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Sephardi Voices. Edwin Shuker interview, Part One. Page PAGE 39

SEPHARDI VOICES

Interview NO.

NAME: Edwin Shuker

DATE: 13 July, 2012

LOCATION: London, UK

INTERVIEWER: Henry Green

[Part One]

[0:00:00]

We are in London, England; we are interviewing Edwin Shuker for the Sephardi Voices project. My name is Henry Green. It is the 13th of July, 2012. Cameraman: Frank Battersby.

Could you please tell me your name?

My name is Edwin Shuker.

Where were you born?

I was born in Baghdad, Iraq.

And when were you born?

On the 23rd of July 1955, eight o’clock in the morning.

First I just wanted to thank you Edwin for participating in the Sephardi Voices project. Let’s begin with just say, a general question. Can you tell me something about your family’s background?

My family is a typical middle-class family from Baghdad, Iraq. Like tens of thousands of others who have been living there for thousands of years. It’s what we think of as the First Temple, the exile of the First Temple, and Iraqi Jews have got a specific tradition and the mannerism and way of life. And my parents are no different. They are very much also the product of, after 1951 when the majority of 90–plus percent of the Iraqi Jewry left, there was something distinct about those who remained. This was under 10,000, I think 5, 7, 8,000 Jews who left. Something very distinct. Something very typical of each other. And my parents were part of that.

You mention that in 1951 there was a change. Could you talk a bit about your, your family history, your grandparents? Was it a tradition of the Baghdad family?

Yes, obviously I was not born in 1951, but what happened in 1951, was a landmark in the history of Iraqi Jews. And…as the vast majority were forced to immigrate within three months notice, and with very little to take with them. That applied to my grandparents from my father’s side. My grandfather was a merchant in the souk of Baghdad and, my, my grandmother was just a typical housewife. They had four children. They took- they registered for de-nationalisation, the father, the mother, the three kids but not my father. My father was in his final year in the University doing law. And they decided, ‘You know what? Let’s leave him out. He’ll come a few months later’. They go out. They immigrate and then there’s the twenty years before they ever see their son again, before they ever see his children, or anything like that. We just complete, total cut off. That repeated itself into hundreds of thousands of families where the, most of them left in that time, and all that remained there were just odds and bits and pieces. On my mother’s side, my grandparents my grandfather was also a, a big merchant in, in the traditional Arab market. And they decided not to leave themselves but they sent all the children except for two. And again, you had another tragedy where kids - the youngest was seven years old - finds himself in a foreign land, with a foreign language, without his mother and father. And it actually coloured all our lives that, that 1951 schism. Because the kids, the seven year-old never recovered, and the parents never also managed to go back to normal life having sent all their children and not see them. My, my grandfather actually passed away in Baghdad never seeing his children again.

Was your family, grandparents, religious or more secular?

[04:37]

My grandparents well, I don’t remember about my grandparents from my father’s side were not there, but my grandparents from my mother’s side, yes. Shabbat, absolutely, Haggim, but the religious traditions in the, by the time I grew up, were different from the one I can- that I live here. So you cannot actually put it in a box. You cannot say it was Orthodox or Masorti or Reform. It was something that evolved after it, in 1951, with the remnants that remained. And it was a typical give and take convenience. So we go to the synagogue on Shabbat, but you know if something happens in the afternoon, and it’s a birthday party, so we, we take a car and go there. The Rabbi of course does not know about it; does not want to know about it and even if he doesn’t want to know about it. If he hears about it, he pretends not to have heard about it. So, that’s really how we lived there. It’s a kind of a traditional Orthodox Sephardi synagogue with the congregation, I would say, gradually, losing their adherence and observe-- observance as times pass by.

Because this community was small, what would, what was your upbringing like in the house as a child?

Well, because the community was small, and because by the time I actually grew up, and understood what’s going on, we started having major persecution from the outside. And therefore we became so much closer. We became a kind of a community that I really think there are very few of that sort of community anywhere in the world, in any religion. Because we lived almost in an incubator, between 1963 till everyone else manages to escape. We lived in a kind of house arrest stroke concentration camp which was not a real camp but it was a virtual one, mentality-wise as well. We shared suffering, we shared losses, we shared…being persecuted by the majority. We had, for the vast majority of us we had only one school, from primary to the secondary to the, to high school. So therefore we met each other on a daily basis. We lived like one big family under pressure and under stress. And out of that, long life, life–long friendships developed which even now, I would go to a wedding in Montreal, or in Israel, and I would meet somebody that I have not met for forty-five years. It would be like I have met him yesterday. It will be like I am back in school, with, with this family. That’s the type of… bond that, that was struck in that community.

[07:38]

Your parents, where - where did they meet and when were they married and where?

Well, my father…as I said he was doing his finals in the, in the law school in Baghdad, so he graduated. And my mother, who was not sent, was not sent to Israel with her brothers and sisters, she was kept because she was too like, mature. At eighteen they were afraid to send her away. They, they wanted to protect her sort of out of modesty, that she stays with her father and mother. And so when the dust settled, and when the word came back from Israel that, ‘Look guys, don’t rush. You know, things are not really, we didn’t have palaces here. You know. They put us in tent cities.’ And Russian food, and no work, and the language; so those who actually did not register, pushed back their intention to join their brothers and sisters and, and kids. And so, a new type of transit, temporary life began, which lasted twenty years. But every day, there was that thought, ‘We are not here for permanent. We are here until things get better in Israel or somewhere else, or we have an opportunity.’ And so we are, it’s a kind of a very unique life developed. And so after a few years, two, three, four years, normality sets in and there are now a much smaller pool of eligible husbands and wives. But there were. And my father met my mother and, they got married in 1954. And I was born in 1955.

And where did your family live in Baghdad?

[09:31]

I…it’s in the new Baghdad area. The, I mean the Jewish areas of pre –1951 were Souk Hinnouni, [Souk Haq de Yehoud]. All these places now were vacated, and Jews left towards the centre of Baghdad. So you have [Alouiya], Bettaween, [Besbag Mansour], new areas. And that’s where I, I grew up in Battaween, with, at the beginning with my- at the house of my grandparents. And then we moved house to a place called [pass rud aviel] which was not far away, maybe, I don’t know, a few hundred metres away. And that’s really around the Meir Taweig synagogue, which is the Souk of the Bettaween, and the heart of it is Meir Taweig synagogue, which is actually a very- the only synagogue which is still functioning as a synagogue in the whole of Iraq, is the Meir Taweig. And that’s around that sort of synagogue, within walking distance of the, of the, of that area. There is like a, a community there. A distinct community that goes to that synagogue. So very similar to what is now here in England or I don’t know in the States, but in England the community evolves around the synagogue within walking distance of that.

Did your, your…your mother her maiden name was what?

AbuTaman. AbuTaman means ‘the father of rice’ so…and she comes in, they are from the, they descended from the Sassoon family. The Sassoons, Robin is the brother of David. David Sassoon is the one who went, who left in the mid 19th century, 1832, who was smuggled out to Bombay, and there he started the Sassoon dynasty, and the brother remained, who was in, remained in Baghdad, and from that is the source of my mother’s family.

When you were growing up, your brothers, your sisters, do you have any?

I have only two sisters, younger than me.

And their names?

Rita is two years younger, and Linda is five years younger than me.

And when you were growing up, could you describe a kind of typical day, when you were say ten years old? What would a typical day be like?

