TRANSCRIPT
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The Rabbi Daniel Lapin Podcast
Episode: Should Jews Leave America? They Lived There for 2,600 Years. Then They Had to Leave.
Date: 09/18/2026 Length: 01:03:51
Susan Lapin (00:02)
Hi everyone, we are so excited to introduce you to Sarah Sassoon. Sarah actually is well known in her own right. She's an author. She speaks around the country, but she also was a neighbor of our daughters in Jerusalem, so we got to meet her personally. We consider her a friend, her and her family. But we're really excited to share her story, which is not unique. It actually affects literally millions of families, but it's not very well known. And so welcome Sarah.
Sarah Sassoon (00:35)
Thank you. Thank you, Susan.
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (00:37)
So are we starting off with your grandparents? Is that where the story begins as far as we're concerned?
Sarah Sassoon (00:43)
Right. So yes, thank you, Rabbi Daniel, and thank you for having me on the podcast to share my family story.
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (00:50)
we're very happy.
Sarah Sassoon (00:52)
Because it's not a very well known story. In fact, my grandparents are all from Iraq, my fat my father's from Baghdad. and I grew up in a very Middle Eastern home in Sydney, Australia, and I didn't know their story. I didn't understand how they had come from Iraq to Sydney, Australia, via Israel. And it's a fascinating story, and I've spent my writing life and adulthood researching it because it's a silent story. It's a silent story because it contains so much grief. And dare I even say trauma, a word my family does not use. And Mizrahi Jews, Mizrahi Jews are Jews from the Middle East, like my family, do not use because they had to put it behind them and move forward from what happened to them. So I'm so happy to share with you what happened. if you'd like.
Susan Lapin (01:48)
Would you say that your four grandparents came from Iraq?
Sarah Sassoon (01:52)
All of them.
Susan Lapin (01:53)
But it's not that it's maybe dissimilar in details, but there were Jewish communities in Syria, in Iran, in Morocco. So when you you call yourself a Jew mi Jewish Middle Eastern author, you're
Sarah Sassoon (02:07)
Right.
Susan Lapin (02:07)
really speaking as a representative of a much larger group.
Sarah Sassoon (02:12)
Exactly. The story of Iraqi Jews, which I specialize in, is an example of a story of almost a million Jews in the twentieth century who were displaced from their countries of origin. Ancient communities like the Iraqi community was a Babylonian Jewish community. We refer to ourselves as Babylonian Jews, not Iraqi Jews, because Iraq is a modern concept, it's a modern country. When England and France and the Allies After World One divided the Middle East. The Middle East itself is a concept that's new. It wasn't called the Middle East before the 20th century. It was, you know, was the Ottoman Empire. So there's so much we don't understand about this region, but there were ancient Jewish communities in Libya, in Morocco, in Yemen, in Lebanon, in Syria, in Egypt.
And all these communities from all these Arab countries today are no longer. You have a small community maybe in Iran, but for example in Iraq, where there were almost 150,000 Jews, today there are only three Jews in Iraq. So we're talking about the disappearance.
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (03:24)
Now to use to use an incendiary term, ethnic cleansing on a huge scale took place.
Sarah Sassoon (03:32)
Exactly,
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (03:34)
And the story of the Babylonian or Iraqi Jewish community goes back how far?
Sarah Sassoon (03:42)
It's a two thousand six hundred year old story. It's a biblical story. And this is something I discovered very personally because my grandmother grew up by the shrine of Ezra the Scribe. And as we know, who is Ezra the Scribe?
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (03:55)
Yeah.
Sarah Sassoon (03:55)
In a village of in Al Ozer, in the south of Iraq, you can go visit there. I have friends on Instagram, Iraqi Muslim friends sending me pictures of the shrine that today is a mosque. And that's where my grandmother grew up. And we know Ezra, we have the book of Ezra, we have the Book of Nachemia in the Tanakh in the Bible. And these books for the Iraqi Jews, for the Babylonian Jews, tells the story of their origin, how they ended up in Babylonia. They just never left like the rest of the Jews to the rest of the diaspora. They remained in their ancient communities from that time.
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (04:33)
And that of course it is in the Iraqi Jewish community, a little under two thousand years ago that the Babylonian Talmud was written.
Sarah Sassoon (04:42)
Exactly. So if you look at Iraqi Jewish customs, a lot of it is very, very ancient and tied to the Talmud. They're very proud of the Talmud, they're very learned. At the shrine of Ezra the scribe, there was always people learning there. And there was always a yeshiva of men learning, because you had to have a minyan, you had to have a quorum of men, a gathering around these shrines. There were places of prayer, there were also places of miracles and pilgrimage.
Susan Lapin (05:13)
so you did not live am I correct that you did not your grandparents were in Israel but you did not grow up among with them.
Sarah Sassoon (05:22)
So basically we have to go all the way back to the history.
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (05:26)
Let's do that.
Sarah Sassoon (05:27)
The Jews in Iraq were very much part of Iraq. And if you look at Baghdad in 1917, when the Ottoman Empire fell apart and the English came in, a third of Baghdad was Jewish. Just to give you an idea of how integrated the Jews were. They were very influential, very educated, because the Alliance schools had come in in the 19th century for boys and then later for girls.
And educated them not only in just subjects but also languages, English, Fr French, and then they had Arabic and they had Hebrew. They had so much knowledge and they were so advanced that when the English came in, they were so helpful in setting up the new country of Iraq. So they were the head of the postal services, the trains, the finance minister, his name was Sassoon Kheskell, and he was very, very influential.
He sat with Churchill to help set up the modern state, literally, and he's still remembered today.
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (06:28)
Presumably I have to guess a remote cousin of yours.
Sarah Sassoon (06:32)
I wish. I don't know. The truth is all Iraqi Jews are kind of like related. but he's a remarkable man. He's still remembered today because he set the selling of oil to the British against the gold standard and not the British pound. So he's very well remembered as an honest man who loved his country and did what was best for the country. And he was very much a Jew.
