Tuesday, September 23
7:30 pm
The Chaim Kempner Author Series
Ariel Sabar
My Father’s Paradise
$9, Discounted Member Price $6

Ariel Sabar's father, Yona, was born in a mud hut in the remote Kurdish region of northern Iraq. Protected by towering mountains, the Jews of Zakho lived peacefully among Muslims and Christians for nearly three thousand years. But in the late 1940s the outside world came crashing in, and Yona Sabar would be the last boy bar mitzvahed in Zakho.

In My Father's Paradise, father and son travel to today's war-torn Iraq in a quest to rediscover a forgotten land. As Ariel retraces his father's footsteps, he brings to life the eccentric characters, extraordinary determination, and fascinating historical odyssey of the Kurdish Jews. In retelling his father's story, Ariel Sabar finds his own. 

Ariel Sabar writes about the 2008 U.S. presidential campaigns for The Christian Science Monitor and is an award-winning former staff writer for the Baltimore Sun and The Providence (RI) Journal. His work has also appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Monthly, Mother Jones and other publications. He lives with his wife and two children in Washington, DC.

Supported by the Chaim Kempner Collection Library Fund, the Chaim Kempner Author Series brings authors of recently published books to the 16^th Street J for the learning and enjoyment of the entire community.

“Readers can only be grateful to [Sabar] for unearthing the history of a family, a people and a very different image of Iraq.”
-Publishers Weekly

Co-sponsored by Busboys & Poets and Moment Magazine

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