Iraqi Testimonies

"Iraqi Jewish People Are Iraqis, No Matter What Dirty Politics Says!

From what my parents and old relatives tell me, I still have this picture of Iraq, in which everyone lived peacefully. Shiites, Sunnis, Muslims, Christians, Jewish and others. “We didn’t even know who is what,” my mother always said.

When my mother talks about the old days, she tells me about her Jewish neighbors. She tells me how her family used to bring them food during Ramadan [not that they were poor. But in Iraq, it is a tradition to take some of what you cook for dinner during Ramadan, the holy month in which Muslims fast from sunrise to sunset, and share it with your neighbors. A gesture that shows how connected and united the Iraqi community was. We still do that in my family, in Ramadan and other days of the year.] I hear some extremists say “it is forbidden to eat in a non-Muslim house” although in Quran, Islam’s holy book, God tells us clearly that we can eat in Christians and Jewish houses because they are our brothers in humanity."
24 Steps to Liberty