Interview date: 11/7/2017

Location: Montreal, Canada

Interviewer: Uzi Rabi

Total time: 1:05:53

Morris Abdulezer: Born in Baghdad, Iraq in 1952. Arrived in Iran in July 1971. Arrived in Montreal in September 1971. 

SV: Let's start with some general information. Can I have your full name please?

MA: (first name?) Morris Abdulezer

SV: This was your name...?

MA: In Iraq. Baghdad. That's still my legal name. (Ab...?) is my legal name.

SV: So were born in ..

MA: Baghdad

SV: And this is the name which was given at birth. 

MA: Yes. 

SV: Thank you for participating in this interview, which is being held by Sephardi Voices, in cooperation with the MDC, Moshe Dayan Center of Tel Aviv University. I would like to open with...Can you just give us something about your family' s background?

[00:01:00] MA: My family from both sides, my mother and my father, originated in Iraq, from Baghdad. I don't know the exact history where they came from or what the ancestry goes back to, but but all I know is that they where in Baghdad, Iraq. They were in the business. My grandfather from my mother's side were in the watch business. They had the exclusive rights to Longines and Zenith and Kenzel. They were traders. My father's father, my grandfather, was more of a merchant in textiles and clothing, and my father followed suit as a merchant with his father. And has a business background that's where it comes from. My grandmother, I'm also related to the (Shashur?) family, which is my grandmother, the daughter of (Sh...name?), a well-known Iraqi Jew in Baghdad.

SV: Any specific memories or anecdotes from your grandparents?

[00:02:19] MA: From my grandparents, the memory that I have is my father passed away when I was at a very young age. I was at 5 years old. He was struck with a certain disease and passed away while he was being treated in Geneva and in London. And he's buried in Geneva. So my stay in Iraq was with my father's parents, and we lived there in Baghdad while my grandfather from my mother's side, (G... Abdu?) has already moved in 1951 to Geneva, Switzerland. He's the one with the watches that I referred to before. 

SV: Let's talk about your parents. What can you tell us about your parents?

[00:03:12] MA: Well, I can't tell much about my father, cause I don't have a memory of him. But my mother being the courageous woman who brought me and my older brother, who is 4 years older than me. We were educated in Baghdad, through the Jewish school, Menahem Daniel, first, then Frank Iny, then Shamash. My brother was educated also in Menahem Daniel, Frank Iny, Shamash, and then he was lucky enough to go to Al-Hikma University, which was an American institution. When I graduated it was too late: we were not accepted in universities. Exception somehow after a few years managed to be accepted at (M...?) University. So my mother was the kingpin to bring us up, two boys, in Baghdad, living at her in-laws. And brought us here to Montreal and we escaped, and she's the courageous one who is the person that brought us to freedom. 

[00:04:25] SV: What was your father's full name?

MA: Yousef Na... Abdulezer

SV: And where was he born?

MA: In Baghdad, Iraq

SV: What was his profession, once again?

MA: He was a merchant, a trader. Did many businesses, partnered with people and that's what I'm told by my mother. 

SV: And your Mom's name?

MA: Doreen Abdulezer. Her maiden is Abdu.

SV: Where was she born?

MA: Also Baghdad

SV: Any maiden name?

MA: Abdu. Her maiden name is Abdu.

SV: How did they meet each other? When they got married?

MA: Well, they happened to be first cousins. My mother and my father. So I leave it to you to determine how (laughter). They weren't far apart!

[00:05:24] SV: At what age was she married?

MA: She was married at 21, 22 years old. 

SV: So any other activities. I guess she was very busy at home with you...but she was a housewife I guess? 

MA: She was a housewife. She wasn't working. My grandfather took care of us financially, to go to school, our books, our food, being in the home. And we travelled to visit my other grandparents in Geneva quite often. To go back and forth when we were allowed, when we had passports to travel. 

SV: Some words about the siblings?

MA: I have one brother.

SV: What can you tell us about him?

MA: He's 4 years older than me. He went through the same schooling I did. Except he finished at Al-Hikma University in engineering. And graduated in, I believe, maybe '69. And then he came here and did his Master's at Sir George Williams University, Concordia today, and he practiced civil engineering in Montreal. And he's kind of semi-retired now. 

