Guest Post: Sarah Sassoon Reading Mizrahi Books for Mizrahi Heritage Month

Growing up as an Iraqi Jewish girl in Sydney I had no idea what the word Mizrahi meant. And there was certainly no such thing as Mizrahi Heritage Month. Sure I heard the word Mizrahi bandied about, but it felt far from me. It wasn't my identity. If people asked me what I was I would say Jewish. I was clearly not Ashkenazi, and I didn't know enough about my Iraqi Jewish, ancient Babylonian roots to claim it as my own.

But still growing up I devoured my Iraqi Jewish grandmother's cheese sambusek, shabbat lunch t'bit, and her beetroot kubbeh soup. Listened to my parents and aunts and uncles banter and bicker in Judeo-Arabic when they got together. Rocked my small body back and forth to the Arabic tunes my grandfather loved. I ate the food, I heard the songs, absorbed the language and customs and did not know where it all came from.

I was split between the outside Australian world and the inside world of my Middle Eastern Jewish home. I didn't know any other Iraqi Jewish girls like me, even though there were Mizrahi girls in my class, but different, their parents came to Australia via Bombay or Singapore. Further we never really knew each others stories let alone our own. We knew we were different, clearly not Ashkenazi, but didn't have the stories or school education to give us voices as Mizrahi Jews.

So much of the Mizrahi story was lost for so many reasons. When I began to write I wrote many stories as all writers do, but I began with Ashekenazi ones, identifying with the majority Ashkenazi Jewish community. That is until I began writing about growing up with my grandparents. Then, I became obsessed with questions and researched what happened to the ancient Babylonian community of Iraqi Jews. Over 120,000 left in 1951 due to terrible, antisemitic persecution, to the tent camps in Israel. This was my family story. Inheriting my grandmother's bangle I wanted to write its story, and wrote Shoham's Bangle, about a little girl's journey on the biggest refugee airlift in history, Operation Ezra and Nehemiah. The airlift my grandparents, my father, aunts and uncles were part of.

In the 20th Century a million Jews were refugees from Arab lands. The ancient Jewish communities of Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Morocco and others vanished. Today only 3 Jews live in Iraq. So much was lost, but these refugees, like my grandparents, brought with their single suitcases, strengths and wisdom from their lost worlds.

I wanted to share these Middle Eastern Jewish values through my children's books, so they are not forgotten and continue to be passed down from parent to child. Such as the value of family, having each other, which is the main theme of Shoham's Bangle. The value of sharing cultural traditional foods like in This is Not a Cholent, knowing as Amira's Nana says, "Whatever happens, we know this is our own special cholent that's traveled through many hands to be here." The value of being different, sharing a family recipe which breaks barriers, so a child learns to share where they come from proudly, like Amira in This is Not a Cholent. And the value of a Shabbat meal, to bring people together around a stew that feeds an army. Indeed, I share my grandmother's recipe in This is Not a Cholent, knowing I am sharing her generous spirit, that there is always enough, and everyone is always welcome, the Middle Eastern way.

Today if you ask me what kind of Jew I am, I say Iraqi Jewish, because I want the world to know that there are Middle Eastern Jews. I say this with a smile and know how blessed I am to have written books for my Mizrahi friends to read with their children, and jangle their own bangles inherited from their mothers and grandmothers. I smile and know how many families will lick their lips and share their own traditional family stews with their children when they read This is Not a Cholent. I smile knowing how wonderful it is to share the often unknown world of Middle Eastern Jews through my books and in Mizrahi Heritage Month. More than that I hope my books inspire parents and grandparents to share their own unique cultures, traditional foods, and stories proudly with their children. This is how we thrive with joy — generation to generation.