RECOGNIZING A STROKE

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If he or she has trouble with any of these tasks, call the ambulance, immediately and describe the symptoms to the dispatcher. After discovering that a group of non-medical volunteers could identify facial weakness, arm weakness and speech problems, researchers urged the general public to learn the three questions. They presented their conclusions at the American Stroke Association's annual meeting last February. Widespread use of this test could result in prompt diagnosis and>treatment of the stroke and prevent brain damage. A cardiologist says if everyone who gets this e-mail sends it to 10 people; you can bet that at least one life will be saved. PLEASE SHARE THIS ARTICLE WITH AS MANY FRIENDS AS POSSIBLE, you could save their lives.

Peter Sluglett on IRAQI Jews via Email

Dear Wafaa,

Someone has shown me your letter to Nissim Rejwan. I think the record has to be set straight. I have been working on 19th and 29th century Iraqi history for the last 30 years.

In the Iraqi context, it’s nonsense to talk about ‘Jewish Arabs’. The correct terminology is ‘Arabic-speaking Jews.’ It’s like this. Arabs originate in the Arabian Peninsula. They begin to migrate out in the 4th and 5th centuries AD, and then do so in a big way in the 7th century, with the Arab conquests. Long before the Arab conquests, there were Jews in what is now Iraq. We cannot call them Arab Jews (unless we mean ‘Arabic-speaking Jews’) because their ancestors were there many centuries before the Arabs.

The Jewish population of Baghdad: this is the figure which everyone in the field accepts. The Ottoman salnames and censuses are the most reliable sources we have (because the Ottomans based jizya and other tax collection on them). Batatu’s book (1978) is the most reliable account that we have: it is impossible to write anything serious on Iraq without reading it. Batatu (d.2002) taught Political Science first at AUB and then at Georgetown.

Joel’s sentence, “But like most Arabic-speaking minorities” shocked me. Iraqi Jews are near entirely Arabs. They are nothing, but Arabs. Writing that Jews are Arabic speaking means that they speak Arabic, but not necessarily Arabs! Then she made another grave error by considering Arabic-speaking in IRAQ as a minority or several minorities when nearly 90% of the society spoke (and still speaks) Arabic regardless of whether they are Arabs or not.

This is based on a misunderstanding of English. ‘Arabic speaking minorities’ = ‘Arabic-speaking non-Muslim minorities’; (For instance, Maronites and Orthodox Christians and Druzes in Lebanon, Chaldeans, Suriani, Ashuri, Jews etc in Iraq). I have already explained that the Iraqi Jews are not and cannot be Arabs. Joel Beinin is a man (i.e. not ‘she’); he is a highly respected historian of the labor movement in Egypt and Palestine, a Professor of History at Stanford.

[On page xvi, Joel Beinin writes, “The first modern Arabic play in Mesopotamia was written in 1888 by a Christian.” Please note that in 1888 it was not called Mesopotamia.]

This is silly: it wasn’t called Iraq either!! Iraq referred only to the provinces of Baghdad and Basra.

Pan-Arab nationalism is a load of a-historical nonsense invented by Sati‘ al-Husri in the 1920s and has no relation whatever to the realities of Arab history. There was never a time, except perhaps between 700 and 850, when it would have been possible to talk about a united Arab world – after 850-900 the Arab world was ruled by different dynasties of Turkish (or Persian) origin. Furthermore, very few Arabs were attracted to Arab nationalism before WW1, since the Ottoman Empire was the only thing standing between them and European colonisation, a fact of which even Arab Christians were aware. When the Ottomans fell, sure enough, the Arab provinces were taken over by France and Britain.

Zionism is equally fallacious in historical terms; two wrongs do not make a right!

Finally, your remarks about the Sunnis: All the people whose names I’ve quoted have been writing about Iraq or the Middle East since the 1970s. You will not find any reputable scholar who thinks that the Sunnis Arabs are a majority, although, as you say, the terms ‘Sunni’ and ‘Shi‘i’ do not occur in the censuses. I assure you that this is not an invention by the Americans since 2003, it’s what anyone writing on Iraq has been saying for the past 70 years.

The picture is roughly this, in percentages:

Kurds 24
Turcomen 6
Other non-Arabs (Armenians, Assyrians etc) 3

Arabs 67
Of which Arab Sunni provinces and Arab 27
Sunni parts of Baghdad
Arab Shi‘is and Shi‘i parts of Baghdad 40

Of course this can’t be absolutely accurate, but if you take half the population of Baghdad, and add all the obviously Shi‘i areas south of Baghdad (find me the Sunnis between Baghdad and Basra) that’s more or less what you end up with.

If you want to see what I, or Beinin, or Batatu have published, look us up on the Harvard University Catalog: (Hollis catalog). We all have doctorates, we’re all professionals, and have been in the field for many years.