[00:06:59] SV: I would like to take you to your early childhood. And ask you to share with us your earliest memory. 

MA: If I look back at my childhood, and I sum it in how it was, I would say childhood was okay, except we had to be careful. I mean at a very young age we knew that when we leave our home, and are outside we cannot speak the Arabic-Jewish dialect. So we were always on defensive to change our dialect to the Muslim-Arabic dialect. Also, to give you another angle is my legal name is (Abduldee?), so Abboud in the Arab and the Muslim world is a Muslim-Arabic name. And that served me very well. As Abboud nobody's like, What's your name? Abboud, and I'm mingling and talking, people do not associate me as being Jewish. 

[00:08:12] MA: Except on our way to go to school, we would be harassed. We would be, if they see us in a crowd and they know we're Jewish, we would have certain words or remarks thrown at us. So childhood was okay when to have birthdays, to get together with friends, and things have progressed over the years...So I'm born in '52. I remember traveling to Switzerland, to Geneva, being with my grandparents, and having pleasure of eating nice chocolates, playing, going to the lake to swim, going to the mountains on pik-nics, having a nice time. In Iraq, I mean at a young age, you don't realize what are all the pressures on you, except what I mentioned before. So the changes that happened in Iraq after 1951-52, when I was born, so I can talk for that era. So 1952, I was born, till I started to realize in my memory today what it was, I was 7 years old, there was the revolution against the royal power and Abdul Karim el Qasim came into power. 

[00:09:40] MA: Those 4 years of Abdul Karim el Qasim, I remember they were good, for the Jewish population in Iraq. We had passports, we were able to travel, we were able to go out, to do certain things. We were okay. However, in 1963, in the revolution when the Ba'ath party came in, all hell broke loose. So what do I remember from there? We had to be extra-careful. We had people positioned in front of our house, watching us our movements, where we have to be. My mother used to panic if we're late, if we're saying we're coming back at 7 and god forbid we come at 9. I mean, she was a disaster. 

SV: Can you describe actually the place you grew up? The neighbourhood?

MA: I grew up in Betawi? Which was a residential area. Actually we weren't far from a few Jewish families that were around us. Close to the river, we were the third home from Abernawasser? Street, which is along the River Tigris. So our area was okay, it was nice, close to the Shara...? we could walk, I used to walk along the Be...? And close to the synagogue, which we used to go to, in the Betawi, which was the Meir Taweg. I used to go with my grandfather. 

[00:11:14] MA: And the market to buy the fruits, the vegetables, were all very close to our home. 

SV: If I would ask you about the social circles or networks that you and your family had in Iraq. Did you have Jewish friends, non-Jewish friends, any organizations you were a member of?

MA: Not really. Not a member of any organization. Number one, we didn't want to part of an organization. Especially being Jewish. Because anything can be taken against you, I mean, we used to go out, a group of us, friends from school, for dinner. Intermingling with non-Jewish friends was not that often, it was pretty rare. Mostly, we held to our Jewish friends from school, or family members, cousins, friends and that was the social life.

SV: Which language were spoken at home?

MA: Arabic, again it's the Jewish dialect. 

SV: Yes, sure. To get back to family life, any special memory, occasion you would glean from that period?

MA: Not, not really. I didn't have a bar mitzvah, because when 13, it was 1965 already things were not in good shape. My brother had a bar mitzvah with (name?) who came to our house, and he put on (word?) and all that in the house, not a party. So we led a life that was quiet, not showing off, a simple life.

SV: Can you provide again the education, the schools that you had in Iraq?

MA: I went to elementary school, which is to grade 6 in elementary. The first 6 years at Menahem Daniel school. Then, after that, I went to Frank Iny, which is the intermediate, which were 3 years. And then went to Shamash school for 3 more years. The year that I graduated the Shamash school graduation became 3 years instead of 2. They changed, the government in Iraq, to make it a 3-year program for for everybody rather than...so it became a 12-year. And then applying to universities like the Hikma or the University of Baghdad, didn't get accepted, it wasn't because we were Jewish. However, I managed to get accepted a year after I graduated at (name?) University, which is a very low-grade kind of university. Myself and there's another fellow by the name of Ramsish? were the two of us who got accepted there. 

