave the number of Jews in the Ottoman vilayet as forty thousand, out of a total population of 60,000.” In Rejwan’s memoir, he divides the Jewish community into four economic classifications: the rich class mainly made up of merchants and bankers, composing 5% of the population; the middle class consisting of petty traders and employees at 30%; the poor that made up of about 60% of the population and the remaining 5% composed of beggars, mostly from the north.

 

Iraq’s Jewish history dates back to 4,000 years to the time of the Patriarch Abraham in Ur, and several generations later when the Jews were sent to exile in Babylon.  In more contemporary history, The Sabbath and Jewish holidays brought commerce and trade in the city to a standstill. Not only did the Jews, who owned the majority of the shops, close their businesses and refrain from shopping, but so did the non-Jews. “Visiting Kazimayn in 1934-1935, the Lebanese Shi’a scholar Mohsin al-Amin noted the practice of the Shia merchants of Baghdad of visiting the shrines of the imams in Kazaimayn on a Saturday instead of a Friday,” the official Islamic holy day and day of rest. “He explained that the business activities of the Shi’a merchants depended on the service of the Jewish merchants who dominated trade in Baghdad”, henceforth having the Shi’a take their weekly day off on Saturdays as well.  The use of language in Iraq was less diverse for the Jews, in comparison to Egypt or other parts of North African or the Levant. 

Joel Benin writes that “Iraqi Jews spoke the Baghdadi Jewish dialect of Arabic at home, and from the late nineteenth century, adopted Standard Arabic as their language of culture. . . Many Iraqi Jews developed a fondness for French and English and sometimes positioned themselves as translators from these languages into Arabic. By and large the Jewish communities rejected the Alliance (Israelite Universelle) policy of adopting French as the sole language of instruction. Most Jewish schools retained Arabic as the language of instruction and their students attained high levels of mastery”. Despite being more cosmopolitan as a result of their exposure to French and English, vis-a-vis the French Alliance school system (which secularized the Jewish community and gave them better educational opportunities then their Muslim neighbors in the early twentieth century), the vast majority of Iraqi Jews remained in the Arab-Muslim cultural sphere.

Amongst this backdrop of Arabic cultural integration, Iraqi Jews played a disproportionate role in music. Although there were Muslim and Christian practitioners of music and singers of all faiths, the Jewish community ensured high standards of musical instruction. Of all the instrumentalists in 1930s Iraq, 250 were Jews and only three were Muslims. In 1932, all the Iraqi musicians who attended the first Arabic Music Congress in Cairo were Jews, although the singer was a Muslim. At that conference the Iraqi ensemble received the first prize from King Fuad. In the years 1950-51, as Iraqi Jewry was being airlifted to Israel, a limousine drew up to block the departing plane’s path at Baghdad airport. The Kuwaiti ruler had sent his emissaries to persuade the Jewish musical duo, Salih and Dawoud al-Kuwaiti (known as the Kuwaiti Brothers), to move back to Kuwait with a guarantee that they would be treated there with great respect. 

Most distinguished of all Arab Jewish artists of the twentieth century were the Kuwaiti Brothers, Salih and Dawoud. The Brothers were born in 1908 and 1910 in Kuwait to an Iraqi family from Basra. Their father, Ezra Erzoni, a trader, moved to Kuwait at the end of the nineteenth century with fifty other Jewish families. When Saleh was ten and Dawoud was eight, their uncle returned from a business trip to India and presented a violin to Saleh and an oud to Dawoud. In Kuwait, the boys were child prodigies. They blended the traditional Arabic maqam style with European influences, under the guidance of their teacher Khalid al-Bakir, who discovered their exceptional talent and taught them the elements of Kuwaiti, Bahraini, Yemeni, and Hijazi music. They took the name al-Kuwaiti in honor of their biggest fan, the Emir of Kuwait, for whom they would give private performances.

