Title: New Babylonians : a history of Jews in modern Iraq /
Authors: Bashkin, Orit, 1974-
Publisher: Stanford University Press,
Year: 2012
Subjects: Jews Iraq History; Jews Iraq Identity.; Jews Iraq Intellectual life.; Iraq Ethnic relations History; Iraq History
Abstract: "Although Iraqi Jews saw themselves as Iraqi patriots, their community - which had existed in Iraq for more than 2,500 years - was displaced following the establishment of the state of Israel. New Babylonians chronicles the lives of these Jews, their urban Arab culture, and their hopes for a democratic nation-state. It studies their ideas about Judaism, Islam, secularism, modernity, and reform, focusing on Iraqi Jews who internalized narratives of Arab and Iraqi nationalisms and on those who turned to communism in the 1940s.
Contents: Brothers and others: Iraqi identity and Arab Jewishness -- Nationalism and patriotism: visions of the nation -- The effendia: questions of secularism and Judaism -- Friends, neighbors, and enemies: fascism, anti-Semitism, and enemies -- Red Baghdad: Iraqi Jews and the ICP, 1941-51 -- An end?: Iraqi Jews and the Iraqi state, 1946-51.