1.5Sue Gabbay USB.mov
Notes
[00:00:32]
born in Baghdad, Iraq October 7th 1943
[00:06:47]
came to Canada 1950
[00:07:28]
left Iraq 1943
[00:13:10]
left fall 1950 to London
[00:16:10]
arrived Montreal 1951
Transcript
Henry Green: [00:00:15] What is your full name?
Sue Gabbay: [00:00:18] Suad Mashaal Gabbay.
Henry Green: [00:00:21] And was this your name at birth?
Sue Gabbay: [00:00:24] My name at birth was Suad Mashaal. My married name is Gabbay.
Henry Green: [00:00:29] And where and when were you born?
Sue Gabbay: [00:00:32] I was born in Baghdad, Iraq, 19 October 7th. Nineteen forty three.
Henry Green: [00:00:39] So let me begin by first saying how grateful I am that you have volunteered to be interviewed for Sephardi Voices we really appreciate. [SG: You're welcome. It's a pleasure] So tell me something about your family's background.
Sue Gabbay: [00:00:59] My family's background. We were a family of my parents had eight children, seven boys and one me the girl. And we're we're very close. We're very close. We were. Most of us were born in Baghdad. I think three or four of us were born. My brothers were born in Tehran because my my father used to go back and forth business. He had business in Iran. So he used to spend the summer in Iran and come back in the winters to Iraq because of the schools, like there were better schools in Baghdad for the children. And eventually after the the Farhud and all the unrest, my parents decided to move completely to Iran, Tehran.
Henry Green: [00:02:01] So if your before they moved to Tehran, Iran, your grandparents, your father's parents, for example, were they Baghdadians?
Sue Gabbay: [00:02:15] They were all, yes, my grandparents, my grandma were in Iraq and Baghdad. There were born there. They live there.
Henry Green: [00:02:23] And what was your father's parent's name? Your father's parents. Your grandparents?
Sue Gabbay: [00:02:30] My my grandparents. His mother was named Hatoon Kati- Hatoon Machol. And his father was Yehezkiel, I don't know his last name. They decided I don't know why they took my maternal grandmother's family name.
Henry Green: [00:02:52] And do you know what your grandfather did for a living? [SG: no]. Did you ever meet your grandparents?
Sue Gabbay: [00:02:58] No, I never met my the only grandparents that I knew was my mother's mother.
Henry Green: [00:03:06] And what was your mother's mother's name.
Sue Gabbay: [00:03:10] uh, Farha, Daniel. Farha. Farha, that's her married. And I think her her maiden name was Farha Mashaal, she was first cousin to my father.
Henry Green: [00:03:25] And and your grandfather, your his her his his name. Do you remember his name?
Sue Gabbay: [00:03:31] My maternal? Meyer Daniel.
Henry Green: [00:03:36] And do you have any memories with your grandmother at all?
Sue Gabbay: [00:03:39] Well, my maternal grandmother came and was living with us here till nineteen seventy six. She came from Baghdad, went to Israel and then came and lived with us in Montreal.
Henry Green: [00:03:55] And what about your parents? Your parents? What are what are their names? your father and mother. What what are their names?
Sue Gabbay: [00:04:04] My mother is Semha Daniel Mashaal and my father was Menashe Mashaal.
Henry Green: [00:04:12] And do you know how they met?
Sue Gabbay: [00:04:15] How they how they met? I think they were just sort of arranged marriage like they were second cousin or whatever. I think it was arranged, but they were very, very happy, very in love. Everything, you know, it was a nice marriage.
Henry Green: [00:04:35] And was there an age gap between them at all?
Sue Gabbay: [00:04:41] Well, my father, I think, was born in 1889 and Yeah, and my mother, 1904 so about 12, 13 years
Henry Green: [00:04:50] And your father, what did he do with his business?
Sue Gabbay: [00:04:54] My father was an import export. He had, I think, the agency for a Firestone tire, General Motors auto parts in Baghdad and Iran.
Henry Green: [00:05:08] And did he have an education? Did he go to school?
Sue Gabbay: [00:05:14] I really don't know. I think he started working at 18, 19 years old because he supported the whole family.
Sue Gabbay: [00:05:20] You know, his he was the he was a successful son.
Sue Gabbay: [00:05:29] Now, you said you were born in nineteen forty three, right. So and you had seven siblings. [SG: Yes] Can you tell me their names from the oldest to the youngest.