During this period, they began to make records for Baidaphone, a Lebanese recording label, which came especially to Kuwait for recordings. In 1928 this stopped, and they had to move back to Basra to record. After performing in night clubs and concert halls all over the country, they finally settled in Baghdad in 1930. In the thirties, they became favorites of King Ghazi of Iraq, performing at the funeral of his father King Faisal and at Ghazi’s coronation. In 1936, the Minister of Education approached them to assemble an orchestra for the new Iraqi broadcasting service. Saleh and Dawoud worked for the broadcasting station until 1945.

A legendary career moment for the Brothers in the early 1930s was working with the two great Egyptian legends, Umm Kulthum in 1931 and Mohammed Abdel-Wahab in 1932. Umm Kulthum asked what the most popular song in Iraq was and was told that it was "Galbak Sakher Jalmud," written by Saleh. She wanted to learn the song, so Saleh (and Salima) taught her the words and the music. She sang the song with the oud for an entire month of performances. In 1932, Abdel-Wahab came to Baghdad to perform. He showed great interest in Iraqi and Kuwaiti music, and sat after his performances with Saleh, playing and learning from one another. Working in parallel with the Brothers and often singing their compositions was Salima Murad. 

The most famous Iraqi female singer of that era was the Jewish Salima Murad. However, little has been written on Murad and her significance, leaving a great deal to be explored in the field. She later married Iraq’s most prominent tarab singer, Nazim Al-Ghazali. In 2013, the Israeli film, Farewell Baghdad, was produced based on the novel by the same name, written by Iraqi-born Jewish author Eli Amir. The film was directed by Nissim Dayan and released in 2014. The story depicts the Jewish exodus from Iraq to Israel in the early 1950’s. This is the first film in the history of cinema to be produced in Baghdadi Judeo-Arabic. However, the Jewish characters switch to Baghdadi Muslim Arabic when speaking with non-Jews. Mira Awad, the Israeli Arab actress plays Salima Murad and sings her iconic, “Galbak Sakhar Jalmud", written and composed for her by the Kuwaitis. 

In the film Salima is portrayed by singing with her takht in a cafe filled with hookah smoking and arak drinking men. Sadly, she is presented as a lounge singer and a sexual object, as the ex-lover to Kabi’s father, the main protagonist, rather than a legendary singer that demands respect. It was said by Shlomo Al-Kuwaiti, Salih’s son, that when the Kuwaiti Brothers had to made the decision to immigrate to Israel and they asked Salima to join them, Salima told Salih, ‘Who will I sing to in Israel? My life is singing and in Iraq people know me. No one knows me in Israel.” She never immigrated to Israel and stayed in Iraq until her dying day in 1974. A television series was produced and broadcast during the Ramadan 2012 season depicting her life and love with her famous husband, Nazim al-Ghazali. 

Whereas Salima stayed behind and died in her homeland, the Kuwaiti Brothers were airlifted to Israel in 1950 with the majority of Iraqi Jewry in Operation Ezra and Nehemiah. Once they arrived there, their artistic careers took a turn for the worst. They arrived to a state where the majority of the population came from the West and had no interest in Arabic music. When the Arabic extension of Kol Israel, the official radio station of the Israeli broadcasting authority, expanded to include more programming, Saleh and Dawoud received their own weekly program. Nevertheless, outside that program they were treated with condescension and were reduced to catering for a niche market of a few hundred thousand in Israel, when they had had seven million listeners in Iraq. Dawoud died of a heart attack in 1976 and Saleh in 1986.

Arguably the most famous “folkloric” Iraqi songs, “Fog al-Nakhal” and “Mayḥāna" are attributed to the  Kuwaiti Brothers, something that is not extensively known, due to the fact that Nazim Al-Ghazali sang them as well. These songs are continuously sung all over the Arab world as the most popular and prevalent examples of Iraqi folklore. Many influential contemporary artists have their own renditions of these legendary anthems. The Lebanese Myriam Fares incorporated “Mayḥāna" into her show when singing live in Iraqi Kurdistan for Norouz. The Iraqi singer and composer based out of the Emirates, Walid Al-Shaami, sang “Mayḥāna” at his concert in Qatar. “Fog al-Nakhal" is perhaps even more famous then “Mayḥāna” with countless renditions, particularly for musical talent shows, which are always tied to Iraqi national pride.