[12:07]

A typical day would be school, so, rota. One of our neighbours would pick us up, and we would or the bus coach at certain years, so we would go. The school was very intensive …major discipline there, and lots of things to learn and a long day. So I remember leaving very early in the morning, with our packed lunch. And we would go together to the same school, and this- Frank Iny became actually throughout the time I lived there, was the centre of our lives, because that’s where you meet absolutely everybody. And increasingly, it was becoming dangerous to go anywhere else. I mean after ’67, Jews were kicked out of all the social clubs. It was dangerous to walk in the streets, speaking Judeo-Arabic. So, the school became the centre of our lives. And you know it’s like a- what can I tell you- everything revolves, you know you meet your own girlfriend, and you have- you set up parties and you have conspiracies and rumours, and…this whole life in there until the end of the school day. And the school day, when it finishes, I mean, as you grow older, it becomes later, and later until it sometimes finishes I think four o’clock in the afternoon. And so you go back and…you go back to your home. You know the methods of entertainment decr- decreased as, as life became harder. So there was one station, for example, of TV, which is the official government one, and maybe there is one program a day that you can watch. And we’d all sit around it, the whole family, it’s either a, a serial from Egypt, or a…a sports program and the family would gather around it. My parents would leave for parties practically every single day. They had a party every single day. And, sometimes they would meet at our house and sometimes at other peoples’. But we had maids to take care of us. We had two maids in the house. We had a butler as well. I call him butler; we didn’t call him butler then. But they’d go for that type of thing, so we had three people who were serving us, when my parents were busy playing poker and, and meeting their friends socially.

In the house, when you had Shabbat, which was a weekly event. Can you describe what a Shabbat meal would be like? Who might come over? What kind of foods?

[15:07]

Yes, I...I’m struggling to remember whether I mean Friday night we would have Kiddush, that is, that was Holy. Everybody comes in, the whole family, and my father would do Kiddush. But as I said, I think straight after Kiddush, my parents would go to a party. So…and then, the observing of Shabbat, I mean right now if I tell you, it would be, it would sound ludicrous, but that’s how we lived. For example, lighting a fire, or [shachat,] you know switching on something which is, which results in to like a kitchen or some- would be tantamount to heresy. My father would go absolutely berserk. But, they would happily go in the car and go and play poker. So it was a…it was a mish-mash of traditions and bits and pieces that were picked up or not. We would normally go on Shabbat morning to Shul, to the synagogue, we would walk there. Synagogues in Iraq for some sadistic reason always start at the earliest possible time, so it would be like five o’clock in the morning. And then when we come back from synagogue we would have our breakfast, which again, was typical of almost every home in, in Iraq, which is the Iraqi bread with the eggs, the brown eggs with the salad, the chopped up salad with the mango pickles and the aubergine. It’s absolutely unique, by the way, the Iraqi kitchen. Nothing ever changes. Absolutely nobody would attempt to do any changes. You are compared like for like. If it’s kubbe with red, it has to be red when you have beetroot. You cannot possibly have it with, with a different type of vegetable. Absolutely not. So, so you- all these parties that everybody goes to, and all the Shabbat meals are exactly the same from house to house. And you could compare like for like. And that was my whole life. And even today, my mother would do exactly the same things. You know, it would be unheard of if you would replace beetroot, the red beetroot with another vegetable, I mean a mushroom for example. That would be just, just not done. So that’s something that really typifies the, the, the Jewish cuisine, which over the tens and tens of years and across the world, became a common denominator for all these families.

[17:41]

What about Passover or Seder, what would that be like?

That is the big day. That, I remember that, more than anything else, the preparation for Pesach. I remember my grandmother would start with the rice, sorting the rice out, you know it’s a major job. You’ve got… washing it, making sure that there is no flour in it. That starts weeks before. I even remember sometimes they would scrub eggs, scrub them. And, we had special, and then we had the excitement of ordering the matzo, which was baked, especially for you. You go to the synagogues where the, those who bakers are there, [with the others] are there and you order, for you. So it’s made for you, you like it a little bit …more harder or softer. And, and it comes in a cage like a…made of wood, wooden cage where you put chicken normally, but we would have these, these matzoth, which are very, very thin. That’s why you have to protect it with a, in a cage, in a case. Because otherwise is just breaks up into dozens of pieces. And oh, and the silan, the date juice, which has to be squeezed into linen and then the juice comes out and then you, that’s put out upstairs in the, on the roof, in the sun, to become, to, to, to - for the water to evaporate and become thicker. And you decide how thick you want that silan and how, what colour you want it. The longer you leave it in the sun the darker and the thicker it becomes. And the walnuts, the preparation for the charoset and…oh, dozens of things. The lettuce has to be checked and inspected and sorted and put into plastic… bags and put in the fridge. It was- Pesach was a mega story for us.

Did you help in the preparation at all?

Yeah, we all did. Everybody chips in. It’s a…

Did you go to the [unintell]?

[19:59]

You have to clean up the house. You have to go through you know the Pesach cleaning we did it very, very seriously then. And I go with my father. I sort of, when he orders the, the [ph chivadoch] as we called the matzo. And…Very happy, very happy occasion, very happy Chag. Everybody had, I remember, we had silver cups and, and special of course cutlery for Pesach but all came out from boxes. But I, I mean you also have to remember that these remnants of Jews, inherited tons of memorabilia and Judaica from parents and grandparents they all, when they left…So if you think like out of every ten, nine point something, I mean that’s something we’re talking here about heirlooms. I remember for example I had a particular Pesach cup for, for the Kiddush, that has been there for generations, and it was given to me because I was the Bekhor, I was, I am the Bekhor, my father is a Bekhor, my mother is a Bekhor, and my grandfather. It was just a series of bikkurim, so when I was born, it was the first kid in a, in a tribe, so I get this silver cup, that has passed from generation to generation. So I look forward to receiving it every Pesach before the Seder, and we sit there and we do the Seder. And wonderful memories, Pesach.

Do you remember your bedroom and what it looked like and any special things you had?

Yes, of course. I remember we, we- I only lived in two houses, in my whole life. And…I remember my room very, very well. I remember I am absolutely finicky and extremely obsessively sort of tidy and sorting out everything to perfection. So I had collection after collection. And all were in my room. So I had, if you opened up the cupboard, there was the key ring collection, and it was done in, by colour, by size, my things. I had a… stamp collection. I had cards, you know, football cards collection. I had matchboxes, you know, so I had…my room was full of collections, all of them are untouchable. They’re not allowed- nobody is allowed to touch them. So that’s my memory. I had a fantastic bed, I still remember it. I used to sink into it, one of those Turkish style, with the huge…the frame was very huge and you’d just sink into that. Yeah, I remember my room very well.

[23:01]

Did you, in school, did you learn Hebrew? Did you…learn Jewish topics?

Yeah, in school we learned four languages at Frank Iny. We learned French as a matter of course. We did several subjects in French, not just as a language. We learned English; we learned …we learned Hebrew, to read. The government allowed us to read Hebrew, but not allowed to understand what you’re learning or to, or Modern Hebrew. And they used to have several inspection visits. Somebody would turn up, the inspectors from the government, and they would particularly make sure that the teaching of the Hebrew is reserved for only for religious studies, for reading, for Siddur, and the Bible. But nothing else and without any translation or explanation; purely for ceremonial and prayers.

And can you describe what one of these inspections might be like?

Well, we were not as children, we were not overly moved, but I know that the, the Headmaster and the teachers would be very nervous. Sort of, we would be sitting there and then suddenly the door would push and… the Headmaster would come in and with his two people and he would talk to the teacher and he would say, ‘This is the inspectors from the…Ministry of …Education.’ And I…you feel the nervousness in, in their voices and in…[inaud]. They would sit with us in the class. They sort of take a, you know a bench, the two of them and just observe and make notes. But we were, we were not aware of what they were taking or we had never… It didn’t affect us, but you knew that they were there, for a reason.