Sue Gabbay: [00:05:38] Ok, Salim- no. Edward, Salim, Maurice, Freddy, Albert, Victor. Then I come. Did I miss somebody?
Henry Green: [00:05:53] You have. Huh.
Sue Gabbay: [00:05:57] Can I start over again? [SG: Sure start over again] Edward, Salim, Maurice, Freddy, Albert, Victor, I came and my younger brother Emil.
Henry Green: [00:06:08] Emil and. And your oldest brother was born what year, any idea? [SG: nineteen twenty seven] And you said the last few brothers, [SG: Emil] Emil sorry was born in Tehran?
Sue Gabbay: [00:06:25] In Tehran, Maurice was born in Tehran and so was Salim. And Emil was born in nineteen forty six. So that was the whole from nineteen twenty seven to forty six my mother had children.
Henry Green: [00:06:40] And do which one was were you closest with?
Sue Gabbay: [00:06:47] Closest with, I guess, when I was younger, probably my Victor and Emil, because we were we were left behind in Iran [laughs]. All the family had moved to the states and we they couldn't get sort of visa whatever. And we were we stayed back from nineteen forty eight and my father came back in nineteen fifty and brought us back to brought us to Canada.
Henry Green: [00:07:21] So and you're born in nineteen forty three. [SG: Right] And when do you go to leave Baghdad to go to Iran?
Sue Gabbay: [00:07:28] In nineteen forty three. I was three months old.
Henry Green: [00:07:31] And why did your dad and mom do this. Why did they leave.
Sue Gabbay: [00:07:36] It was a political situation. It was very bad there and they decided they don't want like and especially he- He already had a presence in Iran, Tehran so why stay in a place of unrest rather than just w just left and there was a big Iraqi community in Iran.
Henry Green: [00:07:56] So when you went to Tehran, you and you stayed there for how many years?
Sue Gabbay: [00:08:01] We stayed there till well, in nineteen forty eight. My parents left then with the the oldest five and the others the younger three were we stayed back, we stayed with my uncle and my cousin Helen and Abraham Daniel.
Henry Green: [00:08:24] So in these years when you were in Tehran, you were, say, five, six, seven before you left. Do you have any memories of Tehran and those those years?
Sue Gabbay: [00:08:36] Very little memories. The only memories I really have, OK, maybe going to school, a pre, pre, pre elementary school. I know when I came to London, I knew I spoke English like I didn't have a hard time. I had the Arabic and the Persian, but I forgot the Persian. And the only thing I remember because my aunt and uncle moved into our house and one evening we were in bed and we were we had a big robbery with 12.
Sue Gabbay: [00:09:15] I don't know. They say 12 people, men came in and they told us to get under the covers and they were asking for my father. Where was he? And my uncle kept saying, I'm not him. I'm I'm just his brother in law [laughs] And that's the only thing that's the biggest memory I have of Iran.
Henry Green: [00:09:36] Do you remember any friends you played with, [SG: huh?] Any friends that you played with on the street or.
Sue Gabbay: [00:09:45] I don't think we played on the street. It was always it was in the courtyard. Our our house was sort of walled in. If we played I played with my brother, my younger brother Emil, my cousins, who were all boys. That's who I played with.
Henry Green: [00:10:01] And did you did you I mean, you when you grew up now in these seven years, your parents spoke to you in Arabic?
Sue Gabbay: [00:10:10] Yes, Arabic. [HG: So you spoke Arabic] Yes.
Henry Green: [00:10:13] OK, how did you learn Farsi today?
Sue Gabbay: [00:10:16] I think because of the the housekeeping, the st- We spoke Persian with them and, you know.
Henry Green: [00:10:24] And so you had help in the house then? [SG: Oh, yeah] Um, yeah. And where did the English come from?
Sue Gabbay: [00:10:32] I think I learned it in school, the school that I went to, because I remember when I went to London, I didn't have a problem like I spoke English. I was in school there also for the six month.
Henry Green: [00:10:44] Well, you don't remember your teacher speaking English at school
Sue Gabbay: [00:10:50] In Iran yes. And teaching us English. Yes.
Henry Green: [00:10:53] So. And did your parents speak English? [SG: uh yes] Do you remember speaking in English with them in Iran?
Sue Gabbay: [00:11:02] No, not really. But they they spoke English. They were able to get by.