During Saddam Hussein's rule there was a special committee appointed to‘re-arrange' the Iraqi musical archives.  Despite Saddam's attempts, Saleh’s name was hard to get rid of. His songs were still being played - only without the mention of his name. Students of music at the time still recall today that mentioning his name was forbidden, even when his work was being discussed and taught. Today, this situation has changed dramatically and the issue is being discussed over the internet and in the media. In 2006, the television station, Al-Hurra, broadcast a program about Iraqi music in the 20th century. Saleh was chosen by a panel of experts on the show as the definitive Iraqi composer of the 30s and 40s.With the downfall of Saddam a renewed sense of interest has taken place in Iraq and Kuwait in the last decade. The cultural climate has since changed in Iraq, and researchers and media people are now trying to restore its musical heritage. As a result of the Al-Hurra broadcast, the Brothers’ names began to appear once more, attributing the credit to them. 

Moreover, the restoration of their name has aroused a public debate in Kuwait and Iraq, with each of the countries attempting to claim ownership of their legacy. Shlomo al Kuwaiti told Haaretz in 2006 after the production of the greatest hits album, “Their Star Will Never Fade.” Although the CD is not being distributed in either country, he sent it to journalists and scholars, who are arousing renewed interest in the Al Kuwaiti legacy. Interestingly, Kuwait is arguing that even though they worked mainly in Iraq, the establishment should recognize their work as part of the national heritage. Furthermore, Shlomo states that in Lebanon an article was published that proves that many of the songs that are considered Arab masterpieces, and have been adopted by the Islamic world, are in fact the work of  Arab Jewish artists. He states, “[i]n this context, it should be pointed out that my father was always opposed to mixing politics and art, although he took advantage of his status in Iraq in order to help the Jewish community in its ties with the government.” 

Despite Saddam’s attempt to wipe the Kuwaiti Brothers’ presence from Iraqi memory, people still utter their names and countries still argue over their legacy. Dudu Tassa is Dawoud's grandson, and has tried to reinvent the Brothers’ songs in Israel for a new generation. Dudu Tassa is a major figure in the Israeli rock scene. The singer-songwriter and guitarist released his first album when he was just 13. He produced the album, “Dudu Tassa & The Kuwaitis” in 2011, his first attempt at restoring his family’s rich musical legacy, while giving it a modern makeover. In the Kuwaiti album and show, Tassa argues that “with his powerful voice and innovative musicianship, salutes the Al-Kuwaitis, [Tassa] sings their songs in Arabic and Hebrew, and integrates Iraqi, Middle-eastern, and Israeli rock music, in his unique style known as “Iraq’n’Roll”  (also the name of the documentary film made about Dudu Tassa)”. 

While much can be said regarding the treatment of the Brothers’ legacy and work, both inside Iraq and Israel, that is beyond the scope of this paper. However, purely based on identity, I believe that the Kuwaiti Brothers and Salima Murad demonstrate the integration of Iraqi Jews into greater Iraqi society. This proves that they were considered by the people and they considered themselves, at least culturally, as Arab Iraqis who happened to be of Jewish faith and heritage. Regardless of the political turmoil that caused widespread Jewish migration from Iraq, this cultural heritage still lives on today and is constantly being reinvigorated. With the opening of the Jaber Al-Ahmad Cultural Centre in Kuwait, a tiny hall has been present in honor of the commemoration of the the 90th anniversary of the first recorded Kuwaiti song. The honorees are the Kuwaiti Brothers. 

