My family: birth in Jerusalem, moving to Baghdad, returning to Israel

In memory of my parents, Jacob and ʾEster Ḥayek Z"L

 
Name of speaker: 
ʿOvadia Ben-ʾOr
Gender of speaker: 
Male
Occupation of speaker: 
Bookkeeper
Age of speaker at time of recording: 
83
Year of immigration: 
1951
Speaker's country of origin: 
Iraq
Speaker's community of origin: 
Baghdad
Language: 
Judeo-Arabic
Conversation topics: 
Family, Life story
Documentation: 
Ilana Chemoul and Elishevʿa Barak
Year of recording: 
2019
Translator: 
Nathan Himmelfarb
Translation: 

I was born in Jerusalem in 1936. In the immigrant refugee camps. I was born in the first immigrant refugee camps. I was three years old (when my family) took me to Baghdad, and I was five years old (when) the Farhud happened. My sister, (who was) younger than me…every two years my mother was giving birth. We were…I was two years old (when) my sister Margit was born…and we came to Baghdad, and the Farhud happened. After the Farhud, another younger sister was born. She wasn’t (yet born) in the Farhud. We were not rich. We were not rich. But thank G-d my father was a landlord, and was a man (an upstanding family man) all his life until his last day. My father was born in 1901, and died in 2001.

 

Contact us