Henry Green: [00:11:07] So let me switch to something that you maybe do remember. Was there in Iran with your parents, with your parents after forty eight, you said, and you were living with your uncle and aunt.
Henry Green: [00:11:18] But do you remember a Shabbat meal in Iran or do you remember a Passover or or Hanukkah or some Jewish holiday?
Sue Gabbay: [00:11:26] Yes, I think I remember Rosh Hashanah, like I remember people always used to go visit from house to house. You'd go maybe after synagogue, after lunch you'd go visit people to to wish them a happy new year and all that. I remember that there was a lot of visitors back and, you know, wherever either they came to our house to wish us or we went to their house and you'd always serve tea or some kind of, you know, cookies, dessert, chocolate candies, whatever.
Henry Green: [00:11:59] And did you wear some special clothes, do you remember?
Sue Gabbay: [00:12:02] Yes, we were dress up nicely. You know, we're going to synagogue. It was very like here.
Henry Green: [00:12:09] Do you remmeber any cute dress or any memory of that?
Sue Gabbay: [00:12:12] Yes. I had a few dresses that my my aunt, my she's my aunt and my first cousin, Helene Daniel.
Sue Gabbay: [00:12:22] She I think she made me a few dresses at the dressmaker. They were very I have pictures that they were very pretty [laughs]
Henry Green: [00:12:33] And did um, and in those days would you when you would Rosh Hashanah, you remember special baking maybe that your aunt did or something or?
Sue Gabbay: [00:12:44] I'm sure. Yeah, baklawa, milfoof, allthose things. That was the standards.
Henry Green: [00:12:53] Do you make any of these yourself now?
Sue Gabbay: [00:12:55] I used to, but now we are all watching our weight so [laughs] we just eat it when we find it.
Henry Green: [00:13:04] So you in 19- you said you left in nineteen fifty or fifty one.
Sue Gabbay: [00:13:10] Now we left in nineteen fifty I think in the fall and we went to London, we stayed at the, my father took two in London and.
Sue Gabbay: [00:13:23] We were in a hotel and he hired a nanny for my because my brother Emil was about three four years old, so we were there and we stayed there. It was right after the war. There was a lot of rationing there. No chicken, but we had the food from Iran [laughs].
Henry Green: [00:13:47] Did um, so you did not see your mother or father for three years?
Sue Gabbay: [00:13:53] I didn't see my mother from forty eight to fifty one and my father also probably he left in forty seven whatever. And I didn't see him till when he, till he came back to Iran to pick us up.
Henry Green: [00:14:10] And did you recognize him or recognize your mother.
Sue Gabbay: [00:14:14] No, my mother for sure I didn't recognize, I didn't know her and my father. I don't know. I can't remember.
Henry Green: [00:14:24] And do you remember your feelings when you saw your mother or hear you didn't remember her? And was there a disconnect do you have any?
Sue Gabbay: [00:14:34] a little bit of disconnect because it was as if I was meeting her for the first time. And, you know, in Baghdad, Iran, the kids were all raised by I don't think the parents were right there. We were all raised by housekeepers, maids, whatever. And it was you saw them maybe a dinner, you didn't have that constant feeling the whole day that she was with us.
Henry Green: [00:15:07] So when when your you came to London, how long did you stay in London?
Sue Gabbay: [00:15:13] We stayed say from the fall till May, the beginning of May.
Henry Green: [00:15:19] And did you go to school?
Sue Gabbay: [00:15:21] Yes, I think I went to school there. Yeah, I think I went to maybe a pre-K or something there.
Henry Green: [00:15:32] And then you and you remember meeting anyone in the community or do you have any friends [overlap]
Sue Gabbay: [00:15:40] Yeah, I. In London, yes. Yes. There was a family who later became her one of their daughters became my sister in law. But we, we saw them. There was another one or two families, not very many. Maybe my father had friends there that he saw.
Henry Green: [00:16:04] And what was his business now? Is he still involved in business in Iran or.
Sue Gabbay: [00:16:10] Yes, he had still business. The business in Iran was still there, like he had a few partners that it was run by them. But he came to the state. We couldn't get um, immigration a visa to stay in the states. So that's why. But Canada was giving visas to and that's why we came to Montreal. But they had gone to the state. They bought a house there. The, my four or five or older brothers were going to school there to university, to high school, you know, but then when they didn't give, we came to nineteen fifty one to Canada, to Montreal and eventually everybody else came here, joined us. [HG: Your other brothers] Yeah. They all joined us by in nineteen fifty one.
