Remembering Amara and the soldiers of WW1
Here are some fascinating pictures, that were taken on the 17/8/2017 at the Amara War Cemetery in Southern Iraq. As Hussein Al-alak explains, the monument lists the names of the British men who died in the Mesopotamia campaign during the First World War. According to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, Amara contains 4,621 burials from World War One, m…
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Campaigners rally to save Agatha Christie's Iraq home
Locals and activists in Iraq's capital of Baghdad have called for authorities to protect and preserve the historic home where renowned English author, Agatha Christie, once lived for around 13 years. "It's [the home] beautiful, but the upper level is collapsing. It's dangerous," a resident and activist told The New Arab . The home,…
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Agatha Christie’s historic Baghdad house in danger of collapsing
The historic house on the banks of the Tigris River in Iraq’s capital Baghdad, where classic British crime writer Agatha Christie lived for many years, is rich in history, but badly in need of repair, Anadolu reports. The walls of the vintage house in the Karadat Maryam district of the capital bear now the warning: “Caution! Danger of collapse.” Despite …
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See another side of history with Osnat and Her Dove
Through the power of storytelling and vibrant illustrations, Osnat and Her Dove will pull young and old readers into Osnat’s world. Written by Sigal Samuel with artwork by Vali Mintzi, Osnat and Her Dove: The True Story of the World’s First Female Rabbi is a fantastic illustrated children's book, which looks at the life of Osnat Barzani who lived from …
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Discover the Middle East with Agatha Christie
Travel journalist Andrew Eames was in the ancient Syrian city of Aleppo when he met an elderly lady who had known Agatha Christie. Fascinated by the exotic history of this quintessentially English crime writer, he decided to retrace the trip from London to Baghdad which she made in 1928 . It was a journey which was to change Agatha Christie completely and …
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The Wolf of Baghdad is a journey into Iraqi-Jewish history
In the 1940’s, a third of Baghdad’s population was Jewish. Within a decade nearly all of Iraq’s 150,000 Jews had fled. The Wolf of Baghdad is a graphic memoir of a lost homeland and a wordless narrative for a home never visited, with its own original soundtrack of Judeo-Arabic and Iraqi music recorded by the ground-breaking band 3yin. The Wolf of Baghdad …
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From Iraq to the world: Mandaeans mark Baptism Day in white and water
Clad in white and gathered by rivers, Mandaeans in Iraq and across the globe celebrate Dehwa Daimana, the Golden Baptism Day—a sacred rite of renewal and purification that flows through every stage of life. As Shafaq News explain, the faithful flock to mandis—their riverside temples—for ritual baptisms and the preparation of thawab, a ceremonial meal offe…
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Discover cooking and culture with Linda Dangoor
This beautifully designed book traces Jewish food writer Linda Dangoor’s journey from her home in Baghdad, and through the various countries she stayed or lived in before finally making her new home in London. Part cookbook, part memoir, From the Tigris to the Thames interweaves delicious recipes with personal stories and musings on the meaning of home an…
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Lawrence of Arabia. The man behind the myth
Few British soldiers have a greater legend attached to them than Colonel TE Lawrence - better known as Lawrence of Arabia . His military and diplomatic efforts have drawn some distinction. But it is Lawrence’s immense cultural impact in the century since his First World War exploits that has attracted the most attention. Thomas Edward Lawrence was born …
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What lessons can we learn from Pope Francis?
Pope Francis was born in Buenos Aires in 1936, the son of Italian migrants, the first of five children born in the working-class barrio of Flores, Jorge Mario Bergoglio qualified as a chemical technician, graduated in philosophy in 1963, and became a priest in 1969. The wish of Pope Francis was for HOPE , on which he had been working for six years, to be p…
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Discover the MENA with Agatha Christie
Travel journalist Andrew Eames was in the ancient Syrian city of Aleppo when he met an elderly lady who had known Agatha Christie. Fascinated by the exotic history of this quintessentially English crime writer, he decided to retrace the trip from London to Baghdad which she made in 1928 . It was a journey which was to change Agatha Christie completely and …
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Check out these cookbooks for Arab American Heritage Month
The Iraqi Cookbook is the first of its kind to be published in Europe. It is a treasury of authentic recipes that have been handed down through the generations, developed and refined over time, and infused with successive Mesopotamian cultures. This is a kitchen-based cookbook, but one which fuses history, anecdote and the love of healthy eating. The easy-…
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Discover a global landscape and the different ways to be American
In 2003, when Kathy Saade Kenny, the granddaughter of Palestinian immigrants, stumbled upon a mysterious cache of letters stored in an old See’s candy box tucked away in the back of a closet in her mother’s Los Angeles home, she was intrigued. As Susan Bell explains, inside the box were more than 130 letters written by her grandmother, Katrina Sa’ade. A su…
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What are you reading today?
Hussein Al-alak is the editor of Iraq Solidarity News (Al-Thawra). Hussein is also a regular guest on Radio Offbeat, on Manchester's ALLFM. I was delighted to visit the Wood Street Mission, with a special World Book Day contribution for their ‘Books Forever’ appeal . It’s incredible that here in England and according to the National Literacy Trust : “1…
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‘There Are Rivers in the Sky’ by Elif Shafak
Elif Shafak writes with her heart as much as her imagination writes Brian Tanguay of the California Review of Books. Her eye and ear seem to gravitate toward characters whose stories are rarely told: women, religious minorities, the displaced and despised, the persecuted. Her latest novel, There Are Rivers in the Sky , opens in Nineveh, on the east bank…
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A sign of hope: Ramadan and Lent
The coincidence of the month of Ramadan and the season of Lent has deep significance for Iraq’s Cardinal Sako, writes John Adam Fox in The Tablet . This year the month of Ramadan overlaps with the Christian season of Lent. The significance of this coincidence between these two great periods of fasting has not been lost on His Beatitude Louis Raphael Sako,…
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Manchester book campaign is back!
Wood Street Mission and their Books Forever appeal is back! Through this initiative, WSM distribute books to young people across Manchester and thanks to support from the public, it’s brilliant that each child gets to take home books to keep. Through such acts of kindness, you are helping to overcome barriers that children in low-income families face. Did…
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Who was Gertrude Bell and why does she matter today?
Gertrude Bell was an archaeologist, travel writer, explorer, and political administrator responsible for creating the borders of the countries of the Near East after World War I and for laying the foundation of the modern state of Iraq. Gertrude Bell made important contributions to archaeology and a greater understanding of the cultures of Mesopotamia and…
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Lawrence of Arabia: The man behind the myth
Few British soldiers have a greater legend attached to them than Colonel TE Lawrence - better known as Lawrence of Arabia . His military and diplomatic efforts have drawn some distinction. But it is Lawrence’s immense cultural impact in the century since his First World War exploits that has attracted the most attention. Thomas Edward Lawrence was born …
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The influence of and connection to Islamic art
Aloma Treister doesn’t remember much of her childhood. She recalls being taught Arabic at school and the fact that her family’s social life revolved around their immediate family. “Our closest friends were our cousins,” she told The Australian Jewish News . It was how many Jewish families in the Middle East grew up – all related to each other and all frien…
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