Peter Sluglett
History Department, University of Utah

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Subject: RE Jewish Arabs
Date: 10/26/2005 1:57:54 AM Eastern Standard Time
From: Joachim Martillo
To: Sluglett
CC: president@utah.edu


In a message dated 10/25/2005 11:55:45 PM Eastern Daylight Time, Professor Sluglett writes:

<<In the Iraqi context, it’s nonsense to talk about ‘Jewish Arabs’. The correct terminology is ‘Arabic-speaking Jews.’ It’s like this. Arabs originate in the Arabian Peninsula. They begin to migrate out in the 4th and 5th centuries AD, and then do so in a big way in the 7th century, with the Arab conquests. Long before the Arab conquests, there were Jews in what is now Iraq. We cannot call them Arab Jews (unless we mean ‘Arabic-speaking Jews’) because their ancestors were there many centuries before the Arabs.>>


Dear Professor Sluglett:

Some friends of mine passed your email to me because I am an expert in the period that you address in the above paragraph.

I am completely astounded that anyone with any sort of training in history would try to equate ancient Arabs of 4th-7th century Arabia with the modern Arabic population.

It is a combination of primordialism and essentialism that went out of style with the defeat of the German Nazis, who tried to equate modern Germans with ancient Germanic and Teutonic tribes.

All the populations of the Middle East that spoke some form of Semitic or Egyptian language were Arabized with the development of the early Islamic empires, and those populations included all the Aramaic-speaking populations that practiced some form of Judean religion. All these populations together evolved into the ethno-linguistic groups that are commonly called Arab today.

It is a major error to describe any populations before the 10th century as Jewish. Modern Rabbinic and Karaite Judaism do not crystallize until the time of Saadya Gaon. There are several cumbersome terminologies to describe various categories of Judean or earlier Judahite populations, but one point is clear as Shaye Cohen of Harvard University has carefully pointed out. "Judean" lost all ethnic or territorial sense by the 3rd century CE. I would argue that his time frame is several centuries too late, but any attempt to trace modern Eastern European Yiddish-speaking populations to ancient Greek and Aramaic-speaking populations of the Roman Empire that practiced some form of 2nd Temple Judaism belongs more to the realm of essentialist and primordialist propaganda than it does to genuine scholarship.

Because you pretend to be a scholar in Middle East Languages and Area Studies, I have appended a very simple introduction to the terminology necessary to discussing Judaica coherently since the development of Zionist ideology.

Patrick Geary has written a basic history book entitled The Myth of Nations. You should read it, for the very elementary points that he makes applies as much to the Middle East and North Africa as it does to Europe.

Joachim Martillo

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Wafaa's reply to Joachim Martillo after he forwarded the commentary by Peter Sluglett (see Below),

Richard Sullivan
INEAS
In a message dated 10/27/2005 1:06:49 AM Eastern Daylight Time, Sluglett@aol.com writes:

<<I accept, and am grateful for, your criticism and detailed information on the 'Jewish Arabs', a subject I should not have raised since what I know about is the 19th and 20th century, and I defer to your evidently greater knowledge of the earlier period.

Howewver, while I know that Iraqi Jews always thought of themselves as Iraqis , I am not sure that they thought of themselves as Arabs (who just happened to be Jewish) -- unlike, for example, the Greek Orthodox population of Syria who are quite unambiguously Arab in their own self-identification. Under the Ottoman Empire, of course, people thought in sectarian and religious terms (Muslims, Christians and Jews), but while it's clear that Iraqi Jewish novelists, poets and so on between 1920 and 1950 felt that they were participants in Arab culture (since they spoke Arabic -- and only Arabic) I wonder whether - after the foundation of the state in 1920 - they thought of themselves as Arabs. Frankly, I rather doubt it, but I'm ready to be proved wrong !
Peter Sluglett>>

Most Iraqi Jews considered themselves Arabs, but the Industrial west and western Ashkenazi Jews didn't care or paid attention to this reality. They always made their own assumptions, distorted facts and worse yet invented their own "facts" and terminology to fit their agenda about various matters related to the East.

When Jewish Arabs lived in IRAQ, until they had to flee to Israel (a country that treated them horribly), they considered themselves Arabs. Many continued to consider themselves Arabs and even spoke Arabic or Arabized Hebrew even while living in Israel at least until the defeat of neighboring Arab countries in confronting Israel. Peter Sluglett or any of the western so-called scholars did not live in IRAQ in that era to witness that reality. They copy each other's findings, writings and statements often without listening to far better sources; the people themselves and their stories, concepts and behaviors.

Peter Sluglett should listen to the commentary by Iraqi Jews in Samir's documentary, "Forget Baghdad", should read the scholarly writings of Naeem Giladi who currently lives in NY and should also read the writing of the great Iraqi Jew, Ahmed Soussa, who never left IRAQ and converted to Islam later in his life, not because he wanted to stay in Iraq. He also should read the carefully written and well analyzed writings on the subject by Prof. Ella Shohat who also lives in NY. Jewish Arabs like the late Sameer An-Naqqash (Iraq) and David Shasha (Iraq/Syria) would have given Sluglett and other such history teachers a good piece of their mind. So it was not just a matter of speaking Arabic as mentioned in Sluglett's response and Joel Beinin's forward in Nissim Rejwan's book.