Kuwait, Cairo, Dubai and Bahrain: December 2015

Fairouz, The Morning and Lebanon

The past several weeks, have been rainy in Southern California and with the passing of the rain, incredibly sunny and cheerful days. With these changes in the skies, nothing is more appropriate then listening to Fairouz. In this SoCal terrain, nothing is more reminiscent of Lebanon. It is fascinating how memory and identity work, and how people, places, sounds and scents can remind of us of our pasts. In the case of Fairouz (and Om Kolthoum), she not only represent's her nation as a powerhouse cultural icon, way more influential then any politician or monarch, she also represents an entire block of the day, everyday. Is there any other such person that carries so much power on daily basis, no matter how minute you might think (background) music might be.
"In the morning, Fairouz's hopeful voice, like the trilling of a songbird, is fresh and cheery. Her melancholy lifts your spirts. In Fairouz's company the world is bright, and though sadness is always present, behind every word, her voice takes you to a lush hilltop under skies the sweetest blue." As perfectly stated by Saleem Haddad in his incredible novel, Guapa. As the famous Arabic saying goes and as quoted from the novel "you must wake up to Fairouz and fall asleep to Oum Kalthoum. Fairouz in the morning, Oum Kalthoum in the evening" (Haddad, 331).

No for a snippet from my Masters thesis for some more insight on Fairouz. . .

"This saying has become such a part of popular culture that contemporary singers refer to it in their songs. Majid Al-Mohandis, the Iraqi Pan-Gulf singer mentions this cultural phenomena in the lyrics of this Pan-Arab song in the “White Dialect” (lahja al-bayda) “Sabah Al-Khair”: “Ya Omri, Sabah al-Nour, Yalla AsHa Ghenit Fairouz: My life (sweetie), Good Morning, come on wake up, Fairouz already sang.” Associations between Fairouz, the morning, a cup of Turkish coffee, and (possibly) a cigarette have been ingrained into the Arab psyche over the generations as a set of inseparable factors. Traditionally no radio station would begin its morning broadcast without playing something from Fairouz. Her soothing and strong voice has become inseparable with the morning and this tradition that began with the radio continues today on social media as well. Even Instagram accounts like insta6arab will begin their morning posts with a clip or recording from the legendary diva. 

Fairouz also sang in al-‘ammiya, or (Lebanese) dialect, and Classical Arabic, predominately in poems recounting Arab greatness. Despite being a Lebanese cultural icon, she established herself as a pan-Arab singer and cultural icon that while still symbolizing Lebanon, reached and represented all the Arabs. She is still loved and can be heard all over the world to the present day. She has been able to successfully cross from the classical era to today and from folklore to contemporary genres. Hammond writes that “No Arab singer has managed to merge the traditional and the modern as Fairouz has.” Fairouz is the epitome of dignified Arab nationalism due to her patriotic songs.  Her image and “mythical” status in Arab culture have placed her on par with Umm Kulthum and given her nicknames like “Ambassador to the Stars,” “Neighbor to the Moon” and “the Jewel of Lebanon.” She is the only one of the original Divas still living." . . 

My most recent trip to Lebanon was this past December 2017 for about 10 days. I have since heavily referred to Beirut and my memories of this trip as 'cafe life.' Beirut with its beautiful cafes spread out from, in the words of Sabah (another mega artist and Arab cultural icon), Sana'ya to Rouche and Manara, Hara Hara, from Bab Idris to Hamra." In the morning, until about 1pm when the radio stations and playlists switch, you hear Fairouz, EVERYWHERE. In every cafe, every shop, every car.  This is not only in Lebanon. I experienced the same thing in Kuwait and Cairo on this last trip as well. Needless to say, 'Fairouz, the morning, a cup of Turkish coffee,' and in my case a glass of orange juice rather then a cigarette, has been ingrained into my psyche as a set of inseparable factors. The only addition I will make to that is my memories of Lebanon; its beautiful landscapes, its beautiful people and its lovely love of life, all with Fairouz and a tiny cup of Turkish coffee. 

