Synopses & Reviews
"I am the keeper of my family's stories. I am the guardian of its honor. I am the defender of its traditions. As the first-born son of a Kurdish father, these, they tell me, are my duties. And yet even before my birth I resisted."
So begins Ariel Sabar's true tale of a father and a son, and the two worlds that kept them apart and finally brought them together: ancient Iraq and modern America.
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, humble peddlers and rugged loggers 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.
Caught unawares by growing ethnic tensions in the Middle East after World War II, the Jews of Zakho were airlifted to the new state of Israel in the 1950s 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's son Ariel knew little of his father's history. Growing up in Los Angeles, where Yona had become an esteemed professor at UCLA and had dedicated 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.
My Father's Paradise is Ariel Sabar's quest to reconcile present and past. As Ariel and his father travel together into today's postwar Iraq to find what's left of Yona's birthplace, Sabar brings to life the ancient town of Zakho, telling his family's story and discovering their place in the sweeping saga of the Sephardic Jews' millennia-long survival in Islamic lands. He introduces us to his spiritual great-grandfather, the village cloth dyer by day
Review
"Excellent...A compelling read...Told with novelistic attention to narrative and detail, but its heart is Ariel's heart, that of a son searching with love for the meaning of his relationship with his father." --
The Providence (RI) Journal Review
"A powerful story of the meaning of family and tradition inside a little-known culture." --
San Francisco Chronicle Review
"Remarkable...A moving story about the near-death of an ancient language and the tiny flicker of life that remains in it." --
The Washington Post Book World Review
"Graceful and resonant . . . A personal undertaking for a son who admits he never understood his unassuming, penny-pinching immigrant father, a man who spent three decades obsessively cataloging the words of his moribund mother tongue. Sabar once looked at his father with shame, scornful of the alien who still bore scars on his back from childhood bloodlettings. This book, he writes, is a chance to make amends"- New York Times Sunday Book Review New York Times Book Review
Review
"A wonderful, enlightening journey, a voyage with the power to move readers deeply even as it stretches across differences of culture, family, and memory." - Christian Science Monitor Christian Science Monitor
Review
A "remarkable new memoir" - Philadelphia Inquirer Philadelphia Inquirer
Review
A "thoughtful, touching book. . . . A never-ending parade of colorful characters . . .I could not read quickly enough as the Sabars worked to resurrect the past." - Elle magazine, Readers' Prize selection, October 2008 Elle Magazine
Review
"Written with a reporter's flair for people and places . . . Recommended." - Library Journal Library Journal
Review
"A sensitive exploration . . . [Sabar's grandmother] emerges as a quiet heroine." - BookPage BookPage
Review
"With the novelistic skill of a Levantine storyteller . . . Sabar explores the conflicting demands of love and tradition, the burdens and blessings of an ancient culture encountering the 21st century. A well-researched text falling somewhere between journalism and memoir, sustained by Mesopotamian imagination." - Kirkus Reviews Kirkus Reviews
Review
"Taut and extravagant. A sweeping saga with the cadence of a Biblical tale."– Daniel Asa Rose, author of Hiding Places: A Father and his Sons Retrace Their Family's Escape from the Holocaust
Review
"An enchanting combination of history, family and discovery – Ariel Sabar's chronicle of his journey is flat out wonderful." –Rabbi David Wolpe, author of Why Faith Matters
Review
"If Ariel Sabar's My Father's Paradise were only about his father's life, it would be a remarkable enough story about the psychic costs of immigration. But Sabar's family history turns out to be more than the chronicle of one man's efforts to retain something of his homeland in new surroundings. It's also a moving story about the near-death of an ancient language and the tiny flicker of life that remains in it. . . . The chapters describing Yona's budding success as a linguist are thrilling."- Washington Post Book World
The Washington Post Book World
Review
"Be forewarned: you will lose sleep over this book. . . . [Sabar] mesmerizes with the very first sentences. . . . Unlike many memoirs flooding the book market these days, My Father's Paradise is both unique and universal." - Roanoke (Va.) Times The Los Angeles Times
Review
"Voices like Susan Hand Shetterly's are soothing . . . Shetterly puts a hand on your forearm and says, come walk along the Maine coast. Let's consider other species, eels and hummingbirds." -
The Los Angeles TimesSynopsis
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 were self-made mystics and gifted storytellers, humble peddlers and rugged loggers 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.
In the 1950s, after the founding of the state of Israel, 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.
Populated by Kurdish chieftains, trailblazing linguists, Arab nomads, devout believers--marvelous characters all-- this intimate yet powerful book uncovers the vanished history of a place that is now at the very center of the world'sattention.
Synopsis
"My Father's Paradise" is Sabar's quest to reconcile present and past as he brings to life the ancient town of Zakho, telling his family's story and discovering his own role in this sweeping saga.
Synopsis
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.
Synopsis
Sabar once looked at his [immigrant] father with shame, scornful of the alien who still bore scars on his back from childhood bloodlettings. This book, he writes, is a chance to make amends.--"New York Times Sunday Book Review."
About the Author
Ariel Sabar is an award-winning former staff writer for the Baltimore Sun and the Providence (RI) Journal. His work has also appeared in the New York Times, the Christian Science Monitor, the Washington Monthly, Moment, Mother Jones magazine, and other publications. He lives with his wife and two children in Washington, D.C.