Yahudi-Kurdistan itu apa sih?

Yahudi Kurdistan (, Yehudei Kurdistan; , , artinya bangsa kami; ) adalah komunitas Yahudi Timur kuno, yang tinggal di kawasan yang dikenal sebagai Kurdistan di utara Mesopotamia, yang meliputi bagian barat laut Iran, utara Irak, timur laut Suriah dan tenggara Turki. Busana dan budaya mereka mirip dengan Muslim Kurdi dan Asiria yang bertetangga dengan mereka. Sampai imigrasi mereka ke Israel pada 1940an dan awal 1950an, Yahudi Kurdistan tinggal sebagai komunitas etnis yang tertutup.

Yahudi Kurdistan sebagian besar berbicara dalam bahasa Aram, sebagai lingua franca, dengan beberapa tambahan dialek Kurdi, sebagian dialek Kurmanji di Kurdistan Irak.

Saat ini, sebagian besar Yahudi Kurdistan tinggal di Israel.

Mordechai Zaken, "Jewish Subjects and their tribal Chieftains in Kurdistan: A study in Survival," Jewish Identities in a Changing World, 9 (Boston: Brill Publishers, 2007)

Brauer, Erich; Patai, Raphael, The Jews of Kurdistan. (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1993).

Asenath, Barzani, "Asenath's Petition", First published in Hebrew by Jacob Mann, ed., in Texts and Studies in Jewish History and Literature, vol.1, Hebrew Union College Press, Cincinnati, 1931. Translation by Peter Cole.

Yona Sabar, The Folk Literature of the Kurdistani Jews (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982).

Ariel Sabar, My Father's Paradise: A Son’s Search for His Jewish Past in Kurdish Iraq.  Illustrated. 332 pp. Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill.  Biography & study of Yona Beh Sabagha = Yona Sabar, native scholar of this community and its language.  Reviewed in The New York Times, Oct. 12, 2008 and The Washington Post, Oct. 26, 2008.

Mahir Ünsal Eriş, Kürt Yahudileri - Din, Dil, Tarih, (Kurdish Jews) In Turkish, Kalan Publishing, Ankara, 2006

Hasan-Rokem, G., Hess, T. and Kaufman, S.,  Defiant Muse: Hebrew Feminist Poems from Antiquity: A Bilingual Anthology, Publisher: Feminist Press, 1999, ISBN 1-55861-223-8. (see page 65, 16th century/Kurdistan and Asenath's Petition)

Rabbi Asenath Barzani in Jewish Storytelling Newsletter, Vol.15, No.3, Summer 2000

The Jews of Kurdistan Yale Israel Journal, No. 6 (Spr. 2005).