Haji Firoozeh, Saleh Yeh Roozeh

The start of Spring is one of the most beautiful times of the year. Not so much for the weather when you live in Southern California, we don't really have seasons after all, but rather for Norouz, or Persian New Year. With the coming of the Spring Equinox comes the ancient Iranian tradition and celebration of Spring. Although it started out as a Zoroastrian (an ancient Iranian monotheistic religion prior to the coming of Islam, having begun in parallel to the start of Judaism ) today, this holiday has no religious affiliations, it is for all. Its origins are attributed to the mighty Persian king, Jamshid. 

Norouz has three main celebrations. The week before, where we jump over fire to purify ourselves for the New Year, Chahrshanbe Soori, the actual New year itself, the first day of Spring, Norouz and the marking of the end of Norouz, thirteen days later for Sizdah Be-dar where people spend time picnicking outdoors. Ironically, it is the pre New Years celebration of Chahrshanbe Soori, that resonates with me the most. It is the single tradition that can always be counted on in my family. We roll into my Grandmother's giant backyard and start laying out the metaphoric bricks to set tiny (contained) bonfires to jump over. As we jump over the fire we proclaim "zardi-ye man az to, sorkhi-ye to az man,  literally meaning "[let] your redness [be] mine, my paleness (literally yellowness) yours." This is considered a purificatory practice for the coming year. 

With the coming of the New Year comes the presentation of the 'Haft Sin,' the Seven S's. This crucial tradition displays seven items starting with the letter S (Sin in the Persian alphabet). The items symbolically correspond to seven divine creations. The Haft-Sin includes; Sabzeh (Sprouts growing in a dish) symbolizing rebirth, Samanu (sweet pudding of wheat germ) symbolizing affluence, Senjed (dried fruit of the oleaster tree) symbolizing love, Sir (garlic) symbolizing medicine, Sib (apple) symbolizing health/beauty, Somaq (Sumac) symbolizing the (color of the) sunrise and Serkeh (vinegar) symbolizing age/patience. In addition to these seven, we include Sonbol (hyacinth flower) symbolizing the coming of spring and Sekkeh (coins) symbolizing wealth and prosperity. Other items that have made there way to this glorious table that have NO relation to the letter Sin include; Decorated Eggs (similar to those used for Easter) symbolizing fertility, A Mirror for cleanliness and honesty, Lit Candles symbolizing enlightenment and happiness, A Bowl of Water with an Orange floating in it symbolizing the earth in space, Rose Water symbolizing magical cleansing powers, Goldfish representing life and the transition from Pisces to Aries (Esfand to Farvardin). 

Our Haft Sin, rather then Sonbol which is pretty pungent and drives my brothers crazy, I opted for tulips this year.

Yesterday as Norouz was in full swing, I was driving around LA blasting traditional/folkloric Persian songs by Rastak. Truly inspirational, spiritual, happy and just FUN music! (Will leave the links below for some of my favorite tracks.) Thats the thing that I love about Norouz, it brings you back to your roots and allows you to be prideful of your roots for a truly ancient and positive celebration. One of my favorite momentous is a greeting card I bought from a Persian artist on Westwood Blvd which I have saved since I was maybe 9 years old. Unfortunately his studio has since closed. The card was initially a giant painting over the mantle in his studio. As a child I remember being extremely intrigued by it and wanting to have a piece of it. This card is the only piece my grandma would let me have! The scene is the Persian equivalent to Santa Claus, tradition that is underplayed today with Iranians. From what I remember being told as a kid, the painting shows the coming of Amu Norouz (Uncle Norouz) coming in from the Damavand mountains on his magical phoenix bringing gifts for children, over the ancient ruins of Persepolis. Amu Norouz is characterized as an elderly silver-haired man who puts on a felt hat, has a walking stick, and wears a long cloak of blue canvas. Along with Amu Norouz (not pictured below) is the infamous Haji Firouz, (maybe the equivalent to Santa's Elves?) his face covered in soot, and clad in bright red clothes and a felt hat. He dances through the streets while singing and playing a tambourine. Haji Firoozeh, Saleh Yeh Roozeh!

