Interview: Eli Amir

From The Jewish Chronicle

Eli Amir is one of Israel's best known novelists, and his books are taught in Israeli schools. In this 2010 interview with the writer Miriam Halahmy, he talks about the Baghdad of his childhood and the novels he wrote about leaving it.

His story

From Baghdad to a tent

Amir was born in Baghdad in 1937. At 13, he left Iraq with his family, part of the departure of about 120,000 Iraqi Jews to Israel. In the transit camp where they first lived, the family was given half a tent to sleep in, and his younger brother mistook the spaghetti they were served for worms. Amir later worked as a government adviser on Arab affairs and on the absorption of new immigrants, and he has been active in The Abraham Fund, which works for equality and coexistence between Jewish and Arab citizens of Israel.

His novels

Telling the story of a lost world

The Dove Flyer, set in Baghdad in the community's last years, follows a teenage boy named Kabi and a circle of characters that includes a dove keeper, a Zionist, and a Communist. Amir calls it a book of dreams, written to convey the pain of losing a homeland. His earlier novel Scapegoat describes the clash between new immigrants and native born Israelis, and Yasmin tells of a love story between an Israeli and a Palestinian, a book that found readers in Egypt.

His views

Knowing one another

Amir argues that Israeli society did not appreciate how much Iraqi Jews shared the language, food, and customs of the Arab world. He hopes readers will understand the upheaval of Iraqi society in the 1940s, when the old order collapsed and the ancient Jewish community faced growing hostility, and he believes that peace depends on Israelis and Arabs coming to know each other as people.

Read the full interview at The Jewish Chronicle →

This summary was written by JIMENA and is based on “Interview: Eli Amir” by Miriam Halahmy, published by The Jewish Chronicle (March 25, 2010). The original interview belongs to The Jewish Chronicle.