I joined a poetry class which encouraged me to questions and explore in my writing all I did not know about my Iraqi Jewish grandparents’ displacement in 1951, with their five children, including my father, to the refugee camps of Israel. They moved to Australia 16 years later, where eventually I was born (my mother was born in Israel also to Iraqi Jewish refugees from Baghdad), and whilst I grew up with Iraqi Jewish food, Judeo-Arabic, which is the special Iraqi Jewish dialect of Arabic my family spoke, and Arabic music, their story was never properly told to me. I remember my grandmother shaking her head, saying, “Iraq was the Garden of Eden”, and I’ll never forget the bitter expression on my grandfather’s face when their early refugee years in Israel were mentioned. Their silence was a mark of their trauma, but they didn’t realize they were also silencing the rich 2,600 year old Babylonian Jewish history and culture that they came from.

My writing, research, and everything I teach as an author and poet is to fill this void, and to encourage others to find and own their voices and stories. I have learned that everyone has a story, and when I interview people and ask about their history I see their eyes light up with remembering and rooting as they explain where their parents and grandparents come from.

Along with my personal writing projects I speak and teach about recovering personal history and creative writing. I also consult writing projects, be it memoir, poetry, or children’s books.

I love being part of the healing that takes place as people put words to the page, even if they don’t publish that piece it’s a stepping stone in their souls to deeper understanding of themselves, and perhaps another piece of future work they may write. Because I’ve been on my own personal journey, I know what is possible in the writing process, and know the magic of self discovery.

My process through writing has given me the voice I was not allowed growing up. I’m proud that I have learned to stand up and speak up for what I believe in, even if it’s not the popular or trendy position. I find people sometimes don’t look at facts, but rather slogans and forget that facts really matter when we form our stories. Sometimes we have to challenge our own personal narratives when we learn the facts of our histories. For me it was learning and writing about my family’s refugee flight from Iraq due to institutionalized and social antisemitism, and how this experience formed who they are and the way they parented. Growing up in a Middle Eastern home as a female wasn’t easy, but with a deepened understanding of what my grandparents and father went through, I could forgive and reframe my childhood in a more compassionate way.

Writing from a place of truth, even if it hurts educates me and those who read my work. I love the new conversations my writing encourages, not only about Jewish refugees from Arab lands (there were 850,000 from all over the Middle East who fled to Israel), but about silence in family histories and the importance of personal narrative to tell a bigger story. I’ll never forget when I spoke in Los Angeles and a woman about my age approached me in tears and said, “I’ve always been so ashamed of my Iraqi Jewish history. Thank you for speaking about it. Now I realize it’s something to celebrate.”

The more I own my voice and share my story, I learn that we are all interconnected even if we come from vastly different backgrounds. For example a woman from Afghanistan living in the US, messaged me on Instagram saying she deeply related to the refugee story and the bangles in my children’s book, “Shoham’s Bangle”, which is based on my family’s Iraqi Jewish experience. She shared how she also wears the gold bangles her mother wore, and that she will gift “Shoham’s Bangle” to her children, so they remember her and her bangles’ journey from Afghanistan too.

When I connect with people through my writing, speaking or even Instagram posts, and they in turn connect deeper to their own lives and stories with joy and meaning, then I know I’ve been of true service in this world.