[00:14:44] MA: And while in Baghdad, while at Frank Iny and Shamash, we were also encouraged to write overseas exams. In order to prepare ourselves because to go to university overseas.

SV: What would the language be spoken to non-Jews?

MA: Well, in our education, in Baghdad, we were always taught English, and French. However, French, you could have opted out of, if you didn't want to (do it). So you just went to the English-Arabic stream. And we wrote exams such as the GC exam of University of London. We wrote the baccalauréat certificat, which is French, so we were always education wise, striving to get ahead, as much as possible.

[00:15:37] SV: What are your memories about from schooling time? Especially Frank Iny and Shamash? How was schooling? How was social life so to speak? Where you part of any clubs, sports?

MA: We had, again there wasn't any clubs, and we had a club, which was the M....?, where we were able to go and play football, pingpong, roller, tennis, handball. So there was a an area which was in M...?, which most of the students used to go. Again, that M...? closed in the late '60s, because we were afraid to go there.

SV: What about teachers?

MA: Teachers, we had all kinds of teachers. We had Moslems, we had Christians, we had Jewish teachers. The schooling was tough. was hard, because again, they expected us to perform at the top, so you had to study hard, you had to write the exams, you had to do your best. It was competitive, when I look back it was great. Today I wouldn't complain, it was great the education that they gave me, but our social life with our friends really, the nucleus of it was the school. At the time, I'm talking in the '60s, the early '60s after Karim el Qasim was killed and replaced. The population of the Jewish community was 3000 people. 

[00:17:44] MA: It wasn't in the hundred of thousands, it was 3000, so we knew each other. We knew each other by name, we knew the families, we knew the parents, we knew the grandparents. So it was a small community that got stuck in '63 and eventually it kind of left after that. 

SV: You said that some of the teachers were Moslems and Christians. Do you feel, as a Jewish students, an anti-Jewish sentiment?

MA: From the teachers, no. There was one teacher, once crossed the boundary where we felt that he was, but looking back, I say no. They were really professionals.

SV: Let's go back to Betawi. Can you portray the place you grew up, the building. You were surrounded by others or it was a Jewish quarter?

MA: There was no such thing as a Jewish quarter or a Jewish ghetto in Baghdad. People lived, families, all over the place. It wasn't a concentration of homes that are living on the same street, or on two blocks or three blocks. We had, in our area, we had our home, we had another Jewish home another block away, and one across, which was the Atra...? family. 

[00:19:32] That was living there. So we were three Jewish homes in an area of 3 blocks. There were offices on the main street, there was travelling agencies I remember. Even across the street from us, they build a movie theater. So the area was becoming more commercialized. Our home next to it, we owned a piece of land. And my grandfather decided to sell it, and they build a hotel. It was called Hotel Kuwait. So we were next to a hotel. So that's the kind of neighbourhood that was around us. 

SV: And the residential was still ruled? by Muslims? If at all...

MA: Honestly today if you ask me how many residential areas was, how many homes in an area of 2-3 blocks, maybe 3-4 homes? 

SV: Can we talk a little bit about the community life? Was there life in the neighbourhood or out of home? Your Mom, brother, your grandpa, where let's say (there's) a public figure in some sense? Who were the people they mingled with? 

[00:21:03] MA: My grandfather was very close to Ahab Sassoon? They were, it was pretty much close to him, and he used to be with him at least 2-3 times a week. So they used to congregate at the (hamami?) even though we're not religious; we're secular. And we kept the traditions at the tops, but we were not Sh... Baath or anything but still we didn't have a car, but I remember putting on the lights. The house was okay for Saturday. Yes, we held Shabbat dinner for us as a family, Friday night, and we observed all the holidays. We used, I said before, with certain families we used to get together, with our cousins who were living there, we also used to frequent a club, which was a Greek club, we used to go there, play cards. My mother used to go play cards. We used to go watch movies. We used to go there. We used to frequent quite a lot movie theaters, with friends, going to watch movies whatever was available. 

SV: Can you take us to the kitchen, to the cuisine at home? 

