Memoirs of an Arab Jew
The David McWilliams Podcast
David McWilliams
4.6 • 643 Ratings
🗓️ 19 June 2025
⏱️ 53 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this powerful episode recorded at the Dalkey Book Festival, we sit down with Israeli historian Avi Shlaim, whose memoir The Memoirs of an Arab Jew weaves together the personal and political. Born in Baghdad and expelled to Israel, Shlaim dismantles the dominant Zionist narrative and shares a forgotten story: that of the Arab Jews, rooted in the Middle East for millennia, fluent in Arabic, and often alienated in the state built in their name. Shlaim explores British colonial meddling, the legacy of the Holocaust, and what he calls Israel’s transformation from a refuge into a settler-colonial project. He also offers explosive insights into Mossad’s alleged role in the exodus of Iraqi Jews. This is a conversation about historical amnesia, and why the trauma of the past can’t justify injustice in the present.
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Transcript
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| 1:13.0 | Hello and welcome to the podcast. It's John here. You know, it's talkie book festival season. |
| 1:19.1 | So we're going to be bringing you a series of special episodes recorded over the weekend. |
| 1:24.1 | Some of the highlights and they're fantastic. This one in particular is fascinating. Avishlam is an Arab Jew, |
| 1:32.3 | born in Iraq and encouraged or forced to emigrate to the new state of Israel. With Mack, he discusses the birth of the state of Israel, |
| 1:41.3 | how Zionism is more of an Ashkenazi concept, and why all Jews aren't |
| 1:46.3 | treated the same. They also discuss what it's like growing up in the early Israel and the hypocrisy |
| 1:52.2 | of Britain, America and the Western General in their dealings with Israel and the Middle East. |
| 1:57.7 | So in this episode, Israeli historian Avishlame takes us on a fascinating, complicated, |
| 2:04.4 | an unresolved journey. And his book, Memoirs of an Arab Jew, is amazing. So if you really want |
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