In (19)58 (was) the revolution of Abdel Karim Qasem and Abdul Salam Arif. The king (Faisal II) and his family were killed. But in general, that period of Abdel Karim Qassem between 1958 and 1963 was…could be considered the second golden age for the Jews. He was a bit…didn’t distinguish. 

So in relation to…at that time, some of the restrictions Abdel Karim Qasem removed. For example, they could travel and stay abroad, so lots of students left. After finishing school, they studied abroad. Those who came back would go to Baghdad University. It was…okay. Business and such…all that was okay. 

The one thing that was, as they say, a black thing, in the history of that time, between (19)58 and (19)63…the old Jewish cemetery, Abdel Karim Qasem decided that he wanted to build a tower. Like the Cairo Tower. And they said to the rabbi that he wanted to remove all of the cemetery. And he (the rabbi) said to him, “that’s not okay to remove the cemetery.” But what happened to this situation…in the summer of…1961, it did happen. 

At that time they […] as in, this was a bad thing. A bit later on, a year or so later, Abdel Karim Qasim was killed. 

I told you. I…the *dialect*. The Jewish Iraqi dialect and the dialect of the Muslims are different. Like here, one would say that…one person’s accent is of Jerusalem, and a Tel Aviv accent, are a bit different. But here, in that respect, everyone…is an immigrant, everyone comes with the accent of their country. For example Russian, and German and Polish and Iraqi and such…their speech differs a bit. One says “xā” and another says “ḥa”. One says “ṭa”, anther says “t”. One says “qaf”, the other says “k”. In Iraq too, it’s the same thing. So, for example, we…(the word) “I say”. “We say”. “He said to him”. This is the Jewish (dialect). “He said”. We say “ġāḥ”, “ášlon-ak?”…”kān…kān wu-mā kān”. The Muslims, or the Muslim dialect, say *“agǝl-l-ak”. “čān”*. Instead of “kān”, they say *“čān”. “šlōn-ak”, “šlõn-ǝč”*. We say, to a female, we say “ášlon-ǝk? ašlon-ǝk?”. And they say *“šlōn-ǝč?”*. So there’s a difference…as in, there’s a difference between the dialects. In truth, the Jewish Iraqi dialect is the original dialect of Iraq. The original dialect of Baghdad, and Iraq.. From the (period of the) Abassids, as in…from approximately a thousand years ago. In the […] seventh, tenth…eighth, tenth, approximately…there was a plague. A plague…is a plague. A plague…and floods. Floods. Okay? In Baghdad. And many of the people died. Baghdad was gone. But the Jews…less (of them) died. Why? Because (of their) health (practices). They washed their hands. They had…they understood (the concept of) quarantine. They left the city and went outside, to the country…to the country. So relatively, the proportion of Jews who died was less relatively than the proportion of…let’s say…the remainder of Muslims. Naturally they stayed with their dialect…the Jewish (dialect). Many years later, let’s say about twenty years, Baghdad started growing again. Where did the Muslim people come from? They came from…other places. *Not* from Baghdad. They came from the countryside, from the south, okay? They brought their dialect with them. So the two dialects began to differ. Our dialect resembles the dialect of Mosul. The Mosul dialect of all (inhabitants of) Mosul. It resembles it. Not too much, but it’s closer. So when someone comes, an Iraqi Jew and speaks how I’m speaking, (someone) will tell you “is that person Maslawi?”. In comparison to a Muslim, we are considered to be speaking the Mosul dialect. They don’t know…that this is the Jewish dialect. So…in relation to Iraq, it changed more. Because Baghdad…now the majority of them (Baghdadis) are from the south (of Iraq). I mean, I have to…let’s say like this. Fifty years ago, when I left Iraq, if someone spoke Iraqi…there was chaos and…I mean…many people were talking I could catch it. The speech. Now, I need to concentrate. I have to listen to what people are saying exactly. The dialect has changed. I mean, things have changed over time. So this is how I spoke. And there was also…my dad worked all the time with the press and with Muslims. We didn’t want to show that we were Jewish in the street. Because if I were to come talk to you on the street in our dialect, they would instantly know (I was) Jewish. So I could go about without people knowing that I were Jewish. When I were to talk to a friend, I could talk as though I were a Muslim. That’s the story. But when we grew up, I started…my identity, my identity. So I started talking more in (the) Jewish (dialect). And sometimes, from time to time, there are words I use which are not Iraqi Jewish words. More Jewish-Muslim. For example, I say…”ˁād”. As in “ˁād”, as in…after, afterwards. (Jews) didn’t use it (that word) very much. And for example…words that are a bit different. They’re different. I’ve partly gotten used to them. And there are also Hebrew […] if someone is smart, we say “this person is a bastard”. As in, he’s smart. Okay? And…there’s…for example […]…we’d say “the husband of a widow”. As in, the husband of a widow…[…] you’re dead (a curse). As in, husband of widows. We can say “a fork”. One says “šǝkkāxa” and the other says…something else, I mean a different word. For example. There are words that differ between the…for example, that…ḥanafi, the Muslims say it…*what’s it called*…tap. Words such as this.

The story in relation to me…about, I mean, Iraq itself, how the Jews left and such.

Going back to my personal life. So after I finished the doctorate, I worked at a chemical engineering company, a big company. From there, as a chemical engineer, I switched to commercial things…in the company.

Later, I went to banks and became a manager…a merger and acquisitions manager in English.

In 1995 I came to Israel, I worked at an agricultural and land company. In about 1998, 1999 I started working in investment things in high-tech. And from that time I worked in those things.

In recent years I’ve started being more involved in the history of Jews of Iraq. For example, here in…the faithful…as in the ones responsible for the museum, from the area of the…administration of the museum. It’s called “neemanim”.

I am head of the organisation of the association of Jewish university graduates from Iraq. 

This organisation […] Jews of Iraq, about their history and…for example poetry or stories or things that were written. In recent years, I’ve become very involved in the subject of Jews of Iraq and the heritage of the Jews of Iraq.