MA: Traditional Iraqi food. We had a cook that used to come in our house, his name was Thomas, he was a Christian. And he used to cook all the Iraqi dished that we know about , from the tebit, the (word?), all that stuff. The delicious stuff.

[00:22:56] SV: What was your favourite?

MA: Everything. (laughter)

SV: If I can ask you about your Zionist/Israeli experience. What was actually there, because this is kind of a period which remains obscure to many. The story about the Jews of Iraq, at least when it comes to this literature, tells about things in kind of a meticulous way, until '51. The post-'51 era remained, in my opinion, sort of a big hole. And I would like to ask you, when you were a child, growing up in the post-'51 era, what did you hear about Zionism? What was Zionism for you? Was this heard here and there, and what was Israel?

[00:24:21] MA: Well, again, I'm born in '52. The word Zionism I became familiar only once I came to Montreal. If we look back at the history, Israel to me growing up was a country that is growing. I have details. What I following-up as I follow it today, Israel? No. In the sixties, we were more preoccupied, me personally, was more preoccupied by being careful and survival in Iraq, and preoccupied with what's happening internally in Iraq. What effect Israel had or the follow-up on Israel for me personally was nonexistent. I became more aware and familiar and supportive of Israel once we came to Montreal. Because I started to be able to learn and know what's going on. 

SV: Let's talk about the time when the idea of leaving Iraq was firstly talked at home. 

MA: In our home, leaving Iraq was, I would say, from the time probably we were born. Because in 1956, my mother and father were planning to move. We went to Geneva, they rented an apartment, and we were going to live there. Unfortunately came '57 and my father fell sick and passed away. So the whole thing disappeared. but we always knew as I said, my brother was going to finish his last year of schooling in '62-'63, and he was applying to go out to university, and that was it, bye Iraq. But we were caught because the passports were taken away, so the idea of leaving Iraq, if I would bring my memory back as far as possible, since I started to remember, we were gonna leave it was a matter of a year, or two years, or three.

[00:27:29] SV: Was this thing actually a topic to discuss with other Jewish friends in Baghdad?

MA: Yeah, because it was--everyone that's going to university, the majority, were gonna leave to go to outside to study. Will they come back? I don't remember anybody coming back after they left to go to universities in England, or Europe, or North America. So the topic was more toward educational going out.

SV: Your family was not pretty observant, if I got it right, but synagogue constituted a place for talks and social mingling?

MA: My recollection is that my grandfather used to go Saturday morning. I used to go often with him Saturday morning. To Meir Taweg, my grandfather. It was a social club as any synagogue is. The high holidays we used to go Yom Kippur, Rosh Hashanah, Pessah, so we used to frequent the synagogue, that's my memory of it. Again, I'm a child! 

[00:28:50] SV: Can you tell us a little about the preparations that were made before leaving? What was the background there, any trigger that made you leave when you left?

MA: Well, the last year was 1962. I mentioned that we used to visit my grandparents in Geneva, Switzerland. In '62, we went for 4 months, to spend the summer. And my brother had to come back to Baghdad to finish his last school of high school. And that was it. In '63, he finishes. Summer, we're coming to Switzerland or we're going to England or going wherever he's going to be accepted at school. That's how we were gonna leave. No preparation at that point yet, but that's the plan. We came back in September, 1962, we're in Baghdad, I'm going to finishing my elementary, I was in secondary school, my brother finishing is last school in sciences of high school at Shamash. February of '63, the Baath party comes in; hell breaks loose; they take away our passports. We cannot travel anymore. We're stuck. 

[00:30:32] MA: Then they stared to take away licences from people working, the Jews. The import-export and obviously come 1967, the Six-Day War. That made things go from bad to worse: we became the target, we became the enemy, and not only targets by government people or officials, but we became targets from neighbours, from anybody that knows we are Jewish, from walking the street they'll harass us. We used to go to school, I used to walk the street down to go to Frank Iny, and we used to have Christians that threw rocks at us, used to harass, try and pick a fight. This was the life. Then '67 to '69, January when we had the hangings, there was a mock trial that these people were spies for Israel, and they were hanged in the street without their faces covered. Such barbarian situation that happened. In the meantime, these were not the only ones that were killed or prosecuted. There were people taken from their homes and never came back. Disappeared. Some were killed. At least 50-60 people, Jews, were killed, abducted, tortured. And at that point, in '69, there was maybe a thousand left in Iraq. 