Henry Green: [00:17:10] Ok, so now you're eight years old, you're in Montreal and you grew up in Montreal. [SG: Yes] So tell me about Montreal then. Where do you live when you came in 51.
Sue Gabbay: [00:17:23] We, we, my father bought a house, in Outremont and there's a little funny story. So when we were staying at the hotel here, ah no we drove by Outremont and there was a very nice building. It said Hotel de Ville. My father wasn't too good in French. He says, Oh, this is really nice to come in. So he took my brother Victor and walked in and he said, I'd like a room here. I'd like two rooms [laughs]. He said what? What? He said yeah, I'd like two room. I have two, three kids and we'd like to stay here. It's very pleasant. He says sorry, this is a city hall. It's not [laughs] And you know funnily we ended up buying a house right across the street from the city hall in Outremont.
Henry Green: [00:18:15] And and you lived there for how long?
Sue Gabbay: [00:18:18] We lived there till nineteen sixty four from nineteen fifty one to sixty four.
Henry Green: [00:18:23] So basically. You grew up in that house then. [SG: Yeah] And with your younger brothers
Sue Gabbay: [00:18:26] Yeah with all my brothers, no with all my brothers, [overlap] we all came back and we stayed at [inaudible] but you know we weren't all there all the time. Some were in university come for summer back and forth but some got married they moved out.
Henry Green: [00:18:43] And what school did you go to?
Sue Gabbay: [00:18:46] I went to public school. I went to Guy Drummond and then high school, Strathcona Academy and Outremont High School.
Henry Green: [00:18:57] And did your parents belong to a synagogue then?
Sue Gabbay: [00:19:00] Yes, we belong to the Young Israel Synagogue on Hillsdale. In near VanHorn.
Henry Green: [00:19:07] And we're your parents, that's the Ashkenazi synagogue. Young Israel. [SG: yes] And your Sephardi so was this, um, any memories of this?
Sue Gabbay: [00:19:19] I don't know I think, no, we used to go for the holidays there. I used to go to like Sunday I'd go for Hebrew lessons and all that but. But my brothers got married there. Edward, Morris, Freddie,, they got married in that synagogue Young Israel.
Henry Green: [00:19:46] How did you learn Hebrew? Can you read Hebrew?
Sue Gabbay: [00:19:49] No, I don't know Hebrew. We just tried. They sent us to learn, but I wasn't too successful with it [laughs]
Sue Gabbay: [00:19:57] I'm trying to learn it now.
Henry Green: [00:20:02] Let's talk about in the home life, your mother. did she have help in the house?
Sue Gabbay: [00:20:07] Here yeah. My mother couldn't do without help [laughs] She had help all the time.
Henry Green: [00:20:12] Did she do any cooking? [SG: Yes, she'd cook] So what kind of food did you have Iraqi food or?
Sue Gabbay: [00:20:17] Iraqi food. All the Iraqi food.
Henry Green: [00:20:20] So what would a, did you have Shabbat at home? [SG: Yes] So what would it Shabbat dinner be like?
Sue Gabbay: [00:20:25] I don't know. Yellow rice, chicken kabob, bamia, kibbeh shwanda, [inaudible], all the good food, all the good food.
Henry Green: [00:20:35] And did they invite friends over at all?
Sue Gabbay: [00:20:38] Yeah, a lot of I think maybe not on Friday but during the weekend we have a lot of company, family and friends would come over [HG: and the friends would be Iraqis?] Iraqi. No, it was all Iraqi.
Henry Green: [00:20:59] And these would be people who were like you, immigrants that had come to the country? [SG: Yes, yeah. Yeah] And what language did you speak to them?
Sue Gabbay: [00:21:06] I think we spoke Arabic. Arabic, maybe the younger kids spoke English.
Henry Green: [00:21:14] And the did they begin were they involved with the Spanish Portuguese synagogue at all? Was there any connection?
Sue Gabbay: [00:21:23] Not, I don't think I don't remember.
Sue Gabbay: [00:21:25] I think we came around here and in the early 60s with the Spanish and Portuguese synagogue, but not before that, because I remember Morris got married, Morris and Freddie got married. Nineteen fifty six at the Young Israel. So we were there till about the 60s, the late the late 50s, 60s, before we came to Spanish.
