“This story explains why I should be able to identify as an Israeli Jew without the shame that many want me to feel.” These are the final words of the letter published by Haaretz with which Sharona Katan, wife of Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood, tells the story of her family, “children of Egyptian and Iraqi Jews, grandson of a Jew born in Jaffa in 1912”, after the controversy that engulfed her husband over the his collaboration with the artist Dudu Tassa. Greenwood performed a live show in Tel Aviv on May 26, the day after Greenwood participated in protests calling for the release of hostages in Gaza and new elections in Israel, according to the Jerusalem Post. Some pro-Palestinian activists and movements accused him of wanting to clean up his image by supporting the protests but then collaborating with the Israeli artist. Greenwood responded that he will continue his tour and collaboration, which has been going on since 2008 and which in 2023 led to the release of a collaborative album entitled Jarak Qaribak, a collection of Arabic love songs featuring artists from across the Middle East. But then it was Katan who wanted to write to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz to talk about his origins and explain the reasons for his family.
Sharona Katan’s family
«To begin with, to dispel any doubt: I am in favor of peace. By writing this, I’m not trying to justify anything”, he explained in the opening lines. «Exactly 83 years ago, in Baghdad, the anti-Jewish riots turned into the largest pogrom in Iraqi history of the 20th century», he then reconstructed the story that closely affected his father, «for two days, the Jewish neighborhood was systematically attacked . The assault was called Farhud. Even in this case, hundreds of people were killed or raped: neither age nor sex were spared.” His father lived there: «My father lived through all this. He was eight years old at the time and part of a Jewish community of 120,000 people that had been part of Iraqi culture for at least 2,000 years. About 90,000 Jews lived in Baghdad, then a third of the city’s population. Today, 77 years later, it appears that there are only a handful of Jews left in all of Iraq. In Israel today, however, there are 600,000 Jews of Iraqi origin.” Katan continues by recalling that «anti-Jewish riots also occurred in the same period in other parts of the Middle East, including Yemen and Egypt». And he then recalled that the feeling of hatred towards the Jews has always been widespread in the rest of the world: «An infinite desire, since long before the founding of Israel, to eliminate the Jews from the place where they live – a hunger that is always existed in the Middle East as well as in Europe. In Europe, after the Holocaust, it subsided, but even there anti-Semitism is starting a new surge.”
«I do not give up claiming to be an Israeli Jew»
Katan explains what it meant for her family, and then for her, to have a country that allowed her to live her religion freely, without having to hide. «My father was born a dhimmi (second class citizen) in Iraq because of his faith and I was born an Israeli: therefore, regardless of the criticisms I may make of Israel’s behavior as a state, nothing can change the fact that its existence he guaranteed me the right to be Jewish and free”, he added, recalling his father’s escape, “my parents’ childhood was very different. When my father fled Iraq, he crossed the desert alone, with no possessions, at just 14 years old, and entered Israel, with nothing but the hope of being free from persecution. He was fleeing a life in which Jews were banned from having passports, curfews were imposed, their homes and possessions were seized and one Jew was even hanged in a city square.’ Katan then addresses all the innocent victims of the conflict: «I cannot tolerate the killing of civilians in this war. My heart goes out to all the innocent victims of this long conflict.” And she says she is convinced that it is necessary to find “new ways to dialogue” between the Jewish community and the Arab communities, but she is wary of those who, to show solidarity with the Palestinian people, ask to distance themselves from their origins, from their country: “I only see one demonization of everything Israeli and Jewish. A disgusting campaign to force all Jews outside Israel to proclaim themselves anti-Israel if they want to remain acceptable in the eyes of the public.” And she concludes: «It is a test of political purity that requires me to renounce this small country, smaller than Wales, which saved us. I don’t see how this approach can lead to an attempt at harmony.”