[00:32:27] MA: Some managed to escape through Basra through the South, the (word?) to Iran, some managed to get passports, some managed because they were sick to travel. So the population was dwindling. 

SV: So all that period, until '73, how was the 1941 atrocities or Farhoud, portrayed by your generation? What did you hear about it? How was that...

MA: Me, personally, all I know is that there was a Farhoud. The pogroms, and the army stayed outside, the Jews were harassed. That's the story that I know of the people who lost their lives. Other than that, I didn't know much till we escaped and came here.

SV: What was the exodus of '51 as (words?). What was that figure? You look back from the sixties and the early seventies on '51.

[00:33:33] MA: For me again, being there what I knew about it, yes there was the exodus in '51. Properties were confiscated. We were issued these yellow cards, which proved that we did not leave in '51, which were needed everywhere we had an application for anything we needed that yellow card. And that's my knowledge and there was a special ministry that was administering all these properties that were confiscated from the '51 exodus. So that's my knowledge of it. Do I have details? No. Now I'm getting some more details in the last few years of the Farhoud and what happened and what it was all about.

SV: You mentioned actually the transitory of phase of (word?) as kind of a period that was pretty constant? for Jews, relatively speaking. Can you just elaborate on the period of '58-'63 before the Baath party came to the fore? How was Iraq for the Jews?

MA: The general atmosphere was good. Because people were able to work. There were not harassments. Again I gauge it personally with the passport because the faster you were able to get a passport and you're able to go and come back and not renounce your citizenship, was something. Because I related it to what happened whereby passports, you lost it and you couldn't come back. 

[00:35:35] MA: So it was an era some relaxed atmosphere to the Jews. Obviously what I heard around me from grown-ups (they) tell me that this was a good period. And also in '63, which happened right after, it was a disaster. So compared to the 4 years before and compared to '63 and going on, it's a question of how do you compare it. So '63 on was a total disaster. 

SV: When did you leave Iraq?

MA: We tried to leave in 1970. And we took the road up, I should say, count it a little different. In ’690'70, the north of Iraq, the Kurds, who are part of the Iraqi net or makeup of Iraq, were always in the north of Iraq, the mountainous area. And the Kurds were struggling for autonomy, and there were fights and killings and fights between the Iraqi army and the Iraqi central government and the Kurds in the north. 

[00:37:13] MA: In '69-70, the Kurds in the north managed to get autonomy over their territory. A limited autonomy. Part of their autonomy they were able to control the borders which the Iraqi northern borders between Iran and Iraq, and Turkey as well. Iran at that time was friendly with Israel. The Shah was in a position where the Jewish population in Iran was prospering. They lived a good life. They weren't harassed. And in general the situation in Iran was favourable to the Jews. Also Israel had a great relationship with Iran, and they had a relationship with the Kurds. That autonomy opened the door from the north border for Iraqi Jews to manage to cross the border, with the help of the Kurds or help of whatever. In 1971, July '71, my mother, myself and my brother, with friends of another family, and another which is my cousin, with him, his wife, and his 3 children, we were together on this and said, Well, we have a way, we have a contact, that we'll go north and we will leave. We'll cross the border we'll go to Iran. From our side, when I look at it today, there wasn't really much thought put into it by my mother and us. 

[00:39:02] MA: To be sure that this thing is going to work. So we left, in 3 cars. We hired taxis or people that could take us to the north, and in Iraq, just like any other country, you have provinces or states in the U.S., you have New York State, Washington State, you have California, here you have Québec, Ontario...in Iraq, when you cross provinces, there is a checkpoint, either for military deserters or for whatever reason they want to check. We arrived at a crossing (word?), and they stopped us there, and I saw the two cars of the other two families kind of parked on the other side. So the fellow comes in and he looks at our papers, our papers had instead of...every citizenship paper in Iraq had religion. What is the religion? Yahoudi. Somehow our paper had instead of Yahoudi had (M...?). That's how my papers were. So he looks at it, he says, Go. As he tells us "go", we start to move and then another one screams "Stop!". So we stop the car, and here we are now, under the control of the military or the police, who stopped us from going. They assemble us into detention in our bill, and we were like 70 of us on the road, they brought us to the detention centre. They took away everything that we had on: papers, money, jewelry, whatever we had. 

