Lecture Series with Prof. Yona Sabar
Yona Sabar, professor of Political Science at UCLA, spoke about the history of a Jewish life in Northern Iraq. He comes from a Jewish family who migrated to the United States years ago. He took the audience to the past life of this community by showing some of the pictures taken from the region. He provided some statistical and theoretical data about his past. Dr Sabar mentioned how Jewish people were brought to the land of Syria and Northern Iraq by the Syrian King at the time. He showed some related verses from the bible regarding this exile from Egypt. He showed some pictures of his people from 20th century and explained that they looked alike with Afghani people in terms of dressing. He also showed his parent’s pictures to show how generations of the same community had changed so quickly. He mentioned that the major language spoken in the region between Christian and Jewish communities was Aramaic. However, he said even though it was the same language spoken accents in Christian and Jewish communities were different.
Dr Sabar said most men in the community were merchants who sold goods such as eggs and yogurt and added that people in the regions were partners and coworkers despite the differences of their religions. Yona Sabar said that his father’s partner was a Muslim person named “Haji Ibrahim”. He stated that this partnerships didn’t exist just for the purpose of economic benefits, and people were also partners in their social lives. As an example, he said Haji Ibrahim always came to their house in their religious holidays to visit them and Dr Sabar’s father always visited him in Islamic holidays.
Yona Sabar gave example of his birth in which a Muslim woman helped her mother with warm water on a Jewish holiday which prohibits Jewish people from starting a fire. He also showed a picture of a synagogue from the region which was built by the collobaration of Jewish and Muslim people in the community. He stated that some people from Muslim community also donated money for the synagogue. In the question and answer part of the lecture series, Dr Sabar talked about the book authored by his son which was titled “My Father’s Paradise” and became a New York Times Bestseller. Dr Sabar’s son writes in his book that his father Yona Sabar was always mentioning the region discussed as if this Disneyland in Northern Iraq is bigger than the disneyland here in the United States.
After question and answer section, the lecture series continued with the personal conversations and refreshments.
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