Incredible Persian Folkloric Songs:
https://youtu.be/ll4kcpA7Ec8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y12uIGpzqZ4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MW2N27_PfB4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_m5U0EtdIY

In Conclusion:

Norouz Mobarak (Happy Norouz)

Eid-eh Shoma Mobarak (Happy New Year to You)

Norouz Pirooz (Wishing You a Prosperous New Year)

Sad Saal be in Saal-ha (Wishing You 100 More Happy New Years)

Sephardic Reflections

This past week I completed reading my academic idol and inspiration, Ella Habiba Shohat's, most recent anthology, "On the Arab-Jew, Palestine, and Other Displacements." This book in a word is my bible. Nothing has 'connected the dots' more for me regarding my hyphenated identity, reflections on Orientalism, Eurocentrism, and the effects of colonialism/imperialism on contemporary Middle Eastern identity, particularly on Jews and Middle Eastern Jews at that, then this book. 

On that note, last Saturday morning as I was brewing my Turkish coffee, I came across that weeks Jewish Journal splashed with the head line "THE SEPHARDIC SPIRIT: Is it going mainstream?" While most Sephardi, or more accurately, Mizrahi, Jews that I grew up with would react to this cover story as something sweet, that 'oh! how nice of them', I literally could not help but to be offended and at the very least annoyed. The reason for this is that why should being Sephardi, Mizrahi or even Ashkenazi for that matter be something that should be going "mainstream?" Are we not people with an ancient history and culture, frankly much richer, colorful and prosperous then the Ashkenazim? (Ironically the article almost hints at that fact too. While sill fetishizing us as being from "sunny climates" and having "sunny views on life," opposed to the cold Ashkenazim from Russia and Poland.) This comes down to a key point that Professor Shohat makes in her work: "Modern European Jews came to speak on behalf of all Jews, powerful shaping Eurocentric representation of "Jewish History and Culture" (Shohat, 3.) 

Before I continue I think a slight vocabulary lesson is in order:
Orientalism:
(in short) the representation of Asia, especially the Middle East, in a stereotyped way that is regarded as embodying a colonialist attitude. (in more detail) a way of seeing that imagines, emphasizes, exaggerates and distorts differences of Arab peoples and cultures as compared to that of Europe and the U.S. It often involves seeing Arab culture as exotic, backward, uncivilized, and at times dangerous. 

BUT, please, for a truly well rounded understanding read Edward Said's revolutionary book, that as a Middle Eastern person, will literally open your eyes to so much about yourself and the way the world perceives us. 

Eurocentrism defined by Professor Shohat in her book with Robert Stam, "Unthinking Eurocentrism, Multiculturalism and the Media": 

Eurocentric discourse projects a linear historical trajectory leading from classical Greece (constructed as "pure," "Western," and "democratic") to imperial Rome and then to the metropolitan capitals of Europe and the US. Europe, alone and unaided, is seen as the "motor" for progressive historical change: it invents class society, feudalism, capitalism, the industrial revolution. Eurocentrism appropriates the cultural and material production of non-Europeans while denying both their achievements and its own appropriation, thus consolidating its sense of self and glorifying its own cultural anthropophagy. 

In sum, Eurocentrism sanitizes Western history while patronizing and even demonizing the non-West; it thinks of itself in terms of its noblest achievements - science, progress, humanism - but of the non-West in terms of its deficiencies, real or imagined.

Very briefly:

Ashkenazim- Descendants of (Eastern) European Jews

Mizrahim- Descendants of Babylon Jews (Iran/Iraq), the Gulf, Central Asia, etc. 