[00:41:11] MA: And they put us on buses that night and brought us back to Baghdad. The next day, they brought in another group, maybe 50 more, that were already in the north, who were in hotels, or spending time in the summer, who were also planning to cross the border to go to Iran. So that was a failed attempt. They kept us in a detention center, which was an auditorium, which was a building used by the Ba'hai faith. As you know, it's illegal in Iraq and everywhere else, they held us in that Ba'hai temple for 19 days. And some of us were roughed up, were beaten, some were asked to sign a declaration that was written by the general, to implicate them in certain things. However there was an outcry from the outside world, holding 120 Jews from a one-year old to a 75-year old in that auditorium. The day after Nasser passer away, which is a specific date, they let us all out. They gave us what they took away from us, and they let us out. So now we're out again, we're back. What do we do? I mean the thought of leaving, I mean there's no future here. We cannot work; we cannot do anything, we're vegetables. So 1971 comes in, and that's the year we were successfully able to escape through Iran. 

[00:43:05] MA: From the north. If you want to story of how, it's another story. 

SV: I would like to hear that.

MA: Okay, so my cousins, as I mentioned to you that my grandfather had the agency of watches of Longines and Zenith, and Kenzel and a few other brands. His nephews were still living in Iraq, who are my cousins. And they had a store of selling retail watches on Al Rasheed? street. I had not much to do. No studying, no school so I used to go to kill the day to go to the store, and be there. People used to come; we used to sell watches, we would drink tea, used to, you know, play...One day, a Kurd walks into the store and he's looking for watches, and he presented himself as an envoy from the Kurds, and he's come here to relay a message that they want to create a contact so that they can help the community if they're in need of financial or anything that they can do. Now, a person coming and telling you this in Iraq, you're scared to hell! How can I speak to a person like that? After a little while, we kind of authenticated that he was for real. Because he gave us some clues with certain people that sent him, family, even from Israel representatives from the north, with the Kurds. 

[00:45:14] MA: And we took him to meet a contact that was gonna also facilitate the exodus of the Jews from Iraq. So he gave us the contact, and one of my cousins from the store left through that contact through the north. Two days after, we received notice that he arrived safe and sound, so my mother, my brother and I took a van, a taxi. My mother wore the black (garment name?) and we took maybe a hundred, two hundred dinars on us, and we took that and we went to the north. We went to a coffee shop, which was the contact. We took to sleep that night there in the north. He said, Tomorrow we'll take you to cross the border. And surely the next day a Jeep comes in with a driver and takes us in the Jeep. It was like 7 or 8 o'clock at night because the mountain, it's in the dark. It takes us up we drive for a while. Again, we're there and we don't know if this is for real, our hearts are pumping and we're scared. He stops into a front of a house and says to us to go in. And to our surprise, it was Mustafa Barzani who welcomed us in that house. 

[00:47:12] MA: And said to us, Look we're doing this because we feel like we need to help the Jews of Iraq to escape. Israel has been good to us. We suffered the same way with the regime in Iraq and Israel is a great supporter of us, we welcome you, and we're gonna take you to Iran. It was great; we had tea, we chatted -- it was quite an evening. Then we finished -- we went back into the Jeep. Drove us into darkness, he even shut his headlights at a certain point. It was scary, there was no moon, no lights. At a certain point, he stopped, got out of the car, pulls out a gun (what's this?), he wraps it to the kafia, puts it under the seat, gets back in the car, drives, flashes his lights, a barricade comes up, crosses. He said, OK, now we're in Iran. Take us to the village hanna? in Iran: Stay in this hotel, tomorrow morning you take the bus, you come to Teheran. And the rest is history. We arrived in Teheran, free, the next day over, we took the bus at 7 in the morning. Arrived at Central station where the buses arrive in Teheran. We don't speak Persian. Nobody speak English. Where are you gonna go? 

