The Last Jews in Baghdad

This memoir of life in the Iraqi capital’s Jewish community is “ a rare look—detailed and vivid—into a culture that is no longer extant” (Nancy E. Berg, author of Exile from Exile: Israeli Writers from Iraq ). Once upon a time, Baghdad was home to a flourishing Jewish community. More than a third of the city’s people were Jews, and Jewish customs and holidays helped set the pattern of Baghdad’s cultural and commercial life. On the city’s streets and in the bazaars, Jews, Muslims, and Christians—