I Am Looking for Light

Be the Light is more than a slogan - it's an everyday choice. We need your light. Includes video of baking cheese sambusek in Judeo-Arabic.

I am looking for light.

Yarden Bibas’s words from his eulogy haunt me, “Shiri, please watch over me… Protect me from bad decisions. Shield me from harmful things and protect me from myself. Guard me so I don’t sink into darkness. Mishmish, I love you!”

It’s the ‘Guard me so I don’t sink into darkness’ that got me.

The darkness is so real. How will he do it? How will he find the light?

Be the light, be the light, because maybe you will come across Yarden Bibas. You might not even recognize him. It might be as fleeting as driving by him, or brushing across him in an airport. Be the light. How many Yarden Bibas’s out there are fighting this sinking feeling into darkness?

Be the light

There is a school minibus driver who fetches kids - two small, blonde boys waiting on the corner of my street. The door swings open and beating Middle Eastern music pours out - belting a morning melody of good morning. The bus driver’s blessing to the children, to the streets.

Be the light

There is the butcher, who is my age, who tells me he suffered from PTSD after his army service. Who tells me he doesn’t know what to think anymore with all the antisemitic hate and protests. I tell him each of us can only deal with the hatred in our own hearts. To hate is to run away from ourselves. I don’t trust any movement or ideology that fuels anger and hatred.

Be the light

There is my Iraqi Jewish neighbor from Mosul, who I pop into to say hi, and find she is baking my favorite cheese sambusek. She tells me the recipe in Judeo-Arabic which I am desperately trying to learn. She shows me a neat trick of leaving the sides of the dough slightly open as you fold it over the cheese so air can blow through and the cheese doesn’t overflow. She proudly brandishes her small wooden rolling pin from Iraq, over 70 years old, from when she immigrated at the age of 11 1/2, what her family included in their single suitcase. It is all so simple, and blessed.

Here is a video of Shulamit showing her mother’s wooden rolling pin and how to shape the Sambusek Geben - Cheese Sambusek in Judeo-Arabic.

Be the light

because there is grief, a devastating, numbing, overwhelming grief. The kind that leaves you wondering what is real in this world. It is a grief that drives me to light candles and call on protection, on miracles, on blessings. It is a grief that makes me feel grateful for a beam of sunlight that warms my body in the cold of winter. Grateful for the first daffodil. Grateful for the two bulbuls beating their wings in the olympic size birdbath that the roof of my garage has become after the rains. Grateful for the moments I can forget the sadness. Grateful that these small joys are real too.

Be the light for others and see the gift of light in yourself.

The light is watching a single daffodil unfurl. It takes a whole day for it to break through. I don’t mind the time, popping my head out, sitting with my afternoon coffee, watching and waiting in between my cooking. Today another two daffodils opened, and a purple dutch crocus.

Sometimes it feels stupid to obsess about daffodils, to obsess that there is always a flame of light in my home.

What am I looking for?

Be the light. It takes knowing darkness to choose light. How the alternative is so unbearable.

Be the light. It is a choice each and every moment. Sometimes we fail. I fail.

I know many of you live lives growing towards the sun. Many of you shared the beautiful experiences, the light you plant with your hearts in the darkness, and they inspired me.

Perhaps light is as simple as counting the good, like counting daffodils that bloom, even if they don’t last long. The purple crocus disappears in a couple of days.

I cannot stop lighting candles, because I need to light my hope and remember what this life is all about - sharing simple light every single day.

All week I have told myself - put down your phone and go outside into the light.

Choose life, I whisper and turn off my phone. Choose life, I whisper to Yarden Bibas. Hoping he can hear me. That he’s not alone. Choose life, I whisper to the 59 remaining hostages — and pray they will be free to be in the light like the flame I light for them. Choose life, I whisper into the spirits of those who have been brought up to hate, and light another two candles. One for my heart and one for theirs.

Your memories live on, I whisper to Shiri, Ariel and Kfir as I light the last candle. My haunting reminder to live and love better in this one life. Choose life…in whatever color of your light you choose.

With blessings,

Sarah

And yes check out the notes below - it’s full of light for those of you who dream of coexistence and peace and spreading your light!

Notes:

Children of the Tigris: An Iraqi Night of Memory and Dialogue

I feel very blessed to participate in this dialogue, poetry and ideas, like a nostalgic, but very real voyage down the Tigris River with Dr Omar Mohammed, Faisel Al Mutar, and Edwin Shuker. Choose your boat of choice — steam boat, kuphar, or a reed boat from the Marshes. Hope you can make it registration is here.

For centuries, the Tigris have carried the voices of Iraq’s many peoples, echoing stories of coexistence, loss, and resilience. This night is an invitation to listen to those echoes once more.

On March 11, four Iraqis—two Jews and two Muslims—will share poetry, memory, and reflections on a history that binds them despite time and distance. Sarah, Omar, Edwin, and Faisal have each, in their way, dedicated themselves to preserving Iraq’s Jewish heritage, safeguarding a past that belongs to all Iraqis.

Through conversation, they will trace the currents of memory: the Iraq that was, the Iraq that remains, and the Iraq that may yet be. In a time when forgetting is easy, this gathering is a quiet act of defiance—a reminder that history endures, that voices once silenced can still be heard, and that dialogue remains a bridge between the past and the future.

Join us for an evening where words reclaim lost spaces, heritage is remembered and honored, and the Tigris still flows, carrying with it the stories of those who refuse to let them fade.

Panelists:

Sarah Sassoon – Iraqi Jewish writer, poet, and educator

Edwin Shuker – International businessman, former Vice President of the Board of Deputies of British Jew

Faisal Al Mutar – Founder, Ideas Beyond Border

Omar Mohammed – Director, Antisemitism Research Initiative (ARI) at The George Washington University

Recommended Reading - I recommend Dr Omar Mohammed’s blogs on Times of Israel where he shares his vision of coexistence - Here.

Dr Omar Mohammed is a light - a rare individual, academic, activist who is recovering the lost world of Jewish Mosul, and fighting antisemitism and extremism, whilst educating for and envisioning a new Middle East. Read more about Dr Omar Mohammed here.

Another light is Faisal Al Mutar the founder of Ideas Beyond Borders: Reshaping the future of the Middle East one person at a time

Check out how Faisal is having an impressive impact across the Middle East. I love his House of Wisdom initiative, promoting the dissemination of ideas, critical thinking as an antidote to extremism, so sorely censored in the Middle East. Also his Innovation Hub which supports ideas that create real change with over 250+ projects. Visit his site. Anyone who genuinely cares about the Middle East should join his story. Be that person.

Reclaiming Your Jewish Identity Through Personal Story" A Creative Writing Workshop

I’m also blessed to be running an in-person generative writing workshop with JIMENA in LA later this month. All you lovely LA people please come. This is a talk and writing workshop about personal story for everyone. Registration here.

For more about me and my writing visit my website www.sarahsassoon.comTo support my work please consider buying my children’s books, the award winning Shoham’s Bangle, and my latest This is Not a Cholent. My mission is to spread and educate about Jewish Middle Eastern culture.

Read my free online, award winning poetry collection, published by Harbor Review - This is Why We Don’t Look Back.

Note - My Substack will be fortnightly. Maybe more often… I appreciate all comments, all conversations, and all sharing.

Further - All mistakes are proof that I am human, and this is not an AI publication.