[00:48:51] MA: We asked people. Finally, we stopped a taxi: Israel Consulate. Israel Embassy. He finally understood. Takes us to the Israeli Embassy. We knock on the door: no answer. And I'm talking midnight, one in the morning! Knocks, a person come out, a gentleman, not very old, in his pyjama, he looks at us, What do you want? He tells us. We said, Look, we are this family, Abdulezer, we crossed the border, we don't know where to go, we're here! He says, One minute. He goes inside, comes out, he says, What are you doing here? You're not supposed to be here today! You're supposed to be here tomorrow! (Laughter) OK, fine we're here. He said, OK, go to hotel Scena. The taxi takes us there, and we stayed in Hotel Scena for about 2 months. I immediately the next day feeling that nobody was receiving us in the station. I took it up on myself with the agency that we arrange every time we know who's coming to go to the station, and I used to go every night, whenever the bus is coming there, bring them, see the faces, smiling happy. And we stayed there till September 1st, from July 10th, or 9th to September 1st or 2nd.

[00:50:24] MA: And then from there we got our papers, la laissez-passer, which is a sheet of paper which I showed to David. And we got our visas, we already had applications to Canada for emigration, which we did Baghdad through the British Embassy, because there was no Canadian Embassy. So our papers were already advanced for emigration and we came to Canada. 

SV: Canada was the ..

MA: For us it was the place to come. Right. The majority of the people that came that summer, 700-750, went to Israel. The majority. I would say 95%. In '71. 

SV: Can you tell us about your other stages in Canada? It was two different worlds...

MA: It's two different worlds. I came here in September. It was too late to apply for university. I already had the degree to go straight into university, but in Montreal, Quebec, there's a system after high school, you go to CEGEP for 2 years and then you go to university. It was too late for university so I went to Dawson College for CEGEP, for one year instead of 2. And people used to ask me, Where are you from? 

[00:52:02] MA: I never used to say I'm from Iraq. I refused to say I'm from any Arab country. I used to invent that I'm from, I don't know...Geneva...I'm from Ireland...whatever. I'd never associate myself that I'm Iraqi. I would even say I'm Lebanese, but never Iraqi. So I did my studies here. That was the concentration. After the first year of CEGEP, I went to Sir George William University, in Business. Graduated in Business. And moved after a few years after I finished school, I went into accounting to become a CA. But I hated it, I didn't like it, it wasn't for me. And I started with a company in real estate and that's my domain today for the last 40 years I'm in properties management, construction, real estate.

SV: Your brother? 

MA: My brother is a civil engineer. He works with big project, of pulp and paper, dams and ...that's his work. 

SV: Morris, let me ask you about Sephardi heritage. What does that mean to you? Do you preserve?

MA: We have kept the Iraqi traditional...what we're used to, what I'm used to. 

[00:53:34] MA: And I was blessed in 1986 to meet my wife, present wife, whose father is Anwar Shahin, who was the key person of leaving the Iraqi community. So that kind of brought me back into the Iraqi traditional, call is Sephardi, call it Mizrahi, call it whatever you want, in it. After many years of acquainting the late Anwar, and being part of the Spanish and Portuguese synagogue, being quite involved in the refurbishing, the construction, the expansion, they honored my to become the President of the Spanish and Portuguese in the year 2000. So my involvement went from not being involved to really being involved. Till today I'm proud to be part of the Spanish, proud to be part of the Iraqi community and my children, we invested in them to be part of that culture. 

SV: If I would ask you to glean most important element from this Sephardi heritage regarding your life, what would you point to?

[00:55:11] MA: I don't understand the question.

SV: Is there any let's say element which is very useful and very applicable to your life, which can be explained as something that was gleaned from Sephardi heritage? You, your family?

MA: Well, really the continuation and preserving the tradition, is really the most important thing I found. I mean, in our home, Shabbat dinner together with the family is a must. I mean if we're invited just me and my wife are invited without the children, we'll still have a kiddush and we'll make the blessing on the bread and then go out. Because having it within our children to be able to carry it it forward, to me personally is very important, very important. The same way we kept it through hard times, through terrible times, to be able to come to Canada and to be free, and travel the world and go everywhere I want, and say I'm Jewish, I'm proud to be a Jew, first, nevermind Sephardi, Ashkenazi, whatever. To me we're all of the same cloth, we're all bonded together. It's quite important. And my mission would be and my dream would be that my children would be able to carry this, keep it and go forward. 

