My Iraqi Jew-ish Grandmother’s Hands

Sarah Sas-soon March 30, 2023

 

The author’s grand-par-ents, Nana Aziza and Abba Naji

 

Pho-to-graph cour-tesy of the author

 

My Iraqi grandmother’s hands shone with olive oil and fad-ed burn marks. They were always mov-ing — knead-ing, crush-ing, chop-ping, sautéing, pour-ing, and spoon-ing — the turquoise-stud-ded gold ban-gles around her wrist a glo-ri-ous jan-gle. When I was a lit-tle girl in Syd-ney, she would some-times mas-sage my back. I could not speak Judeo-Ara-bic or Hebrew, and her Eng-lish was a pid-gin mix. Our lan-guage was that of our hands.

 

I wrote Shoham’s Ban-gle because I want-ed to tell the sto-ry of my grandmother’s ban-gle, which I now wear around my own wrist. It wasn’t until lat-er that I real-ized that the book also spoke to a larg-er shift in Iraqi Jew-ish women’s history.

 

Every fam-i-ly deals with the past dif-fer-ent-ly. My fam-i-ly chose silence. Although I was fed Iraqi Jew-ish food, sung Iraqi songs, and heard Judeo Ara-bic, I was not told about Iraq or the rich Baby-lon-ian Jew-ish com-mu-ni-ty that had lived there for 2,600 years. I was not told about Oper-a-tion Ezra and Nehemi-ah, the air-lift of over 120,000 Iraqi Jews to Israel. I was not told why they had to leave. I was told, “Be qui-et and study hard.”

 

So instead of ask-ing ques-tions about my roots, I absorbed Iraq through my grandmother’s open home, teapots of car-damom tea, cheese-filled sam-busek, ba’aba tamar date cook-ies, and the del-i-cate, sim-mer-ing spices of cumin, baharat, and turmer-ic. Per-haps I always felt there was some-thing more to these spices. Inside every kubbeh ball was a hid-den tale.

 

I knew from a very ear-ly age that I want-ed to be a writer. I read words wher-ev-er they appeared — milk car-tons, cere-al box-es, street signs. Books like Enid Blyton’s The Far-away Tree and Syd-ney Taylor’s All-of-a-Kind Fam-i-ly series offered mag-i-cal oth-er worlds and immi-grant tales. It nev-er occurred to me as I buried myself in books that my grand-moth-er and oth-er fam-i-ly mem-bers also had a story.

 

 

The author’s grand-par-ents with their five chil-dren in Bagh-dad, 1951, before their flight on Oper-a-tion Ezra and Nehemiah

 

Pho-to-graph cour-tesy of the author

 

I got mar-ried young (like a good Iraqi Jew-ish girl), left Syd-ney, and moved to Johan-nes-burg. I had four boys. I called my grand-moth-er and scrib-bled down her recipes. After she died I lost some-thing very dear, which I only redis-cov-ered when I moved to Israel sev-en years ago. I began to research the sto-ry of the Iraqi Jews, espe-cial-ly the women, whose lives changed dra-mat-i-cal-ly with the plane ride from Iraq to Israel.

 

Shoham, the pro-tag-o-nist of my book, would have gone to school in Bagh-dad. I like to imag-ine that she went to the Lau-ra Kadoorie School for girls, which by 1950 had over 1300 stu-dents. While she stud-ied, her ban-gle would have jin-gled, a reminder of gen-er-a-tions of Jew-ish women stretch-ing from Baby-lon-ian times through the Ottoman Empire. There were no banks in Ottoman times, and so jew-el-ry was the depos-i-to-ry of fam-i-ly wealth worn by women, who were safe-ly guard-ed at home. Home was still a girl’s des-tiny in 1950’s Iraq. Shoham was to be an Iraqi Jew-ish wife and moth-er, the heart of the family.

 

In Israel, how-ev-er, these strict-ly defined tra-di-tion-al roles were bro-ken. Refugee pover-ty meant that Shoham’s moth-er, like many Iraqi Jew-ish women, had to work in fac-to-ries, in low-wage jobs. In Iraq, this would have been a dis-hon-or and embar-rass-ment. In Israel, it was survival.

 

This shift in expec-ta-tions meant that girls could have a dif-fer-ent des-tiny from their moth-ers. They had the oppor-tu-ni-ty to leave their homes ear-li-er, to envi-sion mean-ing-ful work and pro-fes-sions. A life beyond the stove. Yet, I imag-ine that even as Shoham entered the free-doms of an Israel where girls wore shorts, and mixed freely with boys, her ban-gle would clink on her wrist, as it does on mine.

 

She would remem-ber that her ban-gle was smug-gled from Iraq by her clever Nana. She would remem-ber that her ban-gle is the sym-bol of many wise, female hands, who guard-ed fam-i-ly and wealth before her. And I won-der if her ban-gle jan-gled her con-scious-ness as it does mine.

 

The ban-gles on my wrist remind me of my illit-er-ate grand-moth-er whose wis-dom ran deep-er than words. My ban-gles echo in the silence of my kitchen. What have we lost? I won-der. It’s in the emp-ty space next to me at the stove where my grand-moth-er once stood — where I feel not just the loss of the Iraqi, Baby-lon-ian Jew-ish community’s lan-guage and his-to-ry, but also the lost female secrets, the absent moth-er, the silenced chat-ter of gen-er-a-tions of women cook-ing together.

 

For me, this is the ten-sion of Shoham’s plane ride from Iraq to Israel, the cul-tur-al clash of East and West. It is the ques-tion that jan-gles on my wrist between the stove and the com-put-er screen. It is why I want to feed my chil-dren poet-ry, why I want to feed them kubbeh bamya stew. It is why I want to con-tin-ue the Iraqi Jew-ish lega-cy of my grand-moth-er who didn’t know how to read or write, but knew the secret of chop-ping onions joyfully.

 

 

The author’s fam-i-ly, includ-ing Nana Aziza and Abba Naji, in Syd-ney, Australia

 

Pho-to-graph cour-tesy of the author

 

Sarah Sas-soon was raised in Syd-ney, Aus-tralia, sur-round-ed by her lov-ing Judeo-Ara-bic speak-ing Iraqi Jew-ish immi-grant fam-i-ly. When she mar-ried, she immi-grat-ed to Johan-nes-burg, South Africa and with her hus-band and four sons, made Aliyah. She lives in Jerusalem. Sarah loves writ-ing poet-ry and sto-ries about cross-ing bor-ders and oth-er worlds. Shoham’s Ban-gle is Sarah’s first children’s book.