When Arabs began to lose in confronting Israel and when they began to be more divided and in trouble with each other politically, many began to disassociate themselves from Arab nationalism or from the Arab community and ceased telling publicly that they were Arabs for obvious reasons.

Jewish Arabs in the industrial west began to associate themselves with the Jews rather than Arabs because their causes get better funded with the Jewish and/or Zionist communities/organizations than with those of the Arabs! Additionally, the Jewish Arabs, whether living in the industrial west or Israel, have not been recognized and treated well, and with the terrible treatment of foreigners especially Arabs in general for decades and the privileges and power Jews have in the industrial west, it is understood why Jewish Arabs
disassociate themselves from Arabs.

However, all of the above mentioned scenarios did not and will not change the fact that they were/are as nothing, but ethnically Arabs whether they like to admit it or not.

Regards,
Wafaa, Founder
INEAS

//////////////////////////////////////

Subject: Re: Jewish Arabs
Date: 10/27/2005 2:36:12 PM Eastern Standard Time
From: Sluglett

I have written the foreword to Abbas Shiblak, Iraqi Jews: a History of Mass Exodus (London, Saqi Books, 2005), so I am not entirely unaware of the points that you make.

However, I am still not sure that, their own self-perception, Iraqi Jews fall into quite the same category as, say, Syrian or Iraqi Christians who, (unless they are of Armenian or Assyrian origin) are clearly Arab in their own self-identification. Thus, while Arab Christians certainly regard themselves as Arabs who happen to be Christians, I wonder (since this is a question of self-perception, not necessarily of 'reality') whether Jews from Arab countries regard themselves as Arabs who just happen to be Jews. That they regard themselves as Iraqis or Egyptians I have no doubt.

Incidentally, you all seem to put a lot of stress on Israel and the various nonsenses which the Zionists may or may not have concocted. Tnis is not part of my concern. If you read anything I have written -- and if you are at all interested in 19th and 20th century Iraqi history you will see that I have written quite a lot on Iraq, both with my late wife Marion Farouk-Sluglett before her death in 1996 and by myself subsequently, you will see that it is all solidly grounded in empirical evidence.

Peter Sluglett
///////////////////////////////


Subject: Re: Jewish Arabs
Date: 10/27/2005
To: Sluglett


In a message dated 10/27/2005 2:36:12 PM Eastern Standard Time, Sluglett writes:

<<However, I am still not sure that, their own self-perception, Iraqi Jews fall into quite the same category as, say, Syrian or Iraqi Christians who, (unless they are of Armenian or Assyrian origin) are clearly Arab in their own self-identification. Thus, while Arab Christians certainly regard themselves as Arabs who happen to be Christians, I wonder (since this is a question of self-perception, not necessarilyof 'reality') whether Jews from Arab countries regard themselves as Arabs who just happen to be Jews. That they regard themselves as Iraqis or Egyptians I have no doubt.>>

Yes, as I indicated earlier, they are Arabs and they consider themselves Arabs and part of Arab history, definitely.

Below are sources emailed to us after I sent my commentary this morning. The sender asked that we forward it to you.

Regards,
Wafaa, Founder
Institute of Near Eastern & African Studies (INEAS)
///////////////////////////


Subject: Re: Jewish Arabs
Date: 10/27/2005 2:43:57 PM Eastern Standard Time
From: Sheilamusaji

Salaam,

We have had a number of articles on The American Muslim website on the subject of Jewish Arabs (by a Jewish Arab, David Shasha)

A Jewish Voice Left Silent: Trying to Articulate 'The Levantine Option', David Shasha http://www.theamericanmuslim.org/2003jan_comments.php?id=253_0_17_0_C

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Arab - The Last Jews of Baghdad, David Shasha http://www.theamericanmuslim.org/2005jan_comments.php?id=553_0_31_0_C

Eclipse of SUFFEH, David Shasha http://theamericanmuslim.org/2005jan_comments.php?id=552_0_31_0_C

Masking Identity: Sephardim as Ashkenazim, David Shasha http://www.theamericanmuslim.org/2005august_comments.php?id=948_0_44_30_C

On the Use of the Term Arab Jew, David Shasha http://www.theamericanmuslim.org/2005august_comments.php?id=947_0_44_30_C

Restoring the Andalusian-Arabic Tradition in Western Civilization, David Shasha http://theamericanmuslim.org/2004oct_comments.php?id=499_0_37_0_C

and we have an article coming up in the November issue "Rediscovering the Arab-Jewish Past"

It would seem clear that there are at least some who consider themselves Arab-Jews.

You are welcome to share this information.'

God bless,
Sheila Musaji