[25:10]

Did, as time continued from ’55 till whenever you left, did your sense of anxiety…fear, did it grow; did it change?

Well, obviously, there were good times and bad times. They were, I mean, good times were till ’63. The Ba’ath Party came in February ’63. Things changed. And then, gradually as you got around near ’67 it became very, very restricted and uncomfortable. Very uncomfortable. And then ’68 when Saddam Hussein and the Ba’ath Party came for the second time, it then became a living hell, basically. Also, on top of that you had the coups d’etat and the revolutions, what we called, for the general public, not necessarily the sort of Jewish anxiety, just everybody’s anxiety. I dreaded that time. I mean you would be sitting the class, in the school, and suddenly you would be hearing…machine guns and planes. And I remember the fear in my heart. I mean I, I’m getting it now as I talk to you because first of all now I mean I’m responsible for my two sisters, two younger sisters. Secondly, you realise you know that something big is happening around you, that there will be a revolution. That the Army will be in the streets, that, Will my parents reach me? Will they find us? Will they come and get us? Will they get killed in the street? Will we be orphans? Will my sisters get trampled in the panic? Do I go and pick them up? Do I stay? And then, when… and that happened frequently by the way, not just the one, the revolutions you know, but frequently there would be like corrections and, and suddenly everybody freezes. And I remember what happened then. Then the teacher would take control. The Headmaster, well there would be an hour later or two hours later, while you’re sitting trying to pretend nothing’s happening while the guns and, and, and, and planes are around. And then the Headmaster would come in and whisper to the teachers and then suddenly they’d take control, and they said ‘Right, everybody sits. There is no break. Nobody leaves the, the classroom. Everybody sits.’ And then while you’re sitting in there, you get somebody coming in, and the janitor comes in with a name and they would say, ‘Ok, Salman Mashael.’ And that means his parents are coming to pick him up, because and then Salman Mashael will pack up and go, and we will look at ‘You lucky person’, you know ‘You are saved.’ And he would look at us not knowing whether he would ever see us again or what. It’s just, we are talking about kids of ten, eleven, twelve. And, and you would sit there waiting for someone to come and pick you up and sometimes you are the last or, or you are in the middle or whatever, but it was very, very anxious times. And so that’s beside the, the Jewish persecution, there was the general anxiety in there. It’s…you, you lived on edge. You lived on edge. And then you go back, if you, when you get saved, you get back home, and you rush home because there’s now, the bullets are coming closer and closer. You try, with your father you try and get some, some food on the, on the way, some bread, but everybody else is trying the same thing. So everything else is finishing. And then you sit there and then you switch on the radio, and you hear music and music and music - military music - for hours. And suddenly a voice comes in and then everybody rushes to the radio. And it’s [ph beyan machamorad ] which is the, we always got used to that sort of the first announcement after the revolution. And, and then says, ‘Stay tuned there will be things, but in the meantime there’s a curfew, and everyone anyone who is seen outside is shot – on sight.’ So, there was that excitement too.

Did…did, at your school, which was the Jewish school, did you have friends who were not Jewish, which, which were Christian or Muslim, or…?

[29:36]

Yes. The school had to take a few every year. Mainly the upper class of the Muslim world. The son of X or Y or some Minister or some, some big shot, a couple of Christians. We’re talking about maybe three, four in a class. Now these were rarities and we all wanted to be their friends, and, actually they were celebrated and welcomed, even more so than Jewish friends. And till today, we all are connected or, or in touch with the two Muslims or three Christians who were in our class, wherever they are in the world. And one of them is a Minister in Iraq today, currently. And yet, when he comes here, has immediately connects with his classmates from Frank Iny and they, they, they sort of, get together and, and, and feel that bond and that friendship forty years later.

Did you visit their homes or did they visit your home?

No. There was always this…the way we grew up and which I always think was a model for probably coexistence, between Jew and Arab, was, how much respect they had the communities - I’m talking about the man in the street - for each other, for each other’s traditions and religion. Yet there was a line, there was a virtual line which you do not cross out of total respect and I’ll work with you. I will talk to you, I will listen, but the home is home. And my children are my children. And…the idea that a Jewish child would go to a Muslim house and some did of course, neighbours, absolutely. But the idea of a, of a, of a Jewish boy going out with a Muslim girl was so no–no, that I can’t even begin to tell you. In spite of all the, the bonding and the, the, and the greetings and the, ‘my brother’ and ‘my…’ things, there was lines which are not written. And I’ve always said, this is an unwritten contract of how a Jew lived in the Arab world, between a Jew and an Arab.

Did the, did …what about sport events, for example, if there was a football game. Would, would you and your friends, Jewish, non-Jewish, go to the football game?

To watch or to play with others?

To watch or to play.

[32:24]

Yes, but look, there were good times, worse times, you know, better times…there were periods where you don’t actually show your face…outside. Especially after ’67. But did somebody go to see the national team play? Of course. One or two, but it was not something that, that…that would be welcomed or that your parents would allow you. Especially at our age. They wouldn’t allow us to go to a football match where we would probably if we start speaking Jewish dialect then we would be identified and God knows which hot head…Well certainly after ’67 life completely changed. I mean after ’63, you knew you were a Jew, because my, my first good memory. I remember actually when I was three years old, things happening. But my first good memory of meeting the government body and knowing that I’m actually different from the other citizens was when we all had to queue to get our Jewish IDs, which was something new that the Ba’ath Party did in 1963. It was an identity that says, ‘You are not a denationalised Jew.’ That’s how it actually, literally means the words. So, you’d actually have to hold a certificate that says, ‘I’m a Jew who has not denationalised.’ So, it was a yellow ID card, and we had to all be there, and we had to put our fingerprints there, and I remember that very distinctly. I still have it, that thing, with the children’s fingerprints on it as well as my parents’. And, that yellow ID and that February ’63 revolution, and made immediately…that was the first time I actually, I and others, realised that we are not longer an Iraqi citizen, or an equal Iraqi citizen. We are now different; we are now yellow carded. And, so that was ’63 onwards.

Your earliest memory at three, what was that?

[34:45]

I, my earliest memory, was… you will not believe it, but I actually remember it so well. It was the revolution of 1958, 14th of July, 1958. The Army, for the first time in the history of Iraq, the royal family was murdered, slaughtered, on the 14th of July, and the new junta came into power, and took over the control of the TV and radio. And the famous, world famous, Nouri Said, Prime Minister, ran, made a run for it. And he was caught. He was caught a few days later, wearing an abaya, a lady’s hijab. And he was beaten to death, and his body was pulled through, by ropes through the streets of Baghdad. It’s a punishment that happens in Arab countries; even recently there were some scenes like that. I don’t know what pleasure they get out of it. But I remember so distinctly, because when, when that procession reached near our house and we were able to see on the main, we had balconies on the main street, the panic my grandmother and my mother panicking, anxiety, crying, but unable to resist… going up and watching that gruesome scene. So they were rushing up to the balcony. And I remember rushing beside-- behind them…so clearly. And they were trying to say, ‘No you stay in, stay. Stay. You go back. You go back.’ And I was like, as a, you know, child, I was, I was going with the excitement. And I, I, I remember that very distinctly. And I was exactly three years. That was July ’58 which is three years old, on the dot.

In this period, you felt yourself Jewish. Did you feel yourself Iraqi or Arab at all?

Yes, we, we did feel, I mean when the football match plays, or when the competition goes, we would root out for Iraq with all our hearts. Yes. No doubt about it.

And Arab at all? Did you feel yourself Arab?