Iraqi Jews were very traditional. We spoke about the Talmud. In the Middle East is something I feel like the world doesn't understand. It's a region that respects religion and faith. In the Ottoman times, people were divided not according to countries, there were no countries, really. It was all according to your faith. So that's how the Ottomans actually had people traverse the Ottoman Empire for jobs and in their military in so much because it wasn't according to a nationalism, it was according to the millet system, which was faith based. So being Jewish was respected. If you weren't a Jew, if you said you were secular and you didn't believe in anything, that wasn't actually even respected. And still today faith is respected in the Middle East and something that I think is very important for people to understand. It's a different culture in a different region.
Susan Lapin (07:48)
Was there a Christian community when your grandparents were growing up?
Sarah Sassoon (07:51)
Yes, there was a Christian community. sorry, the dog.
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (07:55)
That's me. How do they fare?
Sarah Sassoon (07:58)
So the Assyrians Christians were slaughtered in I think it was nineteen twenty six, there was a terrible massacre in Iraq. And some Jews even then, I was reading in a memoir that he said, My father said then that Jews are not safe.
Susan Lapin (08:13)
Who was slaughtering them in?
Sarah Sassoon (08:16)
Arabs, Iraqis. It was after the English established the modern state of Iraq with under King Faisal. And the problem with establishing Iraq, and maybe this is getting a bit too detailed, is it was very difficult because there were so many different tribes, so many different peoples. We're talking about Babylonia, Mesopotamia. It's not like the Arabs came in the seventh century and took over this region,
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (08:42)
Do you use the words Arabs and Muslim interchangeably? I just want I'm trying to get the language.
Sarah Sassoon (08:47)
It's a difficult one. So, there's Arab Christians, there's Arab Muslims. it's a difficult thing to really understand because the Assyrians, are they Arabs? No, they consider themselves ancient people, Assyrians. So the better ones would be considered Arabs. So in Iraq they didn't call people the Muslims Arabs. They were Bedouins. And then you'd have the Christians, Arab Christians.
It's complex. It's like a very complex area. And then you have the Yazidis, you have the Mandeans, you have many minorities in this region, ancient peoples that we don't really know enough about because they were taken over and persecuted just as the Jews were. So now, for example, there's a Mendean community in Sydney that that have reached out to me and I've gotten to know them and I follow their content on Instagram. And they've got fascinating traditions.
And they speak of when they lived with Jews as well in Iraq and the relationships they had. There was deep respect and deep coexistence until there wasn't. That's always the problem.
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (09:56)
So what were the relative numbers of Jews in Iraq's population, shall we say late nineteenth century, and Christians? which was the bigger population?
Sarah Sassoon (10:08)
It's a great question. In Baghdad there were more Jews. I don't actually know how many Christians were in Iraq. It's a great I'd have to look it up.
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (10:15)
But we're looking at this period of somewhere around about a hundred and twenty thousand Jews in Iraq.
Sarah Sassoon (10:20)
There were less Jews. I think there were less Jews, I imagine. They were a minority. They really were a minority. There was about 130,000, 150,000 Jews in Iraq. but what happened to them was they had to leave. And that's really what happened to my grandparents in their time.
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (10:41)
Please tell us When in modern time when did things start going bad?
Sarah Sassoon (10:47)
So let's put it this way, there were always incidents. There were always it all depended on the authority. Under the Ottoman Empire, depended who the governor was, how the Jews fared. So there were pogroms in Iraq, in Baghdad before and just because there's this misnomer that Jews always lived peacefully and there was always coexistence. So no, Jews were always a minority and their welfare was always dependent on the authorities' tolerance.
And the community's tolerance. That is how Jews have always been in the diaspora, as we know. In the 20s, it was the golden age of Jewish life. It was the English had come in, Iraq was formed as a new country under King Faisal. They had very elite positions. They were senators. The Chamber of Commerce, majority of them were Jews. On Shabbat, where Jews observed.
The Sabbath, the markets were closed, the banks were closed, everything shut down because the Jews were the main merchants, the Jews were the main economic force in Iraq. The main musicians were Jewish because there had been a fatwa in the Ottoman times against Muslims playing music and singing, unless it was for religious purposes. So the most famous musicians were the Al-Qaeda brothers, they were composers, they represented Iraqi music, and their music still sung today.
But not under their name. Their music's under folk songs, because they had to leave, which is what we're getting to. Selima
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (12:14)
Yeah.
Sarah Sassoon (12:14)
Pasha was also the most wonderful dive, but she's still remembered today. She was Jewish. But what happened? What happened from the 20s to the 30s? In the 30s, King Faisal passes away, and his son Razi takes over, and the Nazis get involved. A German ambassador comes, Dr. Fritz Grober, and he brings Radio Berlin. He raise a youth group modeled on the Nazi youth groups in Germany. They even go visit Nazi Germany, the youth the youth group. They translate Mankamp to Arabic. The newspapers start printing propaganda. This all sounds very familiar, right? They air Radio Berlin in Arabic in Iraq and they bring German teachers to teach at the public schools. So slowly, slowly there is anti-Jewishness that's seeping into Iraqi society very slowly, very carefully. And actually the doctor Fritz Grub is actually frustrated. He writes in a letter that the Jews are so proud and that he can't bring them down because they're so powerful.
And this is where he saw things the way they were. He said the Arab mobs will come and nothing will stop them. Maybe the Nazi German way is not gonna work in Iraq because he couldn't get it passed legally or through the authorities because the Jews were too powerful. But he spoke of the Arab mob coming. And that's actually what happened. because there was in nineteen forty one, there was the Golden Square coup.
Which is where King Razzi actually passes away before he's killed in a very mysterious car accident. and the regent comes, it's a a young boy, but the uncle takes over. and in this coup, the regents has to run away. It's a military coup, Nazis supported. It's actually like a Nazi coup. They're fighting for the Germans, the Germans are involved, they send planes.
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (14:20)
So we would talk what roughly what nineteen thirty five?
Sarah Sassoon (14:23)
April nineteen forty-one. April nineteen forty-one is when the coup happens and the Jews go into hiding. They literally have to like shut their doors. My grandfather describes this, they cannot go out. It's becomes very dangerous for them. This is Rashid Ali al-Ghilaini is the leader, and he does this with the Mufti of Jerusalem. He does this with
Susan Lapin (14:49)
Who also visited Adolf Hitler in Germany.
