Exile from Exile: Israeli Writers from Iraq

3. Jewish Writers of Modern Iraqi Fiction

Jewish Writers of Modern Iraqi Fiction 3 The Jews are the life and soul of the citizenship of Iraq. -King Faisal I THE JEWS OF IRAQ MADE A CONTRIBUTION NOT ONLY IN POLITICS, HEALTH, trade, and commerce, but in the cultural sphere as well. The extent of Jewish participation in the Iraqi literary scene was unprecedented in the Arab world. Cohen writes that the process of the Jews' Iraqization was "evidenced in the emergence of the first Jewish poets and writers [in modern times] writing in the Arabic language as Iraqis."! According to Shmuel Moreh, eleven out of fourteen novels and thirteen out of fifteen short-story collections by Jews written in Arabic and published in the Arab world were written by Iraqi Jews. (The remainder were by Egyptian Jews.) In no other Arab country, it appears, did Jews reach such a high level of literary creativity in Arabic.2 Jews were among the pioneers of the short-story genre in Iraq. According to Reuven Snir3 three quarters of the literary pioneers were Jews. Murad Mlkha'IT (1909-86) is considered to have written the first "artistic" Iraqi short story to be published.4 Jewish writers were among the first to use realism and local color, setting their stories in contemporary Iraq.5 The reasons for Jewish literary activity were many. The eclipse of the traditional religious school system by the Western-oriented Alliance school and others encouraged an openness to the West that included 29 30 EXILE FROM EXILE: ISRAELI WRITERS FROM IRAQ the appreciation of Western literary forms. Jewish attendance at free state schools, and the patriotic attitude of many of Iraq's jrews, effected the acceptance of the Arabic-Islamic heritage as part of thdr own. They felt the need for a modern indigenous literature and had the tools to help establish it.6 In the mid-ninet(~enth century a variety of factors led to the formation of the middle class. "A new mercantile bourgeois class arose, due to European capital, efforts of the Turkish military to eliminate some of the feudal kingdoms during their third period of occupation (beginning in 1831), and the reforms of Midhat Pasha in the 1860s."7 The rising literacy rate created a potential audience,8 and the proliferation of newspapers offered an easy venue for literary creations. It is no coincidence that 1909, the year after the Young Turk revolution, marks the "beginning of Jewish writing in literary Arabic."9 The first book by a Jew in litt~rary Arabic (The Ottoman Revolution by Selim Yi~l:lak) and two Jewish newspapers (Nissim Yusif Somekh's Arabic and Turkish language Al-Zuhur and Yi~l:lak Yel:lezkel Menal:lem 'Ani's Bayn al-Nahrayn) appeared that year. 10 Many more Jewish-owned and -sponsored journals followed, taking advantage of the new freedom and equality granted to the Jews. Most of the literary pioneers were in their youth. The older generation was less likely to participate to the same extent for several reasons. Having been educated during the period of Ottoman Turkish rule, members of this generation were in general less fluent in literary Arabic than their younger counterparts. Literature was not a financially rewarding field. Monetary considerations were more likely to influence someone who was expected to support a family than someone who did not yet bear such responsibility. Additionally, the social disapproval accorded literary endeavors-especially the writing of fiction-had greater effect on someone who had already worked to establish a good reputation. The differences in educational, financial, and. social status help explain the dominance of younger writers in the Iraqi literary renaissance. According to another view, the young had both the time to write and the boldness to try to publish.!! THE SHORT STORY AND ITS WRITERS The development of the modern Iraqi short story follows that of its Syrian-Lebanese and: Egyptian counterparts.!2 In the beginning stages, works were translated and adapted from Western languages. The pro- JEWISH WRITERS OF MODERN IRAQI FICTION 31 liferation of newspapers and journals offered a forum for these translations , and then for the original works. These first original works were rather dry and didactic, presumably in reaction to the romances and adventure stories that comprised the majority of the published translations . Moreover, the indigenous form of the anecdotal tale with its accompanying moral did not easily graft onto the European model of romance and adventure. Iraqi...