[37:30]

I don’t think Arab, Arab as it was, apart from even within the population. We felt more Iraqi because Iraq is different from places like Egypt and all that. Iraqi minorities lived with the majority, intermingled, the same street. We had Sunnis and Shias and Armenians and Christians and, and honestly I for well, I left when I was sixteen. Plus, I didn’t, I could not distinguish who was Sunni or Shia or sometimes who was Christian. We were all kids playing and we were all adults, young adults… talking about young adults things. I, so, so we were more Iraqis than Arab. And I felt this was generally the case in the whole country.

Your…you spoke what language at home?

Judeo –Arabic.

Did your parents speak French or English?

Yes, they, yes they, I mean every Jew had a background who was there in these periods, they had a background in French and in English.

Did they speak these languages to you, to the children?

No.

And when you went out it the street you had a Judeo-Arabic Jewish dialect. Did you change this at all?

Absolutely. We immediately changed it to the, to the language of the street, to the Iraqi street. It’s not always easy, especially when you are young, to, but, but we had to.

And did someone teach you this or was it sort of like…?

No. No, you just knew, when you are in school or when you are home you switch on to your, to your Jewish language. When you are outside naturally you switch on to the, to the dialect, the local dialect. You wouldn’t dream of asking a, a vendor in Judeo-Arabic. You wouldn’t dream.

And did, in your, in your…neighbourhood, was it segregated as time continued? Were Jews only really, after ’67 spend time with Jews or did you have interaction with…?

[39:50]

No, within the neighbourhood, I don’t think, I mean no Jew moved, was moved to a Jewish area or to a ghetto, or anything like that, at all. But I mean our immediate neighbours; we carried on with them to the very end. Our…you know, we had Muslim friends as well. But increasingly they were themselves, the other, even though we were friends, they themselves did not want to mix with Jews, especially not in public. Definitely not, because, and especially after the ’68, when there were the trials of the spies, the Jewish spies. And so-called spies, that made each one of us a pariah. Because dafka because they all knew, that these are completely totally innocent people. And so, when they arrested any …a Jew, he was beaten almost to death, and therefore he had to say who are his partners, who are his collaborators, who are helping him and, and he might have come up with a couple of Muslim friends or they might have put these two Muslim friends in his testimony, which happened quite a few. Each one of those people who were hanged or who were tortured gave a full confession, so called. And a full confession contained the people he knows. And so the, the Muslims for sure, and the Christians, started keeping distance. And the clubs that used to welcome us, which were mainly Christian clubs, actually one of them, maybe all of them, but one of them for sure put signs saying ‘No Jews are allowed into the club any more.’ And the memberships were revoked and, for self preservation, and none of them, I mean you know I didn’t see any of them wanting to be a hero so, so they just didn’t want to meet Jews or talk to them or do anything like that. That’s after ’68.

You were born in ’55, so you-- did you have a Bar Mitzvah in ’68 at all, or?

In ’68 my Bar Mitzvah coincided with the, the big revolution of July when, when Saddam Hussein, there were two in the same month. The first revolution and then the second one, two weeks later, where the Ba’ath actually betrayed their own collaborators and the people who brought them to power and killed them and imprisoned them. So they didn’t-- it was a double act. And mine was right in the middle of two revolutions. You can imagine. It was…a…a very lonely and sad affair, my Bar Mitzvah. It was a curfew, day, and I remember my father taking me to, to one of the rooms and saying to me, ‘Unfortunately that’s all you’re going to get.’ Just me and him. And he put on the tallit and tefillin and I recited it, put it on, and that was my Bar Mitzvah. There were, you know, not too many guests.

[42:50]

Did the period after ’67, your, you say life changed dramatically. Can you describe sort of your experience, personal experiences between ’67 and the few years before you left?

Yes, well it started before ’67. It started in preparation for the war of ’67, so I would say two months before, June. You could not help being affected, with the daily dose of propaganda raining on you. Now we, I grew up not knowing the word ‘Israel’ almost. Because literally, the word ‘Israel’, is never, ever, ever pronounced in any communication. You know remember we didn’t have satellites and channels and all of that. There was one channel; there was one radio, there were five newspapers. You would never, ever see the word itself. And when these few publications come from abroad like ‘Newsweek’ or ‘Time Magazine’, the censor literally either…tear the page, or, with a big black thick ink, removes every picture or word of ‘Israel’. And I’m talking about literally. So you just substituted with a [larepa] which means like a bastard nation type of thing, when they want to refer to that place. So, so we had the-- so how do they explain to the Arabs, to the …how do they explain to them what is going to happen? So in order for them, because Israelis are not seen, so, no pictures, no words. So the way to explain it is to use Jewish symbols and Jewish people.

[44:48]

And therefore they wrote the stereotype Jew, which is Moshe, [Hesrael, Azra], which is us, this is us. They modelled every evil character, all day long, both TV and radio, on us. And so inevitably [Hesrael] is a traitor, is a lowlife, he abuses, he rapes Arab girls, and eventually he gets killed. And what whenever you switch on anything, that’s what, that was what’s happening. Then you had the newspapers…preparing the people for, to celebrate victory. You had [ph.Uqur Sum- Umm Kulthum ?] the greatest singer of the Arab world over the last 100 years; she promised everyone that she would be the one, the first one to sing in Tel Aviv on… And, the images that were not politically correct you know about all the things that now the people don’t use, though actually they are starting to use them again, but about wiping, about throwing in the sea, about rivers of blood, all that was graphically fed to us day in, day out. It was a siege; it was, it was just hell. So of course, and I was by then thirteen years old, and we were very, very, very mature thirteen year olds, all of us. We had to mature very quickly at seven, eight, and nine we were already maturing and knowing what’s happening in politics, knowing about these revolutions, knowing about this, what…So, yeah so it was, it was… The mind has to live, adapt, and live normally sometimes during the day. Like, you hear now about the concentration camps and the Holocaust. At the end of the day you have 24 hours. So at, at one hour you actually have a joke, or a laugh, or play a game, but you are in that…whole atmosphere of, of actually, I don’t know, persecution…awaiting death, awaiting something major to happen to you. Almost daily, thanking God that your father is coming back home. It was just a major thing when, I remember I was particularly sensitive. I remember my father has to come back at one o’clock. And I remember before one, ten to one I would be standing at the window… [Pauses with emotion] willing that my, my father’s car would turn up. And not sharing it, not sharing with my mother or my sisters or whoever was in the house. Just, just waiting for him to come.

[47:40]

This, this kind of code, in a way you’re talking about, between speaking Judeo-Arabic in the home and speaking, and then speaking…Arabic outside the home. Can you talk about what the differences were? How, how would one of them…?

Well, for us it wasn’t a code, for us it was: this is our language at home and school. This is the language you do, we talk with Jews. And actually, unfortunately, as you can guess, it’s disappearing, this language. It’s one of the major losses that we have lost in that displacement of Jews from Arab countries. It’s, it’s a language which developed over centuries I guess because it’s got Persian words, it’s got Turkish words, it’s got Hebrew words. It’s- the accent is completely different. However there’s something very interesting. When people hear us, there is one district in Iraq, with similar pronunciation, not the, not the words, but the pronunciation, and that’s in Mosul. And sometimes when you get when people got caught speaking that, you always say, ‘I’m from Mosul.’ And, however, there is a, I read an …an academic paper recently that says the Jews and the people from Mosul, are the only ones who are speaking the true Arabic as was spoken a century earlier, before - or two centuries earlier -before the Bedouins and the people who arrived later changed, before the Arabic cultural invasion of the thing happened. And therefore the language became more similar to Saudi Arabian, Syrian and that sort of thing, sort of, the dialect. I don’t know how true is that or not, but I though I will mention it. But, Judeo-Arabic is something I absolutely treasure and I try and talk to my mother now, my sisters. Whenever we can when we meet up, as friends to try and keep it alive a little bit longer. But now and then a word will come and we will say, ‘Ah! I’ve not heard this word for forty years, or thirty years.’ But it’s in there. It’s in the recess but it’s no longer gonna be there for the next generation.