Henry Green: [00:21:52] And was French part of your. Did you learn French?
Sue Gabbay: [00:21:59] I learned French in school the schooling here we had French. That's all the French.
Henry Green: [00:22:05] And you became fluent in French or?
Sue Gabbay: [00:22:08] Yeah but not as much as I would like.
Henry Green: [00:22:10] But English was the main language. [SG: Yes]
Henry Green: [00:22:13] And did you have much to do with the the the the Jewish community that was here, the English Jewish community that was here?
Sue Gabbay: [00:22:21] All my friends were Jewish here. The the school I went to Outremont high school was almost ninety eight percent Jews,so it was all Jewish. But I think as immigrant we sort of didn't want we didn't we didn't connect. We weren't so close to the Ashkenazi or the other Jews here. I think this is the way you feel as immigrants. You sort of keep to yourself. You don't. You know, I think it takes a generation to open up.
Henry Green: [00:22:57] So your your community was an Iraqi community. [SG: Yes] Can you remember? I mean, so you're, you know, between forty three and sixty three or, you're now, twenty years old. So so these Iraqi your your your parents friends who were Iraqi. And did you have friends that were Iraqi.
Sue Gabbay: [00:23:17] Yes. my closest friends were Iraqis.
Henry Green: [00:23:21] And did. And was there some kind of community organisations, something developing in the community where Iraqis could get together at all?
Sue Gabbay: [00:23:30] And yeah, I think whenever there was a social they used to try to make social events for the youngers to get together. We always attended and became part of it.
Henry Green: [00:23:42] And was there any kind of Iraqi social club or anything like this?
Sue Gabbay: [00:23:46] Yes, they started an Iraqi club in Ile Bizard called Riverside Country Club, and a few family joined, but not the whole community or whatever. And we had a good time going there, you know, weekends during the week sometime. You know, [HG: this is the youth, your parents?] My parents, my, no my parents. A lot of friends were part of that. They used to make parties and it was all Iraqis.
Henry Green: [00:24:20] And that Iraqi, um, get together with the people would be speaking Arabic? [SG: both Arabic and English] Arabic and English.
Henry Green: [00:24:32] But little French. [SG: there was no French] no French.
Henry Green: [00:24:36] And when you began dating, you know, [SG: we weren't allowed I wasn't allowed to date] [laughter]
Sue Gabbay: [00:24:45] There was no dating for me
Henry Green: [00:24:51] No dating for you [laughs] Ok, so you you did Zionism.
Henry Green: [00:24:57] Did Israel play any role when you were growing up in any way?
Sue Gabbay: [00:25:02] Little bit, not much.
Sue Gabbay: [00:25:04] [overlap] the only time we caught so much because my brother Victor married an Israeli. She's Iraqi, but she was born in Israel. So this is my connection. This is how I got to know about Israel and you know, visited there and had a good time, you know, and created a love
Henry Green: [00:25:29] You visited Israel? [SG: Yeah, a few times] And when did you first go on a visit Israel?
Sue Gabbay: [00:25:34] Israel was in, um, I think in and nineteen seventy six.
Henry Green: [00:25:42] Seventy six. Okay. So it was later then.
Sue Gabbay: [00:25:44] Yeah. That was my first visit to Israel.
Henry Green: [00:25:48] So you what you were what you're saying is that, is that here is a Iraqi immigrant community that stayed close together and, and your you, you were feeling, as it were, the the shadow in some way of the community in Montreal. It was still resonating. [SG: yeah] And did you did you feel Iraqi? [SG: Yeah] and did you feel Canadian?
Sue Gabbay: [00:26:18] Yeah, Iraqi Canadian [laughs].
Henry Green: [00:26:22] Would you, if someone asked you who you were, what would you say?
Sue Gabbay: [00:26:24] No, I wouldn't say Iraqi for sure [laughs]. I'd say Canadian, Jewish, Iraqi, because I don't know, I sort of what they what's happened there and everything. I didn't want to be connected to it.
Sue Gabbay: [00:26:40] Like every time it was in the news, it wasn't anything good or beautiful. It is like there was something terror or whatever.
Henry Green: [00:26:49] Did your parents keep up with what was going on in Iraq and Iran?
