Dedicated to my eldest son, Gil Taḥan
We wanted to travel to Israel. The government said “you have to renounce your Iraqi citizenship and register for aliyah to Israel.” And we did, and we came…we came to Israel without money. (With only) twenty kilograms of clothing. And there, in…the airport, they took half our clothes. We came with…a small suitcase and a small amount of clothes. We came to a tent, a tent here in Israel. And we said “long live the State of Israel!” because we came to Israel. We had our house which we built…we did everything good inside it. And we…worked in construction, we worked in…fields, in…we worked everywhere. And we said, “thank you, thank you Israel. Israel is good. May Israel be healthy.”
Before…the synagogue, and…she heard that…the prayer in the synagogue, and would sit (there) from morning. When she slept, she would read “shema Yisrael”. Every night (she would say) “shema Yisrael, h’ is Gd,, h’ is one’”. Every night. And she was religious like nobody else. She was very religious. And we loved her, and she had a word to walk with everyone. We respected her. She was good. And she died in…(19)73. She died, may she rest in peace.
Beautiful language. I like Arabic. I really really like Arabic.
I grew up there in Baghdad. My eyes opened there in Baghdad. I studied there in Baghdad. Everything in Baghdad. I feel my whole body is there in Iraq. There’s nothing here in Israel. I came […] 66, and today like 120. And 55. My whole body is in Baghdad. I came to Israel and said, “100 out of 100”. They laughed at me. They said “nobody says 100 out of 100”. So they laughed at me. Again, a Russian manager. He would laugh, and said “nobody says 100%. They say 100%”. I learned. Thank you.