Wednesday, May 16, 2012

By the rivers of Babylon

Journalist writing Rachel Shabi is an Iraqi Jew, born in Israel to parents who migrated there from Iraq in the early fifties and then moved to England. In her book, We Look Like the Enemy: The Hidden Story of Israel's Jews from Arab Lands (New York, 2008), Shabi writes that her father lampoons the legend of Iraqi Jews weeping beside Babylon as they remembered Zion.

"They weren't crying, " he says. "They were singing and dancing and drinking arak!"

Can someone, someday, write and record a vision of that brilliant reggae song?


1 comment:

Abdul-Halim V. said...

The line from Psalm 137 always reminds me of the opening scene from Blazing Saddles. (and vice-versa) ... "sing us a good ol' n*gger work song"