Multilingual journeys: Jewish travel narratives and multicultural identities in interwar Iraq

Abstract

This article suggests that the Jews in northern Iraq lived in, and were part of, multiethnic and multireligious communities, whose identities were fluid, mobile and volatile. While some northern Jewish experiences serve as testimony to the strength of the new nation state, other historical experiences underline the fragmented nature of Iraqi society, where individuals were members of multiple linguistic and cultural communities. These shifting Jewish identities, moreover, were not simply a result of Jews living amongst Arab, Turkish, Kurdish, Assyrian and Armenian communities, but rather a product of Iraqi modernity itself.