A Conversation with Ariel Sabar

Did you know The Talmud was written in Iraq?

Well, you might have, but I didn't -- and after reading Ariel Sabar's "My Father's Paradise: A Son's Search for His Father's Past in Jewish Iraq," I'm pretty sure that the world could use a primer on the Jewish diaspora in the Middle East. The book's story could have any number of beginnings, but since it's written by Ariel Sabar, the easiest one is to note that the author grew up knowing that his academic father Yona was the world authority on Neo-Aramaic. Yona Sabar had grown up speaking that biblical tongue (Aramaic was, as Sabar notes in our interview, the language of Jesus). 

Pretty amazing, right? Not to the young Ariel, who found his father awkward, hovering, old-fashioned, and even pathetic. That would sound like most teenagers considering their parents, except that once Ariel gained some wisdom, he decided to go on a reporter's quest into his father's history, traveling with and without Yona to Israel and Iraq on a search for meaning and resolution of the "paradise" the latter had left just after being the last bar mitzvah boy in the ancient community of Zakho, Iraq.

What makes "My Father's Paradise" a lovely, meaningful book is that Ariel Sabar's search has unexpected conclusions. Now the father of his own son, Ariel learned both more and less than he bargained for -- but you'll have to watch our interview to understand what I mean. Enjoy!