Sarah Sassoon

Born	Sydney, Australia, to a family of Iraqi Jewish heritage
Today	Writer, poet, and educator based in Jerusalem
Books	Shoham's Bangle (2022); This Is Not a Cholent (2024)
Expertise	Iraqi Jewish history, Mizrahi literature for children, storytelling and oral history
Speaks to	Educators, students, families, and writers
Website	Visit website

Sarah Sassoon grew up in Sydney, Australia, in an Iraqi Jewish home; her family fled Baghdad in 1951. Little was said about Iraq when she was growing up, and she has described writing as a way of traveling where her family did not speak. She taught at Ezra Nehemia Academy in Johannesburg before moving to Jerusalem, where she lives with her husband and four sons. She holds an MFA in English Literature and Poetry from Bar Ilan University.

Her picture book Shoham's Bangle (Kar-Ben, 2022) follows a girl whose family must leave Iraq for Israel. It won a Crystal Kite Award, was named a Sydney Taylor Notable Book, and appeared on Tablet Magazine's list of the best Jewish children's books of 2022. This Is Not a Cholent (Kar-Ben, 2024) tells of a girl in Australia who enters her grandmother's Iraqi Shabbat stew in a cholent contest. Her poetry micro chapbook This Is Why We Don't Look Back won the Harbor Review Jewish Women's Poetry Prize.

Her poems and essays have appeared in Lilith, Michigan Quarterly Review, Hadassah Magazine, and elsewhere. She serves on the editorial team of Distinctions: A Sephardi and Mizrahi Journal, published by JIMENA, and co-created Ayuni: Voices of Our Jewish Grandmothers, a podcast celebrating the stories of Middle Eastern and North African Jewish women. In schools, libraries, and educator programs, she leads writing workshops and shows teachers how stories and objects can carry family memory across generations.