I came across this photograph of Iraqi Jewish refugees in 1951 tonight. I’ve just started to read Violette Shamash’s memoir “Memories of Eden: A journey through Jewish Baghdad.” A couple of sentences from the 2006 introduction make for a particularly affecting caption to this photo:
“I still shudder every time I think of the gravity of the situation we were in. Then I count my blessings to be among the fortunate survivors. I feel as if I were telling you a dream and that it will be very hard for you to join the pieces together.”
Iraqi Jewish refugees arrive at Lydda Airport near Tel Aviv, 1951
From A Photo Journal
It is a date being discussed in Iraq’s tea shops, on television and in the streets with varying shades of hope, fear and cynicism.
On Friday, thousands of Iraqis are planning to take to the streets for their own “day of rage,” hoping to harness the popular anger that has swept through much of the Middle East but has failed to gain much traction here.
Meanwhile, in Iraq…
(Source: thepoliticalnotebook)
From The Iraq War: A Historiography of Wikipedia Changelogs
…a twelve-volume set of all changes to the Wikipedia article on the Iraq War.
The twelve volumes cover a five year period from December 2004 to November 2009, a total of 12,000 changes and almost 7,000 pages.
‘Born in Jail’ by Julie Adnan: Double Portraits from Arbil Prison, Iraqi Kurdistan
(via Prison Photography)
Amazing short film: Post-war stillness (Part One)
This image was part of a 2007 ad campaign by the development agency Misereor.
For years I made frequent visits to Iraq. That all ended seven years ago this week. Here’s a little snippet from a piece I’ve got over at Is Greater Than today:
I lasted a week and a half in post-invasion Baghdad. I got sick immediately. Really sick. It was the undercooked chicken at my favorite restaurant on Saudoon Street. I’m usually careful with meat but I couldn’t stop staring at the American soldiers two tables over (their Humvee took up three parking spaces out front).
The soldiers stared back. “This is their country now,” an Iraqi friend told me that day with tears and a trembling voice. I was no longer mystery or possibility and I wasn’t an anomaly. I was just another American in Baghdad.
