daughters, Sophia, Lulu, and Cora, made this book better by making sure
I didn’t think about itallthe time. Katherine, my friend in and for life, is
difficult to thank in my own words for her unrelenting love and support so
I choose to quote to her Mevlana Rumi, who writes, “We love: that’s why
life is full of so many wonderful gifts.”
I cannot say, like some other contemporary scholars of the ten lost tribes,
that I have always dreamed about them. I am not personally connected to this
study in such a long-standing way. But at some point while writing this book,
I was reminded of what I always knew: that I am personally connected to the
city of Nineveh, capital of the Assyrian Empire, the polity responsible for
the ten tribes’ exile. Over fifty years ago, the Jewish community of the Iraqi
city of Mosul—site of the ancient city of Nineveh—was uprooted. Since then,
images of the ancient capital of Assyria often mix with memories of the
modern city left behind. The journal of the Mosuli community in Israel,
where many of its elders publish memoirs and poems written in beautiful
Arabic, is calledMinhat Ashur(Tribute of Assyria). I grew up dreaming of
Mosul, not so long ago the home of Muslims, Christians, and Jews, and the city
where my parents were born and grew up. Mosul is also the place where my
grandparents, Sassoon Ghazal and Miriam bint Samra, Zvi Salih and Salha
bint Lulu (who always reminds me that she is actually from Baghdad), met and
lived. I dedicate this book to them.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ix