Babylonia to Zion: Salman Shina on Iraqi Jews in Early Israel

Salman Shina

1955

Sensitive Content

This entry is a firsthand account of racism and xenophobia encountered by Mizrahi Jews in Israel. The text provides insight into history; however, The Posen Library does not condone or promote oppression of any kind.

First Impressions

With the first morning light I got up and looked out on the landscape of the Jerusalem Hills. I looked toward the nearby border. One of my relatives told me how the well in our house provided water for a large number of residents during the siege. He also showed me the place where a bomb fell on our house, without causing serious…

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There have been a number of well-known memoirs written by Iraqi Jews, yet few of their authors were as established as Salman Shina was when he migrated to Israel at age 53. Shina had served in the Ottoman military as a young man, edited an Arabic Jewish journal, and even served in the Iraqi parliament (1947–1951), roles that highlight Iraqi Jews’ interconnectedness with the Islamic and Arab world around them. Yet Shina would migrate along with most Iraqi Jews under difficult circumstances, and here he recounts some of the challenges Iraqi Jews faced in the new Jewish state. 

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Early Israeli statehood balanced collectivist Zionist ideals with growing individualism and saw the emergence of a vibrant but conflicted national culture.

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Creator Bio

Salman Shina

1898–1978

Born in Baghdad, Salman Shina attended an Alliance school there. During World War I, he was an officer in the Ottoman army, eventually taken prisoner by the British. After the war, he returned to Baghdad and became a lawyer. In the 1920s, he founded, edited, and wrote for an Arabic-language Jewish literary journal called al-Misbaḥ. Shina served as a member of the Iraqi parliament from 1947 to 1951, when he immigrated to Israel along with the rest of the Jewish community. He died in Ramat Gan.

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