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September 29, 2023

An Anti-Zionist Historian’s Memoir Rests on a Fantastical Portrait of Jewish Iraq

“By the waters of Zion, there we sat down, and there we wept, when we remembered Babylon.”

One of Israel’s leading “new historians,” the Oxford professor Avi Shlaim has spent most of his career writing tendentious books arguing that the Jewish state was created in cruelty and colonialism. He has also frequently denounced Israel’s contemporary policies. In his most recent work, Three Worlds: Memoirs of an Arab-Jew, he describes his idyllic childhood in a wealthy Jewish household in Baghdad, and the trauma of moving to Israel. Benny Morris, a fellow new historian, writes in his review:

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September 29, 2023

  1. The Right and Wrong Ways for the U.S. to Support the Palestinians

    There are clear alternatives to “pay for slay,” but Ramallah rejects them.

  2. The Applause for an SS Veteran Wasn’t the First Time Canada’s Parliament Feted Anti-Semites

    Bad optics.

  3. An Anti-Zionist Historian’s Memoir Rests on a Fantastical Portrait of Jewish Iraq

    “By the waters of Zion, there we sat down, and there we wept, when we remembered Babylon.”

  4. A Rare Discovery of a Remnant of the Greek Occupation of the Land of Israel

    A courtesan’s mirror.

  5. The Surprising 21st-Century Triumph of Talmud Study

    Daf yomi turns 100.