Sarah Sassoon (14:52)
Exactly. Haj Amin al-Fusene, the Palestinian leader, the Mufti of Jerusalem. Also notably in the thirties, Hebrew was outlawed. And Zai and Hebrew is outlawed to be taught in the schools. Only for prayer and services was Hebrew allowed. So there's always already this idea of anti-Zionism coming in into the consciousness.
Susan Lapin (15:16)
I just want to point out for people listening, this is before there is a state of Israel.
Sarah Sassoon (15:20)
This is way before there's a state of Israel. And they come into power and it's very dangerous for Jews. They are planning to exterminate the Jews, basically. There's even a book about ghettos that were built for Jews. This is all things that aren't very well researched. I haven't even gotten into my research to write about these incidents. My research is to try and recover all the culture that's been lost and the stories that have been lost. But one of the hardest incidents is that the coup is pushed back.
By the British. The British can't get involved because they don't want German taking over Iraq. That's their oil resources. So the British fight the Iraqis. They're fighting the Iraqi army basically. And they beat them back. And by June 1st, the Iraqi army's beaten back. The coup's over. Rashid Al Ali Al-G Khalani runs to Iran with the Mufti of Jerusalem dressed as women. They escape. And the Jews are so relieved and they think that that's it. They're freed. The British are here. The British soldiers are literally across the river on the first of June, the Tigris River in Baghdad. And the regents returning that day and a mob riot breaks out against the Jews. And when we speak about a mob riot, we're talking about it began in a mosque and it spread. It was a planned mob riot that actually went throughout Iraq. Also in it went throughout Iraq, but in other places it was stopped more. Like I know my grandmother in Alozah, they escaped on a boat and the British warned them and they their whole compound was destroyed, but they was they survived. But in Baghdad, the Jews weren't so lucky. We don't know how many died, how many were murdered, but if you speak to any Iraqi, they will tell you the story of the Farhud, as it's called, it's which means violent dispossession. Businesses were broken into, homes were broken into, women were raped, babies were killed. I've heard such horror stories from Iraqis when I interview them. We have 179 confirmed names, but there's a mass grave in Iraq of the Farhud victims. And we don't know how many are buried in there. And from eyewitness accounts and even from my own research, I met a woman who said her father was killed in the Farhud. His name's not on the list. And I don't know why. I wrote to the museum and I sent all the details. So the point is this that the Iraqi government covered this up after as much as they could, but it was a terrible pogrom. And if you speak to any Iraqi Jew since October seventh, they say October seventh was like the Farhud.
That's the frame of reference.
Susan Lapin (18:13)
So when your grandparents were what how old would they have been during this far hood? Were they children or teenagers or adults?
Sarah Sassoon (18:20)
So my grandfather would have been in his twenties. They were in Alozer already, grown. I don't know if they were married. This is where I have to get my timeline right when they got married and everything. I've got it all written down, just on the top of my head I haven't but none of my aunts or uncles were born yet.
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (18:38)
It's October nineteen forty one. There's a massacre of Jews in On the holiday, really.
Sarah Sassoon (18:41)
June first, nineteen forty one. It's also Shavuot. It's the festival of Shavuot. On the holiday, the Jews were dressed in white for the holiday, walking along the river. Some people say that the Jews in brought it on themselves. They inspired the ire of the Iraqis because they were wearing festive white when the regent was coming because they were they said that they were going to welcome the regent.
And the Iraqi army had just been defeated. And the Jews were always accused of being Anglophiles, which they were. They very much collaborated with the English. It was very much building a new Iraq. It was good for Iraq. But unfortunately, and this is something that a big question I have, and many historians have, is that the British troops were on the other side of the river and they did not stop the mob. The mob went for two days and they did not stop them. And it's a big question why. Freda Stack, who was a secretary at the British Embassy, she asks the same question. She was there. She writes in her diaries, like, you know, they're hearing screams and shrieks, and they're locked in their embassy. And that no one comes to help. And they're being attacked not just by mobs and neighbors, but the Iraqi police officers, the army officers. some people say the British just allowed them just so the Iraqi army got their loss off themselves. Like, you know, they would feel better scapegoating the Jews and killing the Jews, and then the British could come in peacefully and take over again and restore order. So that's one of the theories. Having said that, this is something I always emphasize when I interviewed two Iraqi women.
They said to me, for every Jew killed in the Farhud, there were those saved. And they were also saved by Muslim and Christian neighbors. So we have to learn to hold both when it comes to the Middle East and Iraq and the Jewish story. So many Jews were saved, and they were saved by their neighbors.
So they said that for every Jew killed, there were those who were saved. And this is something we have to hold when it comes to the Jewish story because so many were saved. A woman would come literally in front of the house, a Muslim woman in an abayah, and say, Do not touch these Jews. You are not coming in. And they would face the mobs. So Yeah, it's fascinating. Every Iraqi Jew can tell you a story. older Iraqi Jews, because the young Iraqi Jews don't know these stories necessarily because they weren't told.
Susan Lapin (21:22)
So your grandparents did not tell you when you visited your grandparents in Israel, if I can read something you wrote. You wrote that you visited now talking about your mother's parents, and you said, My maternal grandmother Najiah, am I saying her name right?
Sarah Sassoon (21:37)
Yes, Najiah
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (21:39)
Only spoke Judeo-Arabic and a little Hebrew. My grandfather Solomon could speak English like the British, quoting Shakespeare learned in Baghdad. I did not understand why they were so sad.
You basically write that - it was a different culture. You were coming from Australia and this was a completely different culture, but you didn't get why so they did not share their story with you.
Sarah Sassoon (22:03)
Nothing, nothing. And the interesting thing is I'm not alone, which makes me feel a bit better. When I speak to Iraqi children of Iraqis, I always ask them, Do you know the story? Most do not. It's unusual for some who say that they were told the stories. they kept it very silent and the trauma was really big, especially for my grandparents from my mother's side. because when they came to Israel, they were in the Mabara, they were in proper tent camps.