Sephardim- Descendants of Iberian Jews (Spain/Portugal) who made their way to Ottoman lands (Turkey/Greece/Syria/ North Africa) after the Christian explosion of Jews and Muslims in 1492 

While culturally Sephardim and Mizrahi are usually inflated into one due to their close cultural ties and sometimes ethnic overlap (in places like Egypt, Syria and North Africa), I would argue that they are ethnically different and have a slightly different history. I'll speak for myself when I say that it is highly UNLIKELY that my ancestors immigrated from Iran/Iraq to Spain and back to Iran/Iraq again once they were expelled, right? The case of North Africa and the Mediterranean makes more plausible sense to me, especially based on socio-political geography. 

Back to my original point now of why I find this headline offensive, it continues to 'other' Sephardim/Mizrahim as the "other" in Jewish History and Culture with a capital H and C. The subtitle of "Is it going mainstream?" continues to fetishize Sephardic culture as something exotic and essentially a fade at that. Could you imagine that ever being done to Ashkenazi culture? I would assume not. Why? Because it is assumed that we live in America and America is Western and White therefore the Ashkenazim are White Jews and dictate the way things are done, how we are represented and who speaks for us. 

My entire life attending American Jewish institutions like Synagogue or Hebrew school, I always felt out of placed. While some Temples were better then others, I always felt awkward and the only time I ever enjoyed celebrating my Jewish-ness was in the home, at Shabbat, celebrating Jewish holidays and attending different milestone celebrations like Bar/Bat Mitzvahs and weddings. Judaism to me was always the family. (As cheesy as that might sound.) My family was never religious, Ashkenazim would have qualified us as being Conservative, but in hind sight now, I see how that sort of ideology was imposed on us and never really made sense for us. I will never forget my (what Persian Jews call) Tefelin Bandoon, or the wrapping of Tefelin (a set of small black leather boxes containing scrolls of parchment inscribed with verses from the Torah.) It was held in Chabad of Westwood, I believe the largest Chabad on the West Coast with a hefty Persian community. I will never forget the way the Rabbi was sneering at my grandfather for the Mizrahi tone of his prayer or for his style of wearing the Talit ( a fringed garment). Turning to him that "oh, dont worry we will help you and correct you" something that even as a 13 year old boy made me feel like 'you savages dont know what proper Jewish practices are, we are here to correct you.' 

This has greatly influenced me to this day and how I connect and reject certain aspects of Judaism. While I greatly disagree with the presentation of this article, I did appreciate one major part of it, the positive emphasis on historical Jewish-Muslim relations. The continued, incorrect, demonization of Muslims and Islam towards Jews and Judaism has to stop. This is again, another Eurocentric Zionist brainwashing tool to get the Mizrahi into Israel, make them second class citizens and continue to spread Orientalist fears throughout the world. As I always say the last 70 years should not be seen as a reflection of the relations over an over 1400 year period. 

Most of all, I was very pleasantly surprised to see a Journal of such magnitude print something that says "Sephardim could be at the forefront of solving some of Israel's and the Diaspora's most pressing problems.  . . A lot of people say if there were Sephardic Jews in charge of either the government or the peace process, we would probably have found a way to get together with our neighbors a long time ago." All based on the "keen experience in terms of how they (Sephardim) lived with, related to, dealt with and coexisted with Muslim populations, but unfortunately Israeli society and government has never looked to the Sephardic community for insight into that." In addition to that, I appreciate the critique of the Ashkenazi ideological "mold of Orthodox, Conservative, Reform and Reconstructionist," being imposed on Sephardim. Furthermore, how they are reclaiming their roots and their cultural tradition, away from this extreme form of Judaism that was imposed on them when exposed to the West. 

