The Dove Flyer
Eli Amir
New York Review Books
<p><i>The Dove Flyer</i> tells the story of the last years of the Jewish community in Baghdad, before their expulsion in 1950 and settlement in Israel. Kabi, the young narrator, watches as the members of his extended family each develop different dreams and a different sets of fears: 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 Kabi watches as...</p>