REORIENT on Mizrahi music

REORIENT recently published a fine overview of Mizrahi music in Egypt and current efforts to keep the Arab Jewish tradition alive, by Mohamed Belmaaza. He, I think correctly, labels the current generation of cultural activists 'Neo-Arab-Jews,' due to the fact that they have not been educated in standard Arabic, unlike their parents and grandparents who were born in the Arab world.

Belmaaz discusses the fabulous Neta Elkayam, about whom I hope to blog in future, and he cites the work of scholars of Mizrahi music Motti Regev, Edwin Seroussi, and Amy Horowitz. And there is much more.

But the bit that I found most interesting, and the most moving, is the discussion of David Regev Zaarour, grandson of the renowned Iraqi musician Youssef Zaarour. David Regev Zaarour "recently decided to pay tribute to his family by uploading on YouTube all of his grandfather’s recordings. ‘I had to put [the recordings] on YouTube to make [them] memorable. I got reactions and photos from people, especially from Iraq’, he says in a short documentary he created. As well, David also preserves the cultural legacy of his family and his roots by performing Arabic Iraqi and Egyptian music in his band, La Falfoula."

Here is a link to his archive youtube videos, which is quite remarkable. It includes not just music from Youssef Zaarour but by other Iraqi musicians as well. And also some vids of his group La Falfoula. Below is just a sample, but you should explore the entire archive.

Also very noteworthy is the video about David and his grandfather by Jewish Daily Forward. I was particularly moved by the phone call between David and an Iraqi, who pays tribute to the Iraqi Jewish musicians and states that is a national shame that their contribution to the country's is forgotten and not recognized.

Yusuf and David Zaarur, Iraqi Israeli musicians from Jewish Daily Forward on Vimeo.

Jewish Morocco mix

You must listen to this, on soundcloud, courtesy Toukadim.


And check out Toukadime's vids on youtube. Invaluable.


If you like the mix, then you should also follow Chris Silver's blog, Jewish Morocco.

BBC World Service: Arab Jews - A Forgotten Exodus, Episode 2

Inside El Ghriba synagogue, Djerba, Tunisia

First broadcast on October 20, 2012.

Jewish communities that have survived in Arab countries for centuries are under a new threat. In the second part of a two part series Magdi Abdelhadi tells the story of the last few thousand Jews that remain in Arab countries and how they are surviving in “hostile” territory.

Travelling to Tunisia, he visits one of the oldest and most traditional Jewish diasporas in the world, a society that has stared threats in the face for centuries and is now being endangered once again. 

Following the revolution that took place in the country eighteen months ago, an alarming brand of extreme Islamism has emerged. There have been a number of Salafist demonstrations calling for death to the Jews and attacks on synagogues, which have spread fear and concern amongst this 1500 strong Jewish community. 

Magdi looks at how they are coping, whether their existence is under threat and what the future now holds for them as this new Islamist threat increases. 

Listen here. 

Notes of Exile - Maurice El Medioni documentary movie

Teaser for a documentary about the great Algerian-Jewish pianist Maurice El Medioni. Medioni is also part of El Gusto. He has a great sense of humor, a great interview subject.

"Jews of Egypt": new documentary film by Amir Ramses

The film was screened at the Galaxy Theater in Manial, Cairo on October 6, as part of the Fifth Panorama of the European Film festival, sponsored by Misr International Films (Youssef Chahine).

Arabic title: عن يهود مصر.

Naira Antoun did a fine review of the film in today's Egypt Independent.

The film website is here.

Here's the English trailer:



Here's an even more substantive review by Joseph Fahim, from Variety Arabia.

Too bad the director didn't interview Joel Beinin, author of the definitive study of Egyptian Jews.

Statement from the Ramat Gan Committee of Baghdadi Jews

Statement from the Ramat Gan Committee of Baghdadi Jews, 14 September, 2012 / 27 Elul, 5772 

A) We most sincerely thank the Israeli government for confirming our status as refugees following a rapid, 62-year-long evaluation of our documents.

B) We request that Ashkenazi Jews are also recognized as refugees so that they won't consider sending to our homes the courteous officers of the Oz immigration enforcement unit.

C) We are seeking to demand compensation for our lost property and assets from the Iraqi government - NOT from the Palestinian Authority - and we will not agree with the option that compensation for our property be offset by compensation for the lost property of others (meaning, Palestinian refugees) or that said compensation be transferred to bodies that do not represent us (meaning, the Israeli government).

D) We demand the establishment of an investigative committee to examine: 1) if and by what means negotiations were carried out in 1950 between Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion and Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri as-Said, and if Ben-Gurion informed as-Said that he is authorized to take possession of the property and assets of Iraqi Jewry if he agreed to send them to Israel; 2) who ordered the bombing of the Masouda Shem-Tov synagogue in Baghdad, and if the Israeli Mossad and/or its operatives were involved. If it is determined that Ben-Gurion did, in fact, carry out negotiations over the fate of Iraqi Jewish property and assets in 1950, and directed the Mossad to bomb the community's synagogue in order to hasten our flight from Iraq, we will file a suit in an international court demanding half of the sum total of compensation for our refugee status from the Iraqi government and half from the Israeli government.

E) Blessings for a happy new year, a year of peace and prosperity, a year of tranquility and fertility.

 ~ The Ramat Gan Committee of Baghdadi Jews

(As originally posted by Almog Behar on FB. I got it via Racheli.)

Cafe Noah

Very moving documentary about musicians who were Jewish Arabs and ended up in Israel after 1948. They attempted, as best they could, to recreate their musical culture in exile, at Cafe Noah, in Tel Aviv. From Al Jazeera English.

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?

Jewish Morocco

I want to give a shout out to this fabulous blog, Jewish Morocco, and its obsessive search for and commentary on music by Jewish Moroccans. And sometimes Algerians, like Blond Blond:



Well worth following!