The Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty of Iraq was estab­lished in Mesopotamia more than 2,500 years ago. Salman Shasha, a twelve-year-old Jew­ish boy liv­ing in Iraq, has heard his father describe the impor­tance of that lega­cy many times. Yet in 1951, when the anti­semitism that has always been present in the coun­try increas­es dra­mat­i­cal­ly, Salman learns that his fam­i­ly will soon immi­grate to the new nation of Israel. He refus­es to see this deci­sion as either nec­es­sary or hero­ic; for Salman, Bagh­dad is his home­land, the city where he has always lived with his large extend­ed fam­i­ly. His one ambi­tion is to be a cham­pi­on swim­mer, a goal he has worked toward in the Tigris Riv­er. Author Miri­am Halah­my has giv­en us a tra­di­tion­al com­ing-of-age sto­ry with a pow­er­ful state­ment about the dif­fi­cul­ty Mizrahi Jews faced when inte­grat­ing into Israeli society.

In beau­ti­ful­ly tex­tured prose, Halah­my paints a pic­ture of Salman’s Bagh­dad. It is a mul­ti­cul­tur­al city where Jews, Sun­nis, Yazidis, Arme­ni­ans, and Kurds all live har­mo­nious­ly. The sights, smells, and tastes of dai­ly life from a child’s per­spec­tive are rich and com­fort­ing. The fact that Salman and his friends are cau­tioned to speak Judeo-Ara­bic at home and stan­dard Ara­bic in the streets does not seem omi­nous to him. We hear Salman’s frus­tra­tion when his life is abrupt­ly altered by adults. Resist­ing the ide­al of Israel as the promised land, and refus­ing to tran­si­tion to speak­ing Hebrew, Salman rebels in a way that is typ­i­cal of ado­les­cents, but also spe­cif­ic to a tense his­tor­i­cal moment.

Arriv­ing in Israel ful­fills many of Salman’s worst fears and also stamps out his par­ents’ naïve opti­mism. New arrivals are sprayed with the tox­ic dis­in­fec­tant DDT — the impli­ca­tion being that they will bring dis­eases to their new home. This ini­ti­a­tion is only the begin­ning of their mis­treat­ment. The Ashke­naz­im are arro­gant and insen­si­tive toward their fel­low Jews from Arab countries.

Salman’s life in a refugee camp is char­ac­ter­ized by depri­va­tion, and he con­tin­ues to mourn his pre­vi­ous life in Bagh­dad, which begins to seem like a lost fairy tale: ​“Salman found him­self wish­ing there was a mag­ic spell to make their lives bet­ter.” Even the Mediter­ranean Sea, which ini­tial­ly grant­ed him ​“a huge sense of free­dom,” turns out to be a hos­tile actor, over­pow­er­ing him with its unfa­mil­iar waves.

Salman, who is expect­ed to accept the new name Shi­mon, finds a neme­sis in Zohar, an Ashke­nazi Israeli who crit­i­cizes the newcomer’s swim­ming abil­i­ties. With the sup­port of his resource­ful cousin, Roni, who has eas­i­ly adapt­ed to the new con­di­tions, Shi­mon focus­es on prepar­ing for a race. After sus­pect­ing that his father has nev­er respect­ed his ath­let­ic skills, Shi­mon grad­u­al­ly real­izes that the old­er man is depressed, and that his atti­tude toward the swim race is more enig­mat­ic: ​“Some­thing in Abba’s face, almost like a ques­tion mark drawn on the skin, held his gaze.” With this sen­tence, Halah­my has con­jured up all the uncer­tain­ty of young adult­hood, as well as the plight of refugees every­where. Her nov­el is both an ele­gy for a lost past and a hope­ful chron­i­cle of change.