Halahmy, Oded, 1938-

This collection contains oral history materials collected by Tamar Morad, Robert Shasha, and Dennis Shasha, in connection with the writing and compilation of the book Iraq's Last Jews: Stories of Daily Life, Upheaval, and Escape from Modern Babylon (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), including approximately 60 audio recordings of interviews, with at least one third accompanied by transcripts; and a small amount of related biographical material, including memoirs and other writings, one family history, and photographs. The collection contains the interview recordings on which 18 of the 20 narratives in the published book were based. In addition, it contains oral histories or autobiographical narratives pertaining to more than 40 individuals whose stories are not told in the book. The interviewees and their families represent a range of professions, including international merchants and bankers, as well as rabbis, doctors, politicians, intellectuals, musicians, poets, and artists. The materials convey personal accounts of Jewish life in Iraq from approximately the 1920s to the early 1980s, as well as Iraqi Jewish experiences of emigration, transit journeys, and new lives in the diaspora, in locations including Iran, India, Japan, China, Israel, Great Britain, Canada, and the United States.