One approach­es with an imme­di­a­cy the mem­oir of Mari­na Ben­jam­in’s recent pub­li­ca­tion of her fam­i­ly’s life and last days in Iraq , as this mem­oir, unlike many oth­er cur­rent ones, res­onates with the com­pelling urgency of today’s head­lines Ben­jamin, still in her 30’s is already known for her for­ays into sci­ence [Rock­et Dreams, Sci­ence and Sen­si­bil­i­ty, Holog­ra­phy and the Play of Light] Her most recent title, Last Days in Baby­lon in some ways pre­pares us for the sad­ness that she knows accom­pa­nies both the loss of a rich and col­or­ful world and the final­i­ty of a tran­si­tion of an entire pop­u­la­tion .It is indeed dif­fi­cult to imag­ine that when Iraq became a mod­ern state in 1932, Bagh­dad Jews were the largest and most pros­per­ous of all the eth­nic groups with­in a city that boast­ed new hos­pi­tals, col­leges of high­er learn­ing, med­i­cine, engi­neer­ing and a mod­ern par­lia­ment. With­in 40 years almost no Iraqi Jews were to be to be found in the country. 

Ben­jam­in’s insight­ful nar­ra­tive brings us into the world of the Jews of Bagh­dad, a world that she had ear­li­er denied her­self, feel­ing estranged from her fam­i­ly’s exot­ic ways until well past adult­hood, not wish­ing until then to speak their Ara­bic lan­guage or learn the fam­i­ly sto­ries and his­to­ry that had been avail­able to her. Her research, empir­i­cal in that her remain­ing fam­i­ly is now the most com­pelling source of detail, is fur­ther enhanced by the prodi­gious read­ing that her exten­sive bib­li­og­ra­phy of eight pages reveals. Per­haps the sad­dest aspect of the leave-tak­ing from Bagh­dad to Israel is to be found in the book’s epi­logue. It is there at book’s end that we dis­cov­er how ill-equipped the west­ern­ized, then devel­op­ing Israeli soci­ety was to accept and under­stand the cul­tur­al wealth their recent arrivals brought with them. Sad­ly, the Iraqi Jews along with so many oth­er arriv­ing Arab Jews were per­ceived as hav­ing come from a world that was cor­rupt, back­ward, and une­d­u­cat­ed, there­fore to be seen as a threat to the essen­tial char­ac­ter of the emerg­ing nation. Bib­lio., epi­logue, notes, photographs.