Self and the City: Literary Representations of Jewish Baghdad

Abstract

"Maybe there is something in Baghdad that ties him to the city like an umbilical cord, something that he is powerless to extract from his heart," muses the narrator of Eli 'Amir's Mafriaḥ hayonim (The Pigeon Keeper). What does it mean to identify so passionately with a home from which you were ejected, a home that has become "enemy terrain?" How do you "write the city" of your youth from a vantage point of no return? How does the remembered space of the city interact with and mediate memories of self and community? This article explores how the literary writings of Baghdadi Jews in Arabic, Hebrew, French, and English foster a dialectical relationship between self and the city, one in which Baghdad is the plaster cast of identity, suddenly imploded, yet indelible in its imprint.