• Poetry & Literature

    Ariel Sabar - My Father's Paradise: A Son's Search for his Jewish Past in Kurdish Iraq

    Ariel Sabar - My Father's Paradise: A Son's Search for his Jewish Past in Kurdish Iraq

    Kepler's Bookstore

    October 7, 2008

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    In a remote and dusty corner of the world, forgotten for nearly three thousand years, lived an ancient community of Kurdish Jews so isolated that they still spoke Aramaic - the language of Jesus. Mostly illiterate, they dwelt in harmony with their Muslim and Christian neighbors in the mountains of northern Iraq. To these descendants of the Lost Tribes of Israel, Yona Sabar was born. In the 1950s, after the founding of the state of Isreal, Yona and his family emigrated there with the mass exodus of 120,000 Jews from Iraq—one of the world's largest and least-known diasporas. Almost overnight, the Kurdish Jews' exotic culture and language were doomed to extinction. Yona, who became an esteemed professor at UCLA, dedicated his career to preserving his people's traditions. But to his first-generation American son Ariel, Yona was a reminder of a strange immigrant heritage on which he had turned his back—until he had a son of his own.

    My Father's Paradise is Ariel Sabar's quest to reconcile present and past. As father and son travel together to today's postwar Iraq to find what's left of Yona's birthplace, Ariel brings to life the ancient town of Zakho, telling his family's story and discovering his own role in this sweeping saga. What he finds in the Sephardic Jews' millennia-long survival in Islamic lands is an improbable story of tolerance and hope.

    Ariel Sabar covered the 2008 U.S. presidential campaigns for the Christian Science Monitor and is a former staff writer for the Baltimore Sun and the Providence (RI) Journal. His work has also appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Monthly, Mother Jones magazine, and other publications.

    • Ticket Info

      Tickets: Free

      Info Phone: 650-324-4321

    • Dates & Times

      Dates:
      October 7, 2008

      Times:
      7:30pm

    • Venue Info

      Kepler's Books

      1010 El Camino Real Menlo Park, CA 94025

      Full map and directions

    • Parking Info

      Free underground and nearby street parking.

    • Accessibility Info
      • Wheelchair Access

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