They had no food, no jobs, they had lost all their possessions. The Iraqi government only allowed one suitcase per family and fifty dinas. So they came with nothing to Israel. and now we've like jumped in a way, why did they have to come to Israel? Which is what my research is based on. Why did over a hundred and twenty thousand Jews leave Iraq between the years of nineteen fifty and fifty two? So we have the Farhud in nineteen forty one. Ten years later they leave. Why didn't they leave in nineteen forty-one? What made them all leave? I mean, six thousand remained. So there's some number disparities there, but you know, they didn't count like we we do today. but why did they not leave after nineteen forty-one? Basically they couldn't. Many would have wanted to, but they couldn't leave. Suddenly their whole idea of being safe, ancient. Communities in Iraq were shattered after the Farhud. They saw their own neighbors turn on them. They saw the British not protect them. Were they safe anymore? But they didn't have passports. They didn't have visas. They couldn't leave. Those who were lucky enough to leave left. Some went on foot through the desert to Israel and they established kibbutzberi. Shlomo Mansur's family is one of those families who left. Shlomo Mansur was the hostage of who the oldest hostage after October seventh who was killed by Hamas. And he saw the Farhud at the age of two. And he describes the Farhud in his diaries and the just how he can't he can't believe and he it like he was so traumatized by it as he writes in his diary. see at the youngest age those things occur and and they describe it like it's yesterday. I mean I've interviewed a woman, an older woman who was in the Farhud, she was shaking when she was t speaking about it. so Shlom Mansur also, who unfortunately I can't imagine what it was like for him on October seventh, being invaded by Hamas terrorists in Arabic, just like the Farhud, and he was killed. He we thought he was a hosta he was a hostage, his body was a hostage, and he was killed. It was it's just this full circle for him, but his family left after nineteen forty one.
And in the forties, what happened was escalation of anti-Semitism, of anti-Zionism. In the name of anti-Zionism, Jews were being pulled off buses. If you wore a watch, you were seen as a Jew, because Jews were the ones who wore watches, interestingly. And they would accuse them of being a Zionist and put in prison. And the prisons aren't like the prisons we have in America or Israel. The prisons were horrific.
And I've got stories also that were told to me about what the prisons were like. Many would say my uncle was in prison and my his his mother got him out through bribery. There are a lot of stories. Ask any Iraqi Jew, again, older Iraqi Jew for a story of why they left Iraq. They will tell you stories of anti-Semitism. Small acts, big acts. I was speaking to my sister's grandmother-in-law who grew up in Baghdad, and she said a truck had like almost run over her father backing him into a war because he was a Jew. So and Jews were los losing their jobs in the in their civil jobs. there were boycotts on Jewish businesses, there were quotas for how many Jews could attend university. Things got really bad. And also the newspapers were full of propaganda against Jews, against Israel. And every Jew was under suspicion of being a Zionist. And the truth is, every Jew is a Zionist. The great synagogue of Baghdad had a stone, and on it it said, This is a stone from Eretz Israel, from the land of Israel. And as you entered that synagogue, you would kiss the stone. And this synagogue, the legend had it for the Baghdadi Jews, was established on the foundation, stones, and dust that King Jehoachin brought all the way from Judea when he was exiled by King Nebuchadnezzar in five ninety eight was it, BCE? So long ago.
Susan Lapin (27:03)
So just to make clear with Zionism because I think many people think Zionism is related to the state of Israel. But there's a love that Jews have had for the land of Israel forever. We pray three times a day to go back to the land. We face Jerusalem when we pray, wherever we are. So there it's a very confusing term because I think there's a push to say, well, Zion 1948 is the problem. Had there never been a Jewish state, everything would have been fine. But the that horrible massacre was in summer nineteen forty-one. And there were massacres. Massacres before that.
Sarah Sassoon (27:40)
Exactly.
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (27:41)
So Sarah, were there Baghdadi Jews between nineteen forty one and nineteen forty eight, in that period of eight or eight years or so, were there Baghdadi Jews who said everything'll settle down, we can we can still continue living here?
Sarah Sassoon (28:00)
Many, many, most. They wanted to stay. They didn't want to leave. I think that's the most heartbreaking thing of all. They wanted to stay. They'd been there for centuries. They were older. They speak the Baghdadi dialect of Arabic, the Jewish dialects older than the Iraqi Bedouin dialect, because the Bedouins had come in the seventeenth century. While somehow because the Jewish community had always been so insular and they had been in Baghdad for Centuries they preserved the old Baghdadi dialect. So their Arabic's older.
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (28:38)
So, to go back to the timeline for a moment, so did all your grandparents pretty much leave in the aftermath of nineteen forty one?
Sarah Sassoon (28:49)
So basically they stayed. They stayed. My grandmother and grandfather were married. They had five children from my father's side. From my mother's side, they they also stayed and they were married and had one child. And what happened was actually was that with the rising anti Semitism and in nineteen forty eight, September nineteen forty eight, a terrible event happened. The richest Jewish man was hung in Basra.
His name was Shafiq Adas, and he was the richest man. He had the top connections. He knew the regent personally. And he couldn't save himself from being accused of being a Zionist. He was and he was told he was accused of being a Zionist. It was a show trial. And he was hung. So the Jews watching, you can imagine say, Well, the richest, most connected man.
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (29:42)
That must have said to everybody if they hung him, nobody is safe.
Sarah Sassoon (29:47)
Who is safe? And they remember the Farhud, don't forget. So people begin smuggling themselves out. Thousands of Jews begin smuggling themselves out through Iran dangerously. It was illegal, but they're doing it because they're desperate. And what happens is the Iraqi prime minister realizes, my goodness, we have Jews leaving. What we can't just have them all leave. What do we do? And he actually speaks to his neighbor who is a Jew and says to him,
W what should I do? He said, listen, there's just the Rifraf Zionists. Give them permission to leave. Work with Israel to get the Rifraf Zionists to leave. And the Jews will stay. Most will stay. You'll just get rid of the ones who don't want to be here. And so they have the Tuskit law passed in nineteen fifty, which allows Jews to leave legally. They're given a passport, but it's a passport of no return. La sepa se
Susan Lapin (30:40)
And they're not allowed to take all their money with them, I would assume.
Sarah Sassoon (30:43)
They're allowed one suitcase and fifty dinners. Worse than that, after this law's passed, they pass another law a year later, which freezes all assets of Jews who leave. Their businesses, their houses, their bank accounts, all frozen. And they it's a clandestine law that they pass. So the Jews don't know until it's passed it's too late. They can't do anything about it. They've lost everything.
