My Father's Paradise : A Son's Search for His Family's Past

In a remote corner of the world, forgotten for nearly three thousand years, lived an enclave of Kurdish Jews so isolated that they still spoke Aramaic, the language of Jesus. Mostly illiterate, they were self-made mystics and gifted storytellers and humble peddlers who 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. Yona's son Ariel grew up in Los Angeles, where Yona had become an esteemed professor, dedicating his career to preserving his people’s traditions. Ariel wanted nothing to do with his father’s strange immigrant heritage—until he had a son of his own. Ariel Sabar brings to life the ancient town of Zakho, discovering his family’s place in the sweeping saga of Middle-Eastern history. This powerful book is an improbable story of tolerance and hope set in what today is the very center of the world’s attention. The Barnes & Noble Review Yona Sabar, a professor at UCLA, is an eminent scholar of Neo-Aramaic, the heroic rescuer of a language near extinction, and the sort of mensch who prompts rapturous reviews and fierce admiration from his students. But to his son Ariel, growing up among the privileged offspring of Los Angeles's moneyed set, Yona -- a Kurdish Jew born in Zakho, Iraq, who emigrated to Israel and, ultimately, the United States -- was a source of shame and an object of ridicule, an immigrant with funny hair, a funny accent, and funny habits. In a flashy world of fast cars, rock 'n' roll, and Hollywood glitz, Yona drove a dented Chevette, cut his own hair, wore ugly discount clothing, and further mortified his son by, say, bringing his own travel shampoo bottle of Manischewitz Cream White Concord into restaurants because paying $3 for a glass of wine off the menu was "out of the question." My Father's Paradise is Ariel Sabar's quest to reconcile present and past. As Ariel's father, Yona, travels with him 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.