Sue Gabbay: [00:26:55] Yeah. [HG: They still had family in?] No, we have no, as I think nineteen fifty, almost all our family, my father's family and my mother moved out, they either went to Israel or came here [HG: and did your when your father did he stop doing business in Iran or did he continue?] He continued the business and then he came here, he continued it and then he went into real estate [overlap] in Montreal.
Henry Green: [00:27:30] So your your you went to after you graduated. Where did you go to university?
Sue Gabbay: [00:27:36] I went to university here at Concordia.
Henry Green: [00:27:40] And what did you study?
Sue Gabbay: [00:27:43] A Bachelor of Arts Majors in math and geo-
Henry Green: [00:27:47] And and then then what? What happened?
Sue Gabbay: [00:27:50] Then I got married [laughs] [HG: and then you got married?] yes.
Sue Gabbay: [00:27:55] I worked a bit in the my family's office and then I got married. I had children and that was it. And then I went back to work 10 years ago. I went to work at my my husband's company.
Henry Green: [00:28:10] And so. And who did you marry?
Sue Gabbay: [00:28:12] I married Kamal Gabbay. He's.
Sue Gabbay: [00:28:17] He was born in Baghdad, but moved but grew up in Lebanon and Beirut
Henry Green: [00:28:22] And when did you marry, what year?
Sue Gabbay: [00:28:23] Nineteen sixty nine.
Henry Green: [00:28:25] And and how many children do you have?
Sue Gabbay: [00:28:29] I have one daughter, Lauren. [HG: What's your name?] Lauren
Henry Green: [00:28:33] And what you were she born?
Sue Gabbay: [00:28:36] Nineteen seventy three.
Henry Green: [00:28:38] And is she in Montreal.
Sue Gabbay: [00:28:39] She lives in Montreal. She's married and she has four children.
Henry Green: [00:28:45] And so when your daughter was growing up, did Iraq play any kind of role? Does she speak Arabic?
Sue Gabbay: [00:28:54] She doesn't speak Arabic, but she understands everything. I think I don't know. I wish she would learn. She just has to open her [laughs].
Sue Gabbay: [00:29:04] But she's she understands everything she says when she goes to Israel and she goes to the souk she understand all the Arabic [HG: and did she, um is her friends are, some of them Iraqi too? Children of Iraqis?]
Sue Gabbay: [00:29:23] Not really. She has a lot of cousins who are the Iraqi, but she has a lot of Ashkenazi and Sephardic friends.
Henry Green: [00:29:33] And where did she go to school in Montreal?
Sue Gabbay: [00:29:34] And she went to school here at St. George's, first at Solomon Schechter, then St.Georges, and then she graduated from Concordia with a major in Judaic studies.
Henry Green: [00:29:48] And did she practice in the field?
Sue Gabbay: [00:29:50] She became an Orthodox. She's very involved in the community, in her school and her community, very involved [HG: and what's the synagogue that she belongs to?] She belongs to three synagogues, the Spanish and Portuguese because we're here, Beth Israel and Tifer- and the Bailey Shulo- Tiferet, I don't know it's called the Bail shul [ph]
Henry Green: [00:30:16] So how did you you said you're now a member here at Spanish and Portuguese [SG: yes] So when did you become a member of the Spanish Portuguese?
Sue Gabbay: [00:30:25] We became a member since I think I'm thinking about sixty four. Nineteen sixty four, six sixty
Henry Green: [00:30:33] So your parents became members [SG: Yeah] And then when you got married you [SG: we became yeah] and are you active in the synagogue?
Sue Gabbay: [00:30:40] I used to be very active. I used to run the the bazaar for three or four years and then as I this was and that was I think in the early nineties. I haven't and I support the events, but I'm not that active anymore.
Henry Green: [00:30:57] So let me try to give some context here. So when you came in the fifties here, um, because you said you you came in nineteen fifty, the community was there weren't very many.
Sue Gabbay: [00:31:12] Very small, I think two or three families.
Henry Green: [00:31:17] And then it grew [SG: and then it grew]
Henry Green: [00:31:20] And when did most of the Iraqis come? In the mid 50s end of the 50s?
Sue Gabbay: [00:31:26] I think the mid 50s, because when my brother got married, my two, three brothers got married, like they must have been two three hundred people. Like my parents invited the whole community, whoever was here to the wedding.
