Exile from Exile: Israeli Writers from Iraq

Preface

Preface This book examines the literature of a particular group of writers. They belong to a community of Jews who moved from Iraq to Israel during the period of mass immigration (1948-51). Their departure from Iraq signaled the end of the oldest Jewish community in the Diaspora; their arrival in Israel came at the beginning of a new nation. While the movement of the Babylonian Jewish community to Israel was seen as partial fulfillment of the Zionist dream, the separation from home created the condition of exile for individuals. In this study I focus on those who write narratives. All of the writers under discussion are experienced in short stories as well as longer works of fiction. However, I do not limit myself to the purely fictional genres, but include memoirs and stories that verge on the autobigraphical . In part 1, I attempt to establish a context for this study, first by examining the theoretical underpinnings to the study of exile in both the literary and Jewish contexts and then by detailing the historical and literary milieu within which these writers have created their works. The plight of the exile generally, and the exiled writer specifically, is not unique to these few individuals. Questions of language, culture, and identity, balancing the past and present, are shared by all transplanted artists. The experience of exile is central to the individual. Exile writing tends to be autobiographical in nature, and thus gives expression to the major issues of life in exile, such as mediating the tension between past and present. Writing is the main strategy used to deal xiv PREFACE with the exile's diffkulty of being understood (and of understanding) and the need to mediate between past and present. For both the writers and their character counterparts, memory-the past-can be controlled by the act of telling. In part 2, I examine the narrative fiction of these Iraqi Israeli writers against the background of exile literature. I begin by looking at the exiled writer's dilemma: the choice of language. How does a writer choose which language to use and how does this choice affect what is written (and what is read)? These particular writers were confronted with the choice between Arabic or Hebrew as their literary medium; with all due respect to the political and cultural implications of these choices, the decision is ultimately that of an individual. In analyzing the works themselves, I asked, what expression does the experience of exile find in the writing of the Iraqi Jews who came to Israel during the mass immigration? Which strategies do the writers use to deal with the experience and which strategies are incorporated in the process and product of their writing? Here are three main areas of interest: (1) issues of language within the narrative and external to it; (2) the portrayal of the past in Iraq and the present in Israel, as well as the conflict between the two; (3) the response to the literature, including the evaluation of individual works and authors, and the position of the writing within a :larger context. These works explore the polar opposites of home and exile. Home is reconstructed in some of these narratives as secure shdter for longlost childhood. Home means family and friends, shared customs and affection. Exile is the alienation both from the past-1:he home left behind-and the present surroundings; it means discontinuity in time and space. The literature of transition portrays the process by which exile becomes home, not by a return to the past but by reconciliation with the present. Complementary narratives reveal the process by which home became not-home and led to the mass exodus of the Iraqi Jewish community. Despite the centrality of the experiences portrayed to Israeli society -those of the uprooted and ingathered-the literature of these writers has been virtually ignored. The Israeli literary establishment is dominated by writers of Ashkenazi (European) background, and more and more by those native to Israel (sabras). In the standard surveys of modern Hebrew and Israeli literature, few of the Iraqi I~xiles or their works are even mentioned. Literary scholarship from outside of the PREFACE xv Iraqi Jewish community has given little attention to these works until recently. In the past few years, Israeli society has evinced greater awareness of some of the issues raised by this literature, and has shown greater acceptance of non-European...