[50:15]

The, the experience post-’67, the… Israel became stronger in your, your, your consciousness as it were, even though it wasn’t mentioned. Were you involved in anything Zionistic or did you become involved in anything Zionistic? Were there covert things going on?

Not to my knowledge, at all. The only thing is that we were walking six feet, twenty feet tall, in spite of all the persecution, after ’67 war. We assumed like the rest of the population that that’s the end of Israel. …I was almost shocked personally that somewhere that I actually have not heard of much, and I don’t know about, will not be there. By the way I actually did not know I had uncles and grandparents. We were not told. Our parents wanted to protect us so that we would not come up with something in the wrong place or at the wrong time and say ‘My Uncle lives in Israel.’ And then you have to explain, ‘how did you hear about it’ and ‘when did you hear and are there secret messages?’ And I think what happens is they get secret coded words from London… a letter which is, which describes the weather and talk about nonsense and then suddenly says, ‘and by the way, Jacob had a baby.’

[51:50]

And then my father would know it’s Jacob, his brother, who lives in Israel. And that’s the, that’s really the, how it, how far it went, in terms of concealing your relationship with Israel. But my father wouldn’t pass this message to us, and therefore we didn’t know anything about it. And I remember personally how I, for months after the ’67 war, I would pretend to be an Israeli soldier, in the bathroom. And I honestly remember it today. It was my best time, because increasingly we had nothing to do. You had, in the summer we had four months off, because the temperature was fifty degrees. Four months without, almost without leaving the house. And there was no computers and no TV, and, and no iPhone so, there was just very little to do. I didn’t have a brother, so my two sisters were playing girly games and I was by myself. So I used to spend hours and hours imagining things, and I imagined that I was an Israeli soldier, an Israeli soldier would be at least two metres to three metres high. And I honest to God believe that up to the time I landed in Lod. I expected people who were of Superman size; totally powerful, totally knowing everything – Superman. Superman was my hero, and therefore this was how I imagined all the Israelis, all of them to be like that. And I pretended to be one, and I pretended that the Arabs are coming to get me and I am sort of waiting for them and so on and so forth. So these are the games that kept me occupied and kept my mind sane in ’67, ’68, ’69, sort of knowing that there’s somebody who’s teaching these guys who are giving us such a hard time, teaching them a lesson. But Zionist, in the sense that covert meetings or, or arms, for me it was just totally out of, totally out of, our league. Together with the rest of the population, we used to hear Radio Israel in Arabic in total secret of course. And that was our lifeline to what’s happening in the world, especially after the persecutions of 1968 when we felt totally isolated and we thought we would all be killed. And that was the time when we used to hear, when we used to hear the, the French speaker of the Parliament [Alain Poher] actually holding a meeting across Europe to discuss the situation of the Jews of Iraq. That was – Wah! – that was our oxygen, our life, our…we would, whoever heard it would go rushing and say, you know, in very quiet words, ‘I just heard x and y and z.’ And then you know if people are actually thinking of us, you know that people actually coming to get us sometimes. We’re not by ourselves.

How did you… how would you listen to this service? How would you know of this?

[55:02]

No, I mean the radio was, you know, we all had transistors. And obviously Israel was broadcasting in Arabic and was a very powerful broadcaster. It had different days and different hours; it wasn’t all [unintell]. We knew, that on Tuesday at nine o’clock [ph Abdura hidaine] which is one of the most famous programmes would come on, and it would be in the Arabic, it would be Iraqi, Iraqi local Muslim dialect. And it’s a ten minute slot. And he ends up always with a story. Oh! I don’t know many of the elite of Iraq who don’t rush home to hear his secret, this [Abdura hidaine], this broadcast, on Tuesday evenings. And, so, you find the thing, of course your, your parents tell you that this should not happen, and you should not you are risking everybody else. But you know, what else are you going to do, I mean you know, as a teenager you take the transistor and you go up to the roof, and you dial until the dial goes to Israel and then you get the… a lot of the time it would be jammed! But when you’re not jammed you just get catch of the news or the summary of the news or, or something and that’s your lifeline.

When did your parents begin to confide in you more about what was going on?

Well, now that everything was, was really…transparent after a while. I mean the attacks on us, on the Jews…I mean it wasn’t, I don’t need to hear it from my parents, you know the radio, the TV, the… they were all, you know the newspapers, there was one newspaper that every Wednesday, and I remember I had to go and buy it. And in it, there was a third of the page, and that page was invitation to the great Iraqi people to [accent?] any kind of unusual behaviour that your Jewish neighbour is doing, please let us know. So on Wednesday, you take the paper, you buy it, it’s folded, you don’t open it. You rush home to see which Jew’s time has come to be exposed publicly as somebody with, with, and unusual behaviour that might be sending messages or to the enemy, or acting as a spy. So you get a letter from x, y, z, and he gives the full name of the Jew, the full address of the Jew, and he says, ‘something really weird, you know, every ten o’clock, after ten ‘clock there’s some kind of stick coming out like an antenna, which comes out of the house.’ I mean you know, total dreamland, but it doesn’t matter. That guy is sitting there reading about himself with the antenna, and shaking to, to, to, to… and I remember that, that, that, every Wednesday coming going from the newsstand until I get home, in order to open it and see whether our name was on it or somebody else’s name in it. What torture! Absolute torture. And to pretend that, ‘oh, you’re buying a normal paper.’ No, look or no, anything exciting, just rush with it back home and open it soon as you walk into your home. So you don’t need your parents to, to tell you about these things.

Were there any of your friends who were named in such a thing?

[58:38]

Oh, all the people who are there were our friends. All of them! There was…

Your age? Your age friends?

No, no, my age we were just, just under the radar. I mean, I escaped at sixteen. So, we’re talking about the period of thirteen, fourteen, fifteen. That was under the radar. All those sixteen, in 1967, and, and, and older, were the ones who took the brunt. We were just, just - under the radar.

At some point, you left. Can you tell the story about your leaving and how it developed?

Yes. I…After ’68 and January ’69 with the hangings, there were other trials during that year and other hangings and other killings. And, and again, you try, I remember when my parents used to have friends and they whisper. And how I used to be behind the door and try to catch some sentences. And they would say, ‘Please leave the room.’ And I would go behind and try and hear what was there. And things like, somebody called [Attrakchi], who was arrested with the nine Jews who were hanged in January. Of him, nobody has heard. Not released, not hanged, not imprisoned, just gone. And, then the rumours grew that actually - and then somebody who actually was there and came out a month later, and the image still in my mind and I have to share it with you, I don’t share it with anyone before.