And those, as soon as you sign the law, you can't work, you can't go to school. There were Jews on the streets, I learned when I was interviewing Iraqis. And it's also recorded. Jews on the streets because they had nowhere to go. And because they had organized this airlift with Israel. So Israel, don't forget, is a fledgling new state. it's based it's been it's a miracle they won the war of independence. We had the f the the five or six five Iraq. Five Arab armies invading Israel and the militia within Israel and it's a poor country. It's a miracle it won, including Iraq by the way, who fought. So you can imagine the tension for the Jews in Iraq during that war as well. And they they they the the organization to get the airplanes to come pick the Jews up and take them to Israel is also a massive operation. It's actually called Operation Ezra and Nachemia in the end. It was originally Alibaba, but they changed it to Ezra and Nachemia. And there's a cute story I want to say about that because my grandmother didn't my grandmother and grandfather disagreed, my father's parents. My grandfather wanted to go to Australia where my grandmother's sister had gone in the twenties. And my grandmother lined her children up, her five her four children, she had a baby on her hip, and she said to the children, Tell Baba we wanna go to Palestina. And that's what they did and they ended up going to Israel to be in a mud camp. So so it's like she had that that that vision of Ezra
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (32:43)
So you're all four grandparents moved to Israel in about nineteen fifty, somewhere there.
Sarah Sassoon (32:55)
Nineteen fifty one, they arrived in Israel. Yeah.
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (32:59)
Got it. And then where does Australia begin to enter the picture?
Sarah Sassoon (33:06)
So that's interesting. So in Israel it was really, really difficult. They're in 10 camps and they have to rebuild their lives. it takes years. they're in the I don't know how long they're in the 10 camp from. My uncles and aunts are very unclear about it because they don't like discussing it. My father himself said he wasn't in a 10 camp at all, but he was five, he'd remember. but they don't want to discuss it. It was really difficult. Then they ended up my grandfather ended up from my father's I Gunaziron Yakov where he opened a school, a night school for Mizrahi children who were working in the day. So at fourteen, a typical child would be working because they had to support their families. So they couldn't go to school. So he had this night school going so they that they'd be educated and it was religious, and that's a whole story in and of itself. So he they slowly established a life for themselves in Israel. just to say that, you know, all those stereotypes we have about Israel is broken when you enter the Middle Eastern Jewish story. So my grandfather, for example, would have coffee with the neighboring A Arabs in the village next door to Zirchonyakov, and they speak in Arabic. They had so much in common, more in common than with, let's say, an Ashkenazi Jew, funnily enough.
Susan Lapin (34:26)
Meaning Ashkenazi meaning from Europe, from east western Europe, Eastern Europe.
Sarah Sassoon (34:28)
From Europe. Exactly. Exactly.
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (34:33)
in terms of the UN at this point, because a we're talking after nineteen forty eight, after the state of Israel, what was the UN attitude towards the refugee problem? These were w these were a million refugees from Arab lands
Sarah Sassoon (34:46)
They ignored it. We are the forgotten refugees, literally. Literally the forgot they didn't I mean, I think there was obviously nothing for them. There was no aid, there was no support. What Israel gave, they even had to pay for their tents. I remember I was I meet with an Iraqi group every week in Jerusalem, older Iraqis who were children at the time, because the older ones like my grandparents have obviously passed away. And they're discussing, did you they were discussing the question, did you your family pay for their tents and for the provisions they were given in the Mabara? And they were all discussing amongst themselves if they managed to pay, yes, they paid. They were proud that they paid actually, because they paid their debt. It was very much a hard working society. No one no one owed them anything. They came to Israel and they were shocked. They weren't expecting to be in tent camps. And there was discrimination because once the ten camps were starting to be dismantled, the last ones to leave were the Middle Eastern and North African Jews. it was difficult and they were less educated, they were less encouraged to be educated than the European Jews. These are all facts. but at the end of the day, their attitude was, you know, what my poetry book that I have online is called This Is Why We Don't Look Back, because you don't look back, you have to build forward. They were very proud people and they built the best lives they could. But coming back to your question, why did my family go to Sydney? In the 60s, my aunt my great aunt from Australia, my grandmother's sister, who had moved in the 20s to Sydney, visited them in Israel. And she saw the way they were living. And this is something really everyone needs to know. When you visit Israel today, it's a different Israel. Even when I visited in the 80s, my mother's parents, in those days, I mean, in the summer there'd be no water, they'd turn off the water and trucks of water would come to provide everyone with water. there was one TV channel. No one had cars in the 80s, literally. there was one supermarket and one toy shop and one post office, and the toy shop was like a luxury, and one coffee shop for the whole area, and that was also a luxury. it was a very, very poor society.
And coming from Sydney in the 80s, I was like, What is this? I didn't understand it. But in the so if that was the 80s, can you imagine the 60s? So my aunt comes and tells his her sister, my grandmother, and says, How do you live this way? Come to Australia. And so they send their older sons to go because their older sons are reaching army age and they don't want them to go to the army. and their whole family ends up going. My father actually did go to the army, he was a trap driver.
And after he finished the army, he also joined his family. So by then there were eight children. They all moved to Sydney, Australia. And that's where they lived. My father did a law degree, they had to learn English. It's a whole other immigrant story that they went through. And when he my father visited Israel, he met my mother and brought her with and married her and brought her back to Sydney. And that's where I was born. So it's a whole roundabout story.
Susan Lapin (38:07)
So if we can come roundabout for a minute, I know that you're learning, I believe, you're learning Arabic, you're taking Arabic
Sarah Sassoon (38:16)
Yes.
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (38:16)
lessons. And there's a culture that comes out of a language.
So you grew up, it wasn't like your parents said, we want you to keep your heritage and we'll teach you Judeo-Arabic, which would be the equivalent of what Yiddish is to European Jews. Every Jewish community basically combined Hebrew with l with the language of where they were living, Ladino. If you were in if you were a Spanish
Sarah Sassoon (38:39)
Right.
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (38:39)
Jew, you had Ladino. So you had what was known as Judeo-Arabic. Are you discovering because culture comes out of a language? In learning Arabic, are you actually discovering things about Muslim culture that you're understanding more?