All in all, I wish that the continued marginalization and fetishizing of the Sephardim/Mizrahim in mainstream Jewish Culture and History would come to an end. While this article is trying to make a positive contribution to that, its style and presentation suggests a taste of old school Orientalism, nonetheless. This topic requires much more discussion and further probing, but I hope this can be a start. 

Shabbat Shalom! 

Persian for Arabs.

As soon as an Arab (especially a Kuwaiti) finds out that I speak Persian (Farsi), they will immediately start in with the few words they know; Ch (or if you are unlucky) Sh-etori, Khodafez and of course a curse word or two, usually khak to saret. Once the initial laughs are exchanged, the more serious reflections on the similarity of the languages are exchanged. I wish to begin with the alphabet. Persian has 4 more letters then Arabic, although 3 of those 4 sounds are found in Arabic dialects. پ or the ب with 3 dots below, the letter for the P sound is the only sound NOT found in any Arabic dialect (although I have heard that it is found amongst some Iraqis, but I digress). The پ is found however throughout the Arab world, in the French Bakery chain پول.
The three 'extra' Persian letters are as follows: چ/گ/ژ/. The چ or the ج with 3 dots, is the Ch sound in the word 'chill', found in the Gulf and Iraq. The گ or the ک with 2 lines, Gaf, as in the G sound in the word 'go', also found in the Gulf, Iraq, Bedouin accents in Jordan and the Egyptian ج. An interesting side note is that I have seen the چ used in Egypt as a J sound, while the ج is still exclusively used as a G sound. A common example is جراچ for a (car) garage or چورچ for the name, George. Lastly the ژ, the equivalent to the Levantine or North African pronunciation of the ج, the more "French" stylized pronunciation of J as Zh, opposed to the proper MSA pronunciation of ج as the J in Jim, really only pronounced 'correctly' in Saudi and Iraqi dialects of Arabic and Persian. Lastly the Kurdish ڤ or the ف with 3 dots, V is a sound not found in Arabic, but found in Persian as the و. Where as the و in Persian is a V, in Arabic it is a W, not found in Persian. Hence the 'Tehrangelian' youth, that make fun of their parents and grandparents for pronouncing Westwood (The heart of the Persian community in LA) as Vestvood.
Persian, unlike Arabic, does not make a distinction in pronunciation of similar sounding letters. Hence, ت/ط, ه/ح, ق/غ, are all the same sound. س/ص not to mention ث are all the same sound. Worst of all Persian has no emphatic consonants. ض/ظ/ذ/ are all sound the same sound as ز. So where as most Persians and Arabs think that they can NOT understand each other, the truth is if you are reading the words rather then hearing them (or now that you have read this tutorial) chances are you would understand a lot more then you previously assumed. Last but not least Persian has no ع, it is often times pronounced as a ء. As in the Persian (or Arabic) word for love; عشق, pronounced in Arabic as 'ashq/3sh8 and in Persian as Eshgh. I hope to able to spread more عشق through this post and in future posts, showing the things that connect us to each other rather then spread us apart.


P.S. My favorite Persian word that found its way into an Arabic dialect, ميوه. The word for fruit in Persian made its way into the Kuwaiti dialect, pronounced as the Arabized version of the Persian word. Rather then the Persian Meeveh, the Arabized; Maywa.

Some other fun facts. When the Arabs invaded Iran and took on Persian words into Arabic they heard certain letters differently. The two major examples of this are that they heard the چ as a ص, like in the word for China, چين opposed to صين. Another Persian borrowing in a contemporary dialect is the Persian word for Cinnamon, دارچين being used in the Gulf dialects as دارصين rather then the MSA term, قرفة.  Most ironic of all, especially for our Egyptian readers is the گ and ج. Many Arabic words ending in ج, such as برنامج، بنفشجي، طازج, are Persian words that the Arabs heard the old Persian plural suffix of گان as a ج. One of the few remaining examples of this is the word مهرگان, Mehregan or the Fall solstice in Persian and مهرجان, Mehrejan for festival in Arabic.