The Dove Flyer
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4.3 • 4 Ratings
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
The Dove Flyer tells the story of the last years of the Jewish community in Baghdad, before their expulsion in 1950 and settlement in Israel. The young narrator, Kabi, watches as the members of his extended family each develop different dreams and a different sets of fears throughout these tumultuous, transitional times: his mother wants to move out of the new Jewish quarter and back to their old Muslim neighborhood where she felt safer; his father wants to emigrate to the promised land, the new State of Israel, where he will farm and grow rice; his uncle Hizkel, a Zionist, is arrested and taken off to prison to await trial and a possible death sentence; his headmaster, Salim, believes in the equality of Arabs and Jews; and his uncle Edouard just wants to hang out on the rooftop with his doves. Meanwhile, as World War II draws closer and Israeli statehood seems more assured, a noose begins to tighten around Jewish Iraqis. Houses are appropriated, Jews are beaten in the streets and hung in public, and young Kabi watches as the storied legacy of the Jewish community in Baghdad is dismantled piecemeal and finally decimated. As for the land of milk and honey, there is neither milk, nor honey. It is a desert, a place as barren and coarse as the community Kabi and his family left behind was vibrant, bountiful, and dreamy.
Customer Reviews
Unforgettable memory of the Jewish Exodus from Arab & Muslim Lands
Just by reading Eli Amir's wonderful,powerful,understandle,funny &sad book that marked the end of a once flourished 25,000 year old ancient community dating back to the Babylonian captivity of the world's oldest Jewish community.ever since the founding of the state of Israel. Oriental (mizrahim) Jews many if not all have long for wanting to just go back home but could never return due to the fact that they were now citizens living in an enemy state, cannot for once recall of the deep profund memories of their once prosperous life that they had even with their Arab cousins, who even at times persecuted them. After reading this book which is a mixture of fiction and nonfiction all put together has documented facts of what happened in Iraq and through out the Arab world in their reaction of there being a Jewish state amongs them and their 14,000 year old conflict between the two peoples even today that we all live in the 21st century still face.this book brought me almost into tears when I read passages of old Hiyawi lost his beautiful wife and how he wanted to die just to be with her and other things that were said by Amir when he wrote this book that got me to think.It even mentioned provocatively erotic parts in the Dove Flyer,then in the year of 2013 Israeli director Nissim Dayan decided to make the novel into a film and of course Eli Amir also takes an acting part in the film as Staz Nawi who is one of the characters in the story and is Kabi's school teacher. My praises for this book is a must read for anyone who wants to know more about the lives of Arab Jews I highly recommend it to any reader,as a matter of fact there was a sequel to the Dove Flyer that's titled Yasmin also by Amir which talks more about the 1967 Six-Day War,confiscation of territories, and Nuri Imari who as a child had immigrated with his family from Iraq to Israel/Palestine, who is also the younger brother of Kabi Imari from the first novel,is appointed to a government post in East Jerusalem for Arab Affairs. He meets Yasmin a young beautiful Palestinian woman whose husband perished and comes from a wealthy Christian family who are refugees.