[01:00:28]

But they said they actually tied him up, spread-eagled him, and, and passed a, a very heavy metal machine, that normally levelled streets after you put the asphalt you level it. And they actually just passed it on him. And he just, just disappeared; just became paste. And they did that, so that the others, who were watching, or hearing him, know what happens to them unless they play ball with the government and make full confessions and, later most of them were hanged but…I mean an image like this was, I don’t know. You don’t, you just don’t believe in that image, it just doesn’t leave me. So every time I hear the name of the family I, that image even today comes to me and, how I played it tens and twenty the times in my mind, how a person can become a paste. We call it ameerdine which is something you eat which is, apricot when you squeeze them to, to paste and then you put them on a tray and you make them level and you sell them as sheets. And so I always imagined that man like that. And that’s why when you know you can’t afford that your father is late by, by, by minutes. Also my father was arrested as well as everybody else and another story of how he was…how my mother went and pleaded for his life, with someone that she knew is powerful enough, and that person told her that she has to leave the house and never to come back or ever mention his name, or anything of that. And next time she comes it will, it will not be good for her. But he did actually help release him, but that was, he said to her, ‘This is the first and last time you ever see me or hear me.’ So, so that was the, so that was the background for the, for the community saying they can’t take any more. And so…people, we started hearing about people escaping, by themselves. Sometimes they were caught. We had, in 1970 it became almost there was a rumour that the government has made a deal and it’s ok to go. You’ve got to leave everything, you’ve got to leave your house, you’ve got to leave everything. If you play it rightly, and low profile and go to the north, then there are smugglers there and in a way you can reach there. When people did that, there was mass arrest, one day, and that was one of the blackest days, because that was after the hangings, and then suddenly the rumours spread without any…Jews were not allowed to have a telephone. So the rumours would be, one person, you see the person coming to your house and you see his glum face and he wants to speak to my father. And he would be saying something [whispers]. And then we realised that what happened was there was a mass arrest, that people who are brought back in coaches, children, and women and men, and they are all under arrest. And you immediately start thinking, death, torture. I mean torture, by Saddam Hussein and his henchmen are what they did. I don’t think I don’t know, I don’t know any other place that, that had such sophistication, such cruelty and such sadism, as the Ba’ath Party had from ’68 till recently probably, till the, this century, till 2003. But they, they excelled, they excelled in, in, in methods that defies humanity. How a person can be so cruel to another.

[1:04:40]

You heard your parents talking behind doors, and that led to what process of your leaving?

Right, so in… I remember in 1970, my father suddenly feeling…ill. And I remember the ambulance coming in, and I remember, he was holding his heart. I mean we’re talking about a period when all these things were happening continuously; deaths, torture, release, either somebody is being released, somebody is being arrested, somebody is being hanged. It was a tiny community, and I would say at least a quarter or even half of all the adults were arrested at some time or another, or anybody over eighteen. So we’re talking here about being bombarded with this sort of thing. And, my father had this, this sort of condition, and, I remember how, how anxious we all were. But then my mother said it was not a heart attack, it was palpations. And, I cannot remember whether they told us the story then, or later, but apparently that was the day that we were supposed to try and escape, in 1970. And my father decided to go and buy a small suitcase for our trip. And by the way every house, including ours, had 24/7, guys, watching us and this is not paranoia, this is true. Watching every Jewish home, they would be, either setting up a small place to sell tea, or a little stall. But you could tell that they’re not a stall man because they’d change. And they would be sitting watching almost every Jewish home, and the street, and the neighbourhood. One of the things that Saddam did was to have in every street, someone who reports back. And in every district somebody reports on the street, you know it was pyramid built total control, brilliant. But that way they knew everything and anything that happens in the street level. Not, not…You don’t need to read the papers or, or letters.

[01:07:19]

So my father went to get this suitcase and as he was crossing a road, suddenly two Army people handcuff him, not with handcuffs but take him by the, lift him up and throw him into the…lorry. And…dark lorry. And you can imagine what would a man feel; he was escaping that day. He hasn’t told us that and, he thought this was the end. Long story, but it turned out that that day there was a new law about zebra crossing. You’re only supposed to cross from a zebra crossing and therefore he wasn’t. And therefore he was going there and he had to go to the station to pay five Pounds penalty because they needed – the end of the month, of every month - they need to pay wages. So there is always some kind of a penalty to be paid in order to pay the wages. But by the time he knew what was happening; you know he had a heart problem, as a direct result of that incident. So that pushed us another year. We didn’t know about it, but finally August, August 10th 1971, he then gathered us. By then we all knew that one day, this is our only way of living, because you’re honestly were not living. You just, I don’t know, watching…watching…catastrophe after catastrophe, you were just counting minutes. You wouldn’t buy anything new, you wouldn’t dream of a new project, if you finished school you are, let’s say you are unemployed, sitting at home, can’t go out. That was…so there was absolutely, absolutely nothing to do, but zero, except for running away. That’s your only chance. So, so we were expecting it but we, we, you hope you never hear it, like a major operation. You just hope that it won’t happen but you know that it’s in the, in the offing. So, one day he brought us back and it was, I remember the day very well. I remember the room very well when he asked us to come in. And...you know, with a blank face he said, ‘We have two hours in this house, and we will be gone. After that we will try and…’ that’s when he gave us the instructions, not to speak at all, unless spoken to. Not to, you know, not to, not to take anything with us except for, he specified the size of, of how - what we can, you know, a couple of shirts, couple of you know, sort of underwear, some this one, and…that’s it. I mean you know, I can go on describing it as if it was yesterday, but… That was, we then left the house at the time that we were supposed to and the, I always talk about the two hours that we had.

[01:10:13]

I remember going up and down looking at all my collections, one at a time, saying goodbye to all of them. And although I was able to take one, I just don’t know how to explain it, but I decided it’s like my children this was, I, I lived for them. And therefore no one should be escaping with me at the expense of the other collections. So they’re all there. Left them all. Didn’t take anything with me. I took a couple of things which I still have. Gifts for my you know sort of excellence, for excellence in school, the prizes like this, but other than that, we spent the two hours just roaming around, counting minutes, anxiety, fear, sweat, hot August Baghdad. I remember so well these hours and as we got out to the car, you try to be pretending to be normal and, and in front of the guy who’s making tea outside, and, and here your inside is, is churning, is tearing, as you got into the car in the heat of Baghdad. And you are embarking on the, on the adventure of your lifetime. And so on and so forth. I mean, I don’t know how much you want me to describe the, the, the day. But…you know we, I remember very clearly moments in that trip. I remember standing, it was funny, it was like six o’clock, seven o’clock in the evening, and the sun is setting and just about light. You know, that… And I always remember Baghdad like this. My first, when you tell me Baghdad, or you tell me how, when I was a kid, I always remember it at that time of the day. Sun is setting, not yet night, there is no light. And, and I remember standing there waiting for our next instruction, because my father only knew one instruction which was to go to the, to the train station. And waiting for something to happen, and we were standing there.

[01:12:31]

And I remember the young man who came in, which we recognised, and he very politely said to my father, ‘Hello Mr Shuker, how are you?’ And, ‘I see you are planning a trip. You know, may I recommend Mosul at this time of the year? Absolutely superb weather apparently. Very cool.’ And he just went, into the horizon. And, and then that was the cue for my father to buy tickets for Mosul. I remember in the train, the train was, was hell, because the journey, because it was packed. And soldiers, were so many of them. And we were sitting in a compartment but we were not by ourselves. And, it’s a night train. And my sisters were not allowed to speak, I was you know, in case they reveal their identity and I, I just I remember when like, a sleepless night. One thirty at night when you are just dozing off and the door of the cabin just opens and it’s identity checks; ticket and identity. And, we had forged papers, my father had. And my sisters were oblivious I think to the forged papers and all that but, I was the anxious man. I was anxious and I worried all day, every day, of my life. So, I’m always anticipating what’s going to happen in the next minute and the worst scenario, of course. The next time they are coming in, they will check that it’s forged, we will be marched out, we’ll be dragged out by our hair; we’ll be tortured to death. You know, the every minute was a scenario for me, until we reached the station. And then we had to hire a taxi, and the taxi driver doesn’t know who we are, what we are. And we were saying, my father was giving the orders, and saying, ‘I want you to be, to go to the Salahaddin.’ And he said, ‘what? What are you talking? Are you crazy?’ And this was like the Kurdish area. ‘I take you to the best, best places. You will always remember me for that.’ My father says, ‘No, we have something sentimental. We have people waiting for us there. Family who are ahead of us.’ And he says, ‘But it’s dangerous going up north that much. We will have to cross so many checkpoints and…’ And my father, ‘Yeah, but it’s too late now, because my…the other family has already left and they are already waiting for us, and, I will give you more money.’ And the guy says, ‘But I’ll take you to another place.’ And, and I don’t know, I mean you know, so, I just remember so clearly these moments that, that, that, that, that, that screamed at me. And I remember the checkpoints, with whenever we get to a checkpoint, and the, the, the Army.

