When We Were Arabs: A Jewish Family’s Forgotten History Hardcover – June 25, 2019

This is a mesmerizing book and I highly recommend it.Growing up in Iraq, I've heard so many stories about the Jewish communities that used to live there before they were forced to leave the country after Nazi Germany influenced Iraq to oppress the Iraqi Jews. When I was a child my mother told me stories about her Jewish best friends in her neighborhood and how they lived in harmony together with no problems for a very long time.The stories I had heard from my parents about Iraqi Jews prompted me to ask questions. That was not something you could easily discussed in Iraq under the rule of the dictator Saddam Hussein in the 1980s! I could not buy books or even dear to read or discuss anything about it. After Saddam was ousted, I was able to learn more about the Jewish Exodus from Iraq. In 2006, when I came to the US to do my Master's in Writing Studies, I met an 80-year-old Iraqi Jew who was kind enough to tell me his family's ordeal and exodus from Iraq in the 1940s. With his permission, I turned his story into a long-form piece I submitted for my narrative journalism class. He spoke with me in Arabic, yearning to his childhood in Baghdad.This book is continuation of my quest to read about the exodus and the horrific and systematic oppression against Arab Jews from their homelands. It's so important to keep having those stories heard and mentioned when possible so they can stand as lessons for countries, peoples and communities to never let it happen to anyone again because sadly, it's still happening to communities like in Myanmar and China.The author's brilliant writing style painted his grandparent's background and stories in a way that makes you feel like you're watching a classic, nostalgic movie in black and white. Through his words I was able to picture them, feel them and even hear them as they spoke Arabic, French and English! It's not easy to write this way but the author handled it brilliantly!This book is for anyone interested in the Middle East and North African history, as well as the Arab identity and pride. It's for memoir and biography lovers and I cannot recommend it enough.

Massoud Hayoun has written a beautiful, at times poetic book. Though his book is pleasant to read, it is not a novel, and though it is centered around his own family’s painful experience of having to leave their homeland, it is not a nostalgic look back at some paradise lost. Hayoun’s experience as a journalist and historian is reflected in the way he approached and wrote the book.I consider this an important book for two reasons. First, it puts to the lie the heavily peddled myth that Arabs/Muslims and Jews have been at each other’s throats for thousands of years, showing instead the extent to which Arab Jews were an integral and integrated part of their communities, living lives that were intertwined with those of their Christian and Moslem neighbors. Arab Jews were at times oppressed by the mighty and corrupt, but no more so than the other poor, non-Jewish Arabs. Second, the book also exposes how the colonial powers, in partnership with European Jews, forced the Arab Jewish community to sever its millennial old religious and cultural traditions. It also describes how traditional divide and conquer strategies were used to separate Arab Jews from their neighbors. The book also hints at the methods used, first by the Zionist movement and then by a nascent Israel, to force mass migration of Arab Jews to Israel. That tale is more fully told in another important book, “Ben Gurion’s Scandals” by Naeim Giladi, an Iraqi Arab who as an agent of the Mossad in Iraq, had more than first hand knowledge of the strategies used to drive the mass emigration of Iraqis to Israel. Like Hayoun’s grandfather Oscar, Giladi experienced racism and, like Oscar quickly grew tired of the perpetual second class status afforded Arab Jews and emigrated to the US.I very strongly recommend this book to anyone who is truly interested in understanding the history of the Arab world and of its Jewish population.

After hearing an NPR story I ordered the book. I was expecting more history of Jews in Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt, but this is more personal recollections of the experience of one man's family. Enjoyable, but not quite what I was expecting.

An extraordinary family memoir that reveals the hidden side of a colonial history that wrecked havoc in the very identity of the native populations of North Africa and the Middle East told by an exceptional young man and terrific writer. It is a desire to recapture a deep and complex Arab identity that was taken away from millions of Arab Jews.Massoud Hayoun shows determination and courage in the pursuit of a narrative that has long been defaced and obliterated. His is a vindication of what Arabness is as a culture, heritage, tradition, and customs with a long past and deep roots. In so doing he not only pays tribute to his grandparents, he immortalizes them even as he claims his own belonging to that same identity.I highly recommend the booknot just because it’s full of invaluable information but also because it is highly entertaining and beautifully written.

The book is a very well balanced mix of a tale of the author's family history and the historical context that shaped this tale. Being Jewish families in Arabic countries while being influenced (and attempts of reshaping) by European Jewish view of the world (and Arab world).Being an Egyptian myself, I definitely learnt new angles to look at my own country's history.

This is a great book for people who don't know much about the Arab world, as it destroys preconceived notions of what Arabness and Jewishness means. The book is very readable and engaging, and the research cited is also high quality. I learned quite a lot reading this book, and I definitely think it's worth the reader's time.