Henry Green: [00:31:44] And then you become a member of the Spanish Portuguese and I'm thinking of you as an adult, as it were getting married, and the community changes because in the 60s, a lot of the people who come to Montreal are North Africans now. [SG: Yes] the Moroccans. The Tunisians, right. [SG: Yes] So when you're here at the Spanish Portuguese being involved in activities, is the does the flavor change does it become more North African than Iraqi? Can you talk about this at all?
Sue Gabbay: [00:32:16] I think that over the years, the majority were our Iraqi and we worked with a lot of North Africans.
Sue Gabbay: [00:32:27] Those were like I think it brought a nice feeling to the community that we were all here, that, you know,
Henry Green: [00:32:38] And the I'm trying to what I'm trying to do is what the the the the connection between Iraqis and North Africans, because here is the synagogue in which people are members
Sue Gabbay: [00:32:51] It's only the synagogue, really, I think. But I think a lot of our younger generation are marrying North Africans. My daughter married her husband is his parents are Moroccan, but he was born here. We're all you know getting together
Henry Green: [00:33:14] so there is so from your that first generation of the 50s, which was a tight Iraqi community.
Sue Gabbay: [00:33:22] It was very Iraqi [overlap] They didn't, you know, it was like if they married out of the Iraq community is like, you know, it was a big thing, but now it's accepted like this, you know
Henry Green: [00:33:36] So this tight Iraqi community, as it moves to second generation. Yeah, there's there's certain kinds of changes that happen [SG: for sure. Yeah] And what what do you think then today is kept in terms of that culture?
Sue Gabbay: [00:33:53] Maybe as you mature, you decide you want to know your roots, to see what's happening, you know. [HG: So do do you] and I know and I think people are more open about it now. And the Middle East is so much, you know, everybody knows about it. And I don't know when we came.
Sue Gabbay: [00:34:16] I think it was like I was an alien. Like to the friend says I was coming from somewhere else [laugh] They didn't know where was Iraq. My name they couldn't pronounce. And now it would have been just an ordinary name.
Henry Green: [00:34:33] Did- This was among both, um This would be Ashkenazi families not knowing how to pronounce [SG: Yeah] And you did you have any non Jewish friends too or or is basically Jewish?
Sue Gabbay: [00:34:46] They were Jewish.
Henry Green: [00:34:49] So when you think today, what is the most important part of your Sephardic background?
Sue Gabbay: [00:34:57] What's the most important [HG: part of your Sephardi Iraqi background when you, Babylonian background whenyou think today?] I don't know.
Henry Green: [00:35:04] What you, what do you want to pass on to your grandchildren.
Sue Gabbay: [00:35:13] I know it's hard [laughs] who we are, that they say the my my brother always says, you know, this the Babylion, the Babylonian Jews were the few chosen people that were taken from Israel and taken to Baghdad to be you know, we were part of that that this was what how many years before?
Sue Gabbay: [00:35:46] Nabu what's his name? [HG: Nebuchadnezzer] Yeah, that's a he says [HG: 2500 years ago] This was how it started [laughs]
Sue Gabbay: [00:35:54] We could go back and probably will one of the descendants of these people.
Henry Green: [00:36:02] So does is this is this, is this empower you, give you pride? what-
Sue Gabbay: [00:36:06] Yeah. Makes me proud that we
Henry Green: [00:36:13] So how would you describe your identity today, then?
Sue Gabbay: [00:36:20] My identity- [laughs] Canadian. Yeah, I grew up here. This is my country. If it wasn't for my parents and I wouldn't have known anything about Iraq or Iran, it's very I've never been back to Iran. I don't even know Iraq at all.
Henry Green: [00:36:43] So so let me ask you one last question, and that is, what if anyone who listens to your interview, right, because it'll go to the ultimately the National Library of Israel and people will listen to it. What message do you want to give to people who will listen to this?
Henry Green: [00:37:02] What [inaudible] I don't know
Sue Gabbay: [00:37:08] That we really should support Israel [laughs] because really this is our country in the end it's Israel that's what we should support.
Henry Green: [00:37:24] Well, thank you so much for sharing, [SG: huh?] Thank you very much for sharing.
Henry Green: [00:37:29] Well, very important for Sephardi voices and for the Iraqi Jewish community and I think and for Israel.
Sue Gabbay: [00:37:37] Thank you. I hope I hope I added something to it.
Henry Green: [00:37:43] Thank you. Thank you.