[01:15:24]

I mean till today, till now, if I see anyone in uniform, my heart sinks, totally and absolutely. At my age. Today. After being here for forty years. I look in the mirror and if I see a policeman, even though he’s not even asking to talk to me, just a police car, my heart just completely and totally sinks. And when he stops me, I’m shaking. I was there, last, two weeks ago I was stopped. I mean, you know I did not absolutely, he stopped me for nothing, and I’m, and I’m trembling and I’m shaking and I’m sweating, and my heart is beating. And so I remember these guys when we stopped at check points and they would push these machine guns inside the, for extra effect, inside the car, and ask my father to get out. And, and my father would go out and you could see him, how anxious he is, we are sitting in the car. And the film plays in my mind. And my grandmother. We were three kids and my grandmother, in the back and packed and, she’s reciting the Shema Yisrael in, in, in a hear-able way and I was like, we’re all begging her, to keep quiet. And I just, just… on and on and on, until we reached the Kurdish enclave. And then there was a, major complications, because there was another couple of families, who were not supposed to come. We had to get the ok from the smuggler in Baghdad, so he would tell them to expect that family. And we had a, had a piece of paper, we had a card that’s cut into half so he knew the person who would bring the other half of the king of spades is the family that is bona fide and they are supposed to come. And there was another two families who tried to beat the system, came out without that. And the Kurds, were going to shoot them.

[01:17:31]

They said, ‘You can’t’. And, I remember my grandmother and I remember my, my father, and literally, I have not seen that, literally, falling on their faces and kissing the feet of these Kurds, who were going to shoot these guys, or at least send them back under threat of shooting. And just to allow them that chance, having reached all these checkpoints, finally they agreed and, and we had a very rough ride, because we could not have the nine people journey, we were now twenty–two. And the same car, the same sort of pick-up car for like a cattle, we were packed there. And…and that was very, again, I was, I remember the thoughts in my mind saying, ‘I want to be back. I want to go out. I want to go home. I cannot take that. I cannot take any more of this. I cannot look in the, valley, and it’s the valley of death.’ The car was, we were twenty people in the car, twenty –two people. We were packed one on top of the other. There were no lights. The cars had to drive completely in darkness. The valley is down there, no barriers, no nothing. You could see the odd lorry down, down in there. And I don’t want; I cannot take any more of this. And…I was so angry for, for, for being put into that position. But we made it.

The Kurds took you over the mountains?

The Kurds took us to Iran.

Iran.

And, the, the Kurd who took us was, identified himself as Massoud Barzani the son of the legendary Mustafa Barzani and the current President of Kurdistan. He personally took us over the border.

Once you got to Iran what happened?

[01:19:32]

Once we got to Iran, we were like refugees. Like hell, all refugees anywhere in the world. No papers and you get the United Nations, and you get the Jewish Agency, and we were put into hotels for asylum seekers, so to speak. And, you could see the rest of the population looking at this wave after wave of people who come in with, with almost nothing and stationed there. And we were interviewed by the Jewish Agency who interviewed my, and we were given temporary papers, refugee papers, called [Parauana]. And, were happy days, were happy days in Teheran, the few days that we spent there, were very happy days. That was the relief of a lifetime of being under, what felt like a lifetime of the, of that persecution. And suddenly we could walk in the street, nobody is going to be arrested, nobody is going to be hanged. In a way, that experience some people was negative, because, every minute and every hour and every day, we had only one objective, get out. So now we are out, and suddenly you had to pick up your life! You had to say, ‘Ok, I’m out now.’ So I was sixteen and something. ‘So what do I do now? Where do I go?’ What… All these questions that were never, ever being entertained before. We only had one thought. And I was the lucky one, at that age. People who were twenty-five or thirty-five, having spent all their life for that one day and that day came and now they are…What do I do next? Who am I? And that’s why, actually when I see, refugees I, I immediately sympathise. Genuine refugees, I just know exactly what’s going on in their minds. It’s just total blank, total blank, total…no joy, no joy. It’s, ‘I’m free, but what do I do now? I have not been free for, for…for years.’

The, the Jewish Agency, the…where did you go at that point from Iran?

Well, the Jewish Agency had, I mean…once they interviewed us, they would want, they would ask us whether we want to become immigrants, in Israel. And they helped us, with, with the logistics, tremendously, of course. They coordinate with the government of Iran, and finally, the flight to Tel Aviv.

And so you come to Tel Aviv, and did you think of staying there? Did your parents want to stay?

[01:22:34]

No, my father knew exactly where he wanted to go beforehand. So he actually…we have family here in London. We learnt, in school, in the English way, and he just wanted us to have English educations. Absolutely determined.

How long did you stay in Israel?

Days. [Coughs] I think days, because…in order to catch the, beginning of the, academic year here in London. I mean we were, we, we reached Israel on the first of September 1971, and the term here started, I don’t know, some time in late September. And in order not to lose the year, I had to make a very quick move. My sisters and my mother stayed behind a few more months, but I, I, I rushed back.

With your father, or…?

No. I rushed, I went back with my Uncle Karim, who lived here, and who came to see us in Israel, and he took me back with him.

And your family, did they ever considered staying in Israel? The rest of your family?

No, they did not. I must tell you, the, coming out of the air--, the plane and seeing that Israelis are normal people and… short and fat and …and, and swear and, and, and was the biggest shock. Because…I, I expected these supermen people, and… they, and every time I said, ‘Maybe, maybe they are just outside the airport. Maybe these are just the cleaners… [Laughing] and the reception committee and then once we leave the airport…’ and that was what I remember this. I was sitting in a car, taking us to the thing and I’m waiting for these wonderful superman blond and blue-eyed who conquered all the Arabs. So, I’m looking out the window and waiting for them to come in the next turn. And, in a way…it was not, it was, overwhelming. It was very overwhelming. Um…

[01:24:54]

Emotional?

Everything. I mean we first day we arrived was my Uncle’s…wedding. He- We arrived straight almost from the airport to the wedding. It was, we were dressed in Iraqi clothes. Not cool and not modern, and, you know...

What does ‘Iraqi clothes’ mean?

Well it was old-fashioned, proper, you know suits…as we walked in Iraq with maybe a bow-tie, because we were going to the wedding. But we looked quite ridiculous there. Everybody was in sandals and short, you know even the, even the groom didn’t have a tie on and, there we were with little ties, you know… I don’t know polyester ties, you know, whatever. Just foreigners. Just outside. And, and then suddenly I… we were overwhelmed because they, I mean the biggest thing was when I, when they said, ‘Here is your grandfather.’ And you know, you- he was an old man who’s, who lived to see his [Bekhor shahulet] and, to see the children of [shahulet]. I don’t know it was overwhelming, it was very overwhelming because I did not even know I had a grandfather. And, then my grandmother and then uncles, and then cousins, and then second cousins and then other side, and all were at the wedding. But we just…and the language barrier and… It was, it was, it was too much. It was very traumatic.