Sarah Sassoon (38:55)
Absolutely. So what I'm learning now, I'm learning through the Oxford School of Rare Languages, Judeo-Arabic, and I'm also learning Palestinian Arabic. So now I'm comparing them as I learn. I'm not a very good student, but I'm very good culturally when it comes to the cultural nuances of a language. And I have the most interesting discussions with my teacher who actually is from the West Bank, from Judea and Samaria. And we reflect on language and how the Arab language holds culture that we both share as Jews and Muslims. and then I also tell him about the Arabic nuances of what I've learned with the Oxford School. So for example, Iraqi Jews say Belazama. Whenever they like if you want a cup of water, you'll say Belazama, which means without burden.
Because Iraqi Jews don't want to be a burden. So everything's like, without burden, can I have a p a glass of water? And husbands speak to their wives that way. Like everything. Belazama, like, you know, just this politeness and respect. and I shared that with him. And I'm trying to think what in Arabic I learned from him, which made me realize it's just feelings, for example, like.
We don't discuss feelings, not in Judeo Arabic, not in Normal Arabic. It's not like something you do. like so that's interesting for me to say, well, right, we don't discuss these things. Like there's very similar cultural sharings between us.
Susan Lapin (40:39)
So one of the things that Jews unfortunately are hearing in England and Australia and the United States, not necessarily frequently, but you'll see people will say, Well, go back to Poland. And that must make you laugh because the majority of or at least half of Israel and I think even more than half, comes from Muslim countries in the Middle East.
Sarah Sassoon (41:01)
That's the thing. And I always answer on Instagram when people tell me to go to Poland. I'm like, you know, I'm from the Middle East. I've no other DNA. I've nowhere else to go. I don't know any other country, basically. I'm first generation Australian and I often think like, but majority of Israel are descendants from Middle Eastern and North African countries. They really can't go back.
Iraqi Jews cannot go back to Iraq. In fact, in Iraq to speak to an Israeli, they're liable for the death penalty. I don't think people realize just how cruel the Middle East can be. And like my Iraqi Muslim friends were in touch with me. They're doing it at the risk of their lives, which is quite remarkable. so when they don't understand what where we come from as Jews, and sometimes I think us as Jews don't understand.
I happen to have a very good understanding because the Iraqi Jews, the Babylonian Jews, I understand how close we are to the story of Israel. We've nowhere else that we come from except Judea. In fact, my aunt used to tell me when I was young, one clue I used to get was she'd say, know that you're from royalty. You're from the Davidic line of royalty that went to Babylonia. And that's a heritage that Iraqi Jews carry. And that's something all Jews should carry.
Susan Lapin (42:27)
And even the name Palestine, which of course goes back to the Romans, I believe, but in nineteen forty in the Jewish newspaper in nineteen forty seven is the Palestine Post. Palestine
Sarah Sassoon (42:39)
Right.
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (42:40)
did not mean Muslim, which again I don't think people understand.
Sarah Sassoon (42:42)
Not at all.
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (42:44)
The Palestinians when you talked about the Palestinians in the forty, you meant Jewish people living in Israel, in the land of Israel.
Sarah Sassoon (42:50)
Well it's funny because one of the history books I was reading, it said they sent back the Palestinian teachers to Israel and they were talking about Jews.
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (43:00)
you must have been utterly blindsided with shock by the Bondi Beach massacre last year.
Sarah Sassoon (43:08)
Yes. it was it happened to my community. it had those people, the women who lost their husbands. I was at school with them. the teenager, the 14-year-old girl who covered her body over two children whose mother had just been murdered. she was my best friend's daughter. So it was a terrible shock. And the worst thing of all is this is what we've been warning about. That words lead to massacre. And it's something very much I write about and try and share that you know it begins with words. In Iraq it began with accusing Jews of being Zionists, it began with propaganda in newspapers, and it all seems very harmless. And microaggressions until it's not, until a hundred and twenty thousand Jews literally say, We cannot live here anymore. We are not safe. And they leave, they leave ancient communities, and now in Iraq they're like, look at Iraq today without their Jews. And many Iraqis say that their braqah, their blessing left with the Jews.
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (44:17)
Yeah. That that would happen a lot. Sarah, to just venture into the the grotesque and the unthinkable, but what would be the sequence of some of the events which would happen in Australia that would make you eventually call your family and friends there and say you must leave?
Sarah Sassoon (44:41)
Wow, it's interesting. I was just thinking about it today. I was thinking about Australia and I was thinking about what it was like growing up as a Jew in Australia. knowing Holocaust history very well because the survivors from Europe came to Sydney, so many, and my adopted grandfather was actually a Holocaust survivor from Czechoslovakia at the time, and he lost his wife and five children in Auschwitz, and we were his adopted family. So it was very personal that the story of European Jewry and what could happen. And I remember growing up and people shout from cars, like, you know, effing Jews, when we were walking to Shul on Shabbat. And I remember at university, I studied Jewish studies, and by the Jewish studies exam schedule, someone wrote, Hitler should have finished you all off. And I've always been a student of Jewish history. I was very well schooled growing up in European Jewish history, and now I'm very well schooled in Middle Eastern Jewish history, especially Iraqi Jewish history. And I think as soon as the authorities, as soon as the government doesn't protect the Jews, as soon as slowly there's boycotts, even silent boycotts and silent quotas of Jews in institutions and the newspaper propaganda, I would say leave. And that's why I left.
I left South Africa for Israel, but I left saying to myself, I'm not going to Australia. I'm going to Israel. I don't want to flee like my grandparents had to flee with one suitcase. It's like my I just don't want that. I want to choose where I live. And I want to choose it with agency, not fleeing, but choosing. And that was really important to me. It's always a hard move to Israel, and I don't want anyone to have to leave. I would say
Wake up Australia before I say wake up Jews, because they're gonna suffer. The problems Jews face is a problem all societies are gonna end up facing. It's just the Jews are always first. And we saw that in Europe. Nazi Germany targeted Jews, but who suffered? All of Europe and how many died? I heard recently it was like three percent of the world died in World War II. That could have been prevented if someone had been boldly enough and gutsy enough to get rid of Hitler at the very beginning. That piece of paper that Chamberlain held, that piece in our times was a lie. And we need to start facing the lies that we are being told and face reality. And life's very real in the Middle East. life's very real for Iraqis. Iraqis are suffering. The legal age of marriage is nine years old. Light I read an article recently where kids are being sent from the same family to different schools because if one school's bombed, at least one other child will survive. There are many issues in the Middle East.