[00:57:01] SV: So how would you define yourself in terms of identity?

MA: Identity? I'm a pure Iraqi traditional Jew. Am I religious? No. But I like to keep observance and respect. And I'll respect any person that carries his religion his own way. I'm not going to criticize. 

SV: Where do you consider home?

MA: Home to me is here, Montreal. 

SV: And you would like this identity and understanding to be passed to the next generation?

MA: Yeah.

SV: Which languages are being spoken at home with your children?

MA: We speak English. But my children understand Arabic. They speak it a little bit, not a lot. And my wife speaks Arabic. And usually the conversation I would speak to her in English, not in Arabic, but we're blessed with having my mother still alive, so she speaks to her in Arabic, even though she understands French and English. But we've always spoken to her in Arabic. And the children understand it and picked it up. But can they read? No. Can they speak? A little bit. But I can still speak and read it. 

[00:58:43] SV: If somebody would ask you to define your status in terms of what happened in '71, you would say that you are a refugee or an immigrant? How would you rather...?

MA: I don't see myself as a refugee. The word "refugee" by the way, the only time I heard it, was when we were in Iran, and we were progressing with our papers to get the immigration to Canada. We went to get a visa to England, which we got. We also went to the Netherlands Embassy, and that's when I heard the word refugee, cause we walked into the embassy and we were greeted at the reception, and when we said we're from Iraq, and want a visa to the Netherlands, they said, One minute, I'm going to get the Consul-General, and he took us into his office. And said, We welcome, we're happy that you're free, that you left Baghdad. We have tried at length to get the Jews out of Iraq through negotiations with the government, but somehow we were not able to. We welcome you to come to Netherlands as refugees. That's the word that I heard. We will give you everything you need. We'll give you a home, we'll give you free schooling, you're welcome to come to our country. We said, Well, we don't think we're going to come to live there, thank you very much. But if we can have a visa, maybe to visit. And by the way, we were getting the visas for England, because in case Canada doesn't work (out), and the next step was to go the Geneva, Switzerland. 

[01:01:11] MA: Because my grandparents were there. So we were kind of following the family where they are. We don't have a big family, one uncle who moved to Israel in '51. His family was there, who is my father's brother. That was our only contact as a family in Israel. And that's when I heard the word refugee, but when we came here, we never went to claim help, or neither from the Jewish agency, nor the government. I have never claimed unemployment from the government here. We've always managed and did well and contributed to the society, rather than take from the society. I don't see myself as a refugee, I see myself as a newborn in 1971 who came to Canada and started a life. Because before that there was no life. We gave up. 

SV: And what impact this whole experience of moving from Iraq to Canada was to have on your life?

MA: I don't look back at Iraq as a chapter. Becasue honestly I have no good memories of Iraq. It's unfortunate to say, but I don't. Sometimes people ask, Would you like to go visit Iraq? I said, Absolutely not. I suffered there. I'm walking there on Abuna...? my friends and a car passes by and there's shotgun. I mean what memory do you want me to have? Or walking going to school and being harassed and rocks thrown at us. The hangings. The fear. The accusations. I don't have a good memory, so I would not want to visit, but it's in my that I remember these things of IRaq, but it's not with pleasure. It's not there. As I told you before, it's like I'm a newborn in 1971. 

[01:03:40] SV: Morris, what message would you like to send to whomever listens to this interview.

MA: The message that I would give to anybody listening to this interview is be proud of your heritage, the Iraqi heritage. If I'm talking to an Iraqi person, who left with me or left on their own. Keep the tradition. Strive to be successful. Work hard. Do your best to have a good life. And make sure you keep your family together, and to be able to pass your traditions and give them the tools to be successful and to move forward. That's the message I would give and last but not least, Israel is of utmost importance, needs our support. Do everything you can to help the community, the Jewish community at large, and Israel first. And that's what it is. 

[01:05:15] SV: Thank you, fascinating. Thank you so much (applause).