מנהגי בגדאד

When my sister…got engaged…her boyfriend…proposed to her. And the Iraqis didn’t understand that she was married. They thought…thought she was still unmarried. And when they would go to the cinema or another place…they would take another friend or cousin aged 17 or 18 (as though they were) looking after her.

The houses were all together. The same. You’d go in here…this…the kitchen, and the shower. Upstairs there was…everything for sleeping. Beds, beds…beds, many beds next to each other. We were seven children of my mother. Bed, bed. We’d go out onto the roof and sleep on the roof in summer.

After Passover. Rosh HaShana or something like that. On Rosh HaShana, they would go downstairs.

The life was good, beautiful. Better than here. The woman would be at home and wouldn’t work. The children would eat…the mother would cook every day. Every day cooking […]. A woman would go to the street at one o’clock with a […] to take the remaining food. So that the leftovers wouldn’t go bad.

The Muslims would come on holidays. One officer came to my father with an expensive beaded necklace. He came on the holiday. He came six months later with a different woman to my dad. My father did this with the necklace.

I was at a girl’s school and I played with a ball to. I played with the ball a lot. I really liked…working my body a bit. I liked sport. I really liked sport. And here in Israel I did a lot of sport. I used to walk a lot, and lift heavy weights on my hands and feet. Because of that, today I’m well. I…walk, and cook and do the housework and clean the house. Every cupboard with my hands. I’m 87 years old.

There was a property taxin Baghdad. I really liked life in Iraq. I liked it. Because I opened my eyes in Baghdad…I don’t know. Maybe.

Baghdad was…they would sing about Baghdad was the country of the Rashid and the Gulf people. That’s Baghdad.

Baghdad was called […]