Susan Lapin (47:39)
who is bombing in Iraq now?
Sarah Sassoon (47:42)
Well, so I don't - I didn't actually understand what he was talking about exactly, but I guess he was like sharing the trauma of what it was what it is to be in Baghdad. There's been so many different militias and infightings as well, and the Iranian militia has now taken over. I Iraq's basically now an Iranian proxy. That's why so many Iraqis support Israel. They want an America. They dream of being a free country. They dream of democracy. They would love to live in America. And so when Americans are despairing about their democracy, I'm thinking, wow, do you know what an Iraqi person would do to go live in America? Do you know what they would do to have such freedoms and opportunities like you do? You don't know what it means to be trapped in a world where you can't even say what you think because you're scared of being persecuted. They can't be friends with me on Facebook publicly. They can only message privately because it's so dangerous. They have no Agency.
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (48:42)
This is one of the most difficult questions when we speak to people because as you said, there were Muslims who saved Jews during the Farhud and there were Christians who saved Jews in in Europe under Hitler. And I think one of the the things that's not acknowledged is how in Europe the more religious Protestant Christians were the ones who were saving Jews. It wasn't the secular German the secular Poles or the there was no secular. So that I think we don't acknowledge that. It wasn't just good people, it was good people because they were good because of religion. However, the overwhelming majority did not. And when it came to October 7th, and like the kibbutzim, the many of the invaders knew the homes of the people they murdered because they were friends.
They had been befriended. The Jewish people had brought them to the hospital. They had taken they had been they'd friends. They had worked together. And that happened in the far hood as well, where people you thought who you were friendly, your neighbor you were friendly with. So how do you live with that contradiction of knowing that the person who is your friend could save you or they could murder you? Rape you and murder you.
Sarah Sassoon (49:53)
I think it's really difficult because there were Bedouins, for example, who also saved Jews on the October seventh and went out and risked their lives and it cost them lives. it really is I feel like what we're facing in the world today is not a war I mean some of it's all about war w the war of religion and ideology, but at the same time the real question is between good and bad, that good values that respect human life no matter what, and evil where you justify dehumanization of, for example, Jews that lead to massacres like Bondi or like October 7th. you know, and a big question I have is in the 40s when the Jews were being persecuted, there were good Iraqis still, but they weren't stopping the you know, it's very insidious the propaganda. And maybe they even started to believe that Jews were Zionists and were gonna undermine Iraq and believed that that they weren't good Iraqis anymore. I mean the Iraqi army went to war with Israel. You can understand them thinking that. so I think it really is that we need to start at the propaganda's real. The lies are real.
And it's very easy to scapegoat Jews and say, well, they're Zionists, they're loyal to Israel, and they're not loyal to Australia, and they're killing children. You just have to say killing children over again. The you know, we know this is a blood libel that s has succeeded for centuries. But again, the question I'm asking, and this is something I heard recently, how do you tell whether something is propaganda or not? Just look at the facts. Just is it true or a lie? And if we look at the fact.
Susan Lapin (51:45)
Certainly in the time of AI, it's getting more difficult because if you check it out on Wikipedia or
Sarah Sassoon (51:50)
Right.
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (51:51)
AI, you're gonna be told lies. You know, to anyone who's been in Israel and knows Israel, the idea that it's an apartheid country is literally laughable. From you could come to the airport. I don't think you could leave the airport without knowing that it's not an apartheid country. The claim of genocide is ridiculous when you look at the numbers, you look at the facts. But there are millions of young people who are believing that. And when they check it out, their professor university professors are telling them this and the internet is telling them this. So do you have an any optimism?
Sarah Sassoon (52:25)
My optimism is if we can just get the silent voices a little bit louder in the Middle East. There are so many, like even my Arabic teacher in the West Bank, he doesn't want to be under the P Palestinian Authority. I'm sure he'd rather live in Israel where he's more free and can speak his mind and speak about life in Arabic before Islam. He's the one who taught me that Islam
Introduced the idea that it was the age of ignorance before Islam. But how ignorant was it if they were having poetry competitions in the marketplace, he says. You know, they were literally having Arabic poetry competitions in the suks near Mecca. And whoever won that was the elite of the tribe. That's a wonderful heritage to come from. And this is pre-Islam. We need to start breaking down the narratives that we're all told and start looking at a deeper story that we all share, the nuance of. This region and the nuance of what it is to be human together. that's what gives me hope. Are my family of my Arab friends who reach out to me on Instagram and Facebook? Silent supporters who say we see Israel, we know the evil because we live with it. We live with the lies and we see through the lies. It takes great people to see through lies, though. It's just easier to go with the flow. Even good people to stay silent, it's just so much easier.
It takes a lot of bravery to speak up and say, especially under when you're under a totalitarian regime, which is cruel and will just kill you if you disagree with the with the overarching narrative that they're teaching, which is Israel is evil, the Jews have to be killed. Literally, that is the ideology, that is the narrative, at least in the Middle East. And then it gets complicated when it goes overseas because suddenly it's like Israel is doing humanitarian evil. They are killing children. Look how many Gaza and children have died. No one's looking at, well, there was a Syrian genocide. That really is how a genocide looks. No one's looking at the Druze who were killed in Syria. No one's looking at October 7th even and saying, well, who is Hamas? And why wasn't the border of Egypt opened? So the women and children could leave Gaza and be safe? Why isn't there more proactivity to keep these people safe? Why isn't Hamas removed for the sake of their own people? Like no one's like how is it that terrorism has become trendy? I don't get it. Terrorism is evil. Can we like we need to be clear about that? There is an evil. And for that them to say that Israel has no right to exist when we have an ancient belonging in this country, which no one can disprove. It's proven over and over again. In fact, sometimes I feel if you wanna get rid of the Jewish people in Israel, you have to burn the Bible. And
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (55:19)
Yeah.
Sarah Sassoon (55:19)
maybe that's what they wanna do.