And you spent then some time with family, before you left, after that the next few days?

Yes, yes, but we were we were like fish out of water. It was a different language, and… I don’t know what we expected. I don’t know what I expected. I’m talking about myself. Would I expect to be received as a hero, who suffered as a, prisoner of Zion? But really quite honestly nobody gives a hoot. You know, you’re just there. Or, the language barrier; I could not understand what’s going on. The people had to go to work the next day, you know, my uncles had to work and my cousins said goodbye and we were sitting in this heat of Ramat Gan and, it was anti-climax a bit for me after the joy of, of Teheran where, and the anticipation that we just left, and the [ph foyer]. And what do I do the next day, waiting for my time to go back to London and the visas, and all that.

[01:27:52]

And you come to London. And what was that experience like, arriving?

I, I did not expect much from London. I again, my image of London was from the Charles Dickens books, so I expected everyone to be in a bowler hat and long umbrella and, and, and speaking a certain way. And… again it was shocking for me to see normal people, unwelcoming, cold, but there was a feeling that ‘I’m now on my own’. Because I was on my own, you know my father wasn’t with me and my mother and kids. ‘I’m a big boy now. I have now to make my life’. And that was overwhelming that feeling, I felt, ‘I’m a man now. I have to make it work’. And the, the weather was awful. The rainfall… I honestly think the first year, it rained for five, six months without a break. I honestly don’t think I had one day without rain. And I didn’t see it. In Iraq, in Baghdad it would rain once a, a year. And the, so pleasant. We would be dancing in the rain because we were hot, and dancing and cheering and then, this gorgeous smell after the rain from the garden and from the… we have something called [pendar] which is the, the flower on the trees, the citrus trees. It has such a beautiful, beautiful perfumed smell. And after the rain it’s filled…oh! And so from one day or two days a year to daily, dark, dark, you wake up in dark, in night and you come back at night. And…my clothes were ridiculous. I mean I just remember I, I didn’t have money to buy, and I was in rags really, quite honestly. We didn’t have winter clothes, so I was wearing two or three jumpers that my mother knitted and… But I, I rose to the challenge. I absolutely …internally I grew very much, very quick. And… the idea that actually ‘I’m free and I’m in London among English speaking people in a capital of the world - ah! - I’m no longer a persecuted Jew wondering day in day out whether he’s gonna, whether his father is gonna live or not’.

When did your parents join you?

[01:30:40]

My parents joined…maybe I can’t remember, maybe six months, maybe nine months later. And they lived …with my uncle who was in South London, and I, I lived in North London near the school. So I carried on living by myself.

Which school did you go to?

I went to what was called Hendon School…Hendon Technology or something like that. It was an A-Level preparation, so, we went straight. Because we were prepared in, in English, although I hadn’t finished the last year of the High School, we were able to adjust. I will tell you that the mathematics and the level that I learnt in Iraq, when I was in year 10 or 11, was equivalent to the one I was then taught on first year of University in, here in Leeds. That’s how much we were so academic in Iraq. The Headmaster made sure that we were doing calculus and algebra and, and, and, and very, very sophisticated… teaching. And that kept me going. I was really in control of the subject that I was studying. So I actually learnt more intensely in Iraq.

What subject did you, did you get a degree, what did you…?

[01:32:16]

Well the thing that I was, that I excelled in, and I was learn—I learnt so well in Iraq, was mathematics. So I actually went for a mathematics degree. It was not my…my, my first choice. It was not something that I had any passion for. It was the thing that I was able and in control. I always wanted to be a lawyer. My father was a lawyer. And most, and many of my imaginary, games in Iraq evolved around Perry Mason, which I used to worship. I mean every episode I must have seen whenever it was shown, again and again. And I was Perry Mason. I was you know, saving the innocent man in the last second when I would reveal the…the, the smoking gun. But… I couldn’t do it. I didn’t have enough language skills to go for that. Neither did my father. My father had to go to selling T-shirts in the East End because again, without the skill of a language and place, it was, it was tough.

After your degree, what did, what did you do?

Well, I arrived to the University on the Sunday following the break out of the Yom Kippur War in 1973. I, we were sitting here actually, in this house. My father came back from the synagogue on Yom Kippur. And with you know with ashen faced and he said, ‘War. There’s a war.’ The next morning I had to go to the University. So I arrived to the University, with all the fears of Iraq back again. I was standing, filling out forms, when I heard the chilling voices behind me of Iraqis speaking in the local dialect. I immediately became very, very nervous. And they noticed that, and one of them said that ‘this guy, I think he understands what we’re talking about.’ And …I pretended not to, I just... And they actually caught my form. I was filling the form, caught it by force, and it says, ‘Born: Baghdad, Iraq’. And he said, you see? I told you. And then, they escorted me, to the Union, where about 200 Arabs were sitting in a dark room watching war videos from the front. And they switched on the light, and suddenly, I cannot describe that moment of fear, as 150 Arabs turned back to see, ‘Why would you switch on the light?’ And then, there I was, and these guys said, ‘We want to introduce a brother of us. A brother Arab who, who just arrived!’ And a round of applause and then suddenly all the questions started coming to me because they were all watching. And it’s like, ‘So what’s your name?’ And I said, ‘Edwin [Mumbling a last name]’. What is this name? It’s, it’s a joke. What is your real name? So I said ‘Well it’s a kind of a Edward…’ And they said, ‘You are a Muslim?’ So I said then, ‘No. My mother was English.’ I was making it up, out of sheer terror. And…they said, ‘Look, what’s the difference? Muslim. Christian. We are all brothers today. There’s a war and the Jews have to be eliminated, and so doesn’t matter, don’t worry about not being a Muslim. You are, you are an Arab.’

[01:36:30

And…that drew the, the framework for the next three years, because I just could not get out of that lie that I started off. So I actually did the University, as a Christian Arab, who doesn’t like Jews, who actually in the…in the Arab, league there in the elections I am in the Arab society. And I avoided speaking to any Jew for three years.

So you didn’t go to Hillel?

You’re kidding me? As every week that passed by, it was more difficult because if you would reveal yourself after three weeks they would kill you. So I thought, ‘Well if I’m going to die, let me at least enjoy myself for one day!’ So I just played the game and I had a great time, actually, with it.

Ok, so you graduate Leeds. You have a degree in math. And then you…you get married. Where does your life take you?

Ooh! You…eh…Well, after; first of all I didn’t live as a Jew. I came back here. I started working. Are we talking now in the…’76. And …I, after a year I could not…the idea that I actually clock in and clock out every day, and have a boss [inaud] was just un-me, that I, I went into freelancing and I did mathematics, computer science, computers. And I freelanced for a couple of years, which meant that I had no boss. I can go from one place to the other. And, I then, reached the stage of life where I felt ‘What’s life for? What is the meaning of this life?’ And I remember the minute and the day that that happened. I was just passing by, walking on a river, on the bridge. I was beginning to lose my hair, at 21. And I was very depressed about it. And I was looking around saying, ‘What is the meaning of this life? I am now, I’m – I’m handsome, I’ve got a sports car, I’ve got a degree. I, I had the world; I’m earning a lot of money with this freelancing. So what’s next? What’s going to be next? Next I’m going to lose my hair, then I’m going to lose my sight, then I’m going to lose my limbs, and on to…it’s just, from now on, it’s just downwards until death. So why don’t I just – literally, I had that thought – Why don’t I just jump right now? Right now, into this river, and finish this. Don’t want to go down. I want to stay in my peak.’ And that opened a world of spirituality for me that changed my life, because I reached the absolute lowest point at that moment.

[01:39:52]

[01:40:12]

[End of Part 1]

[Part Two]