RAQÍA
The following is a four-page excerpt of Mika’s originally twelve-page zine RAQÍA (2018), wherein he outlines a conversation with his grandfather Shlomo about his childhood in Baghdad - discussing what he remembers and why his Jewish family left. The hand-bound zine was made on A5 400gsm paper, complete with written text and supplementary family photographs.“when you were a boy in iraq - in baghdad”
“when / when you / when you were”
“the school / they didn’t want to - to let the jewish to be in the school / hebrew they didn’t allow, they burnt the books and threw them away.”
“where did you learn hebrew? / i learnt it at my grandfather’s. / how did your grandfather know hebrew? / he was mother’s father... his name was menashe el-kateb. menashe el-kateb was known... as someone who had a school. he taught arabic, english and hebrew.”
“there was writing on the walls... kill the jews, cut the jews”
Image: Man standing at the mass grave of the approximately 600 victims of the Farhud, a pogrom that occurred in Baghdad on June 1-2, 1941.
“i forgot everything.”
“you remember well! / huh? / you remember very nicely / i remember? / yes! you’re telling us right now.”