Susan Lapin (55:22)
Well, certainly the alliance in America, the United States of America is really what I can speak about, there's an alliance of the Islamic regimes with socialism and socialism i does want to get it rid of the Bible. So there is it.
Sarah Sassoon (55:37)
Right.
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (55:38)
even though the Islam is fiercely religious and it's but it's the enemy of my enemy is my enemy and right now they are allies, even though
Sarah Sassoon (55:47)
Right.
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (55:48)
their aims are very different.
Sarah Sassoon (55:50)
It's ridiculous.
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (55:52)
I have one more question that I'm interested that I wanted to ask you, Sarah, and that is that one of the most difficult things for human beings to handle is change. We're just not good with change. And so much of our lives is engineered to smooth out the humps and to avoid major changes, you know, whether it's w changes from aging and health or whether it's economic changes or pol we just don't do well with change. Now you got a Iraqi population, Iraqi Jewish population who basically until say nineteen forty one, although it might have been twenty years earlier, but there really was no reason to believe that anything major would change. They've been there for over two and a half thousand years. It's hard to think of any group that's lived in one place for two and a half thousand years. And all of a sudden particularly hard on older people, they've got to start adjusting their thinking to the biggest change imanageable, which is, hey, we are going to probably lose our big homes, our luxurious lifestyles, our money, our assets, and we are going to become penniless refugees living in a tent that leaks in the rain. how?
Sarah Sassoon (57:29)
It's a great question. And they did it. They did it and they suffered. They suffered and the stories tell of suffering. my mother's parents were depressed. They were proper depressed. They lost their son in the tent camp. He fell in a pit and that was it. I don't know what happened to him. There's no death certificate. They said he died. He was taken to hospital. But like they were depressed. They were really the saddest people I knew. And my aunt tells a story of when they first arrived at the Shah Aliyah, there was a suicide. A doctor committed suicide. These are the stories you only hear when you interview people, when you speak to people. And they're not written in the history books. They really suffered. And I think my grandparents' generation obviously suffered the most. Their kids really worked hard to be Israeli.
There was a real suffering, but it's also to put the suffering in context, they were next to Holocaust survivors. I've interviewed people and they described the wails they would hear from European Holocaust survivors. They had something that the European Jews did not have, and that is they were together with their families, and they were people of faith, and they were in Israel. So they entered a period of real physical suffering. But they also had the tools to perhaps build a life which was beautiful. And there don't forget, Judaism is a very strong guideline for how to live your life, even when you're in a tent camp. I mean, you, you know, you still have Shabbat. Whether you like it or not, Shabbat's come around and you are going to scramble together to light some candles somehow. it's something I explore in a new book that I've just sent to my agent. It's like, how do you survive? And it's difficult and many became secular, but many stayed faithful. My grandparents, my grandmother was always so faithful. My father's parents. They really like sukkot and all the festivals, all the prayers, all the songs. So even if they were in ten camps they were still singing. And that's a big deal and they were together.
Susan Lapin (59:50)
I would add also - So I think Judaism teaches hope and having children and it's one of the things that worries me about so many people deciding to be quote unquote child free because I think when you are doing something you say, my children will have it better. That gives and today Israel with all its troubles and you have two children in the army, two boys in the army right now, with all of that Israel regularly ranks among the happiest nations in countries in the world. And for your that
Sarah Sassoon (1:00:18)
Not only that
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (1:00:19)
is the vindication of your grandparents.
Sarah Sassoon (1:00:22)
Israeli society is incredible. Since October seventh there's been a baby boom. So Mizrahi society, Middle Eastern Jewish society, is all about family and children. And I think it's a very Israel it's become a very Israeli focus, is about the children. And there's nothing that makes us stronger than being surrounded by young kids and knowing you cannot be scared because you do not want to frighten the children. Children actually make you just a better person. They make you realize you're putting roots in this world and you want the world to be a better place. I would say I was in America recently and I noticed there's this aversion to having children. There's a fear of having children. But it's a mistake. Children make you braver. Children make you face yourself. It is harder. I had my first child at twenty two. It's a harder life in quotation marks, but it's a much richer life. And what is it to be alive?
If you don't have children. That's something I learned from my grandmother, who had eight children, and without me even realizing it, it's what's held me in my life are my children, more than anything else.
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (1:01:29)
I you know, we could go literally go on for hours 'cause I'm finding this fascinating. If people would like to know more about you and know when your book comes out, how can they stay in touch with you?
Sarah Sassoon (1:01:39)
So I update everything on Instagram, Sarah Sassoon Rider. I also have a website and I have a substack where I share thoughts and articles. And I just posted today about Ms. Rachin Spardec poetry, about Emma Lazarus, because she was a Spardec poet. from Portuguese Yes,
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (1:01:58)
Her words are on the Statue of Liberty.
Sarah Sassoon (1:02:01)
of Portuguese descent. She was inspired to write the poem. That she wrote on the Statue of Liberty, imagining freedom because of the Jewish refugees from Europe who had arrived at the end of the nineteenth century. She was very she was an activist for their well being. and she imagined Zionism ten years before Theodore Herzl held the first Zionist Congress. Because she said, Where can Jews be safe? Only in Israel. So there's so much to discuss when you talk about the Sparadic and Middle Eastern Jewish world because we hold so much history and so much tradition that often gets lost when we talk about Jews and the Jewish world today.
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (1:02:44)
Is there anything we should have asked you that we didn't that you would like to add?
Sarah Sassoon (1:02:49)
Just to say that that, you know, I do have a lot of hope. I really do believe in in good people. I believe most people want what's good and they're just busy giving their children and family suppers at the end of the day. They're working hard and honestly, and unfortunately they're so busy they don't have much of a voice. They're not the loud ones, they're not interested. They're humble and living their lives as they should be. So unfortunately it's the loud voices that get heard, which is wonderful that you have this podcast to share a different way of looking at the world from quieter voices like mine.
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (1:03:28)
Well we're very happy to have had the opportunity and I got a feeling we're gonna come back and try and get a second helping one day too.
Sarah Sassoon (1:03:37)
Thank you. it was a true pleasure to speak with you.
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (1:03:41)
Thank you very much indeed. Goodbye, Sarah Sassoon and please give warmest regards to your family.
Sarah Sassoon (1:03:48)
I will. Thank you.
