Picking Lemons - The Beginning

Middle Eastern Inspiration

So I’ve been hacked.

And the jackals of Ein Kerem, Jerusalem are howling. It begins with one and then a whole group. A cascading high pitched howl, which a lone dog joins, his bark deep. A deep howl to the moon I cannot see.

My Facebook and Instagram have been hacked. This is not the way I would have wished to introduce myself on Substack. But it is the reason I’ve begun. Ever since October 7 I have broken my silence. My mildness. My fear of being heard. I am speaking up for how I see life, view life, want life to be. As simple and sweet as picking lemons.

But now I’ve been hacked. It’s enough there is a war on. It’s enough my son is a soldier in the IDF. It’s enough that now I have nowhere to post my candles - seven - inspired by my Iraqi Jewish grandmother that I still am lighting every night. Unfailing because they hold me.

I am blocked from posts that brought me joy to share. Posts that broke my heart too. I am blocked from the beautiful people who reached out to me through them. How am I ever going to find them again?

When something breaks - and I feel something has broken in me - my trust in myself, in the world - a world that has hackers that pose as your friends - there is a new opening. A new beginning. A freedom in not being a phone addict anymore.

So why Substack? Because my dear Iraqi friend who lives in Baghdad - a man almost my age - married with a darling little girl - a muslim - reached out to me on Facebook. He shared his thoughts on Jews from Iraq (It’s a shame what happened to the Iraqi Jews. They never should have been expelled. [Note: There are only 3 Jews in Iraq. I will discuss that in future posts.]) He shared that he saw me as a fellow Iraqi, and loved how I was trying to recover my grandparent’s lost Jewish Babylonian world. He stayed friends with me even though I an Australian born Jew lived in Jerusalem, and he was risking his life being in touch with me. (In Iraq the punishment for normalizing relations with an Israeli is the death penalty.)

When he first reached out to me on FB my husband said I was crazy to believe he was real. But he sent me a photo of the Tigris River. He shared his honest thoughts about Middle Eastern policy and his love for Susan Cain, author of Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking. I wanted to believe there are real people like him in the world, who just want to describe the moon from their angle of the universe that they were born in. And there is.

I was sad when my Iraqi friend said he was leaving Facebook for Substack. He said I should also move. He said the conversation is deeper, more real and vibrant on Substack. I replied I’m too consumed in Instagram and Facebook. I replied, I don’t know how to do something so new. He said he will subscribe to me when I join.

I am lost without my community.

So I am here because of him. I am here because this tells the joyous side of social media connection. I am here because I believe in the human spirit. I am here because I will defy any hackers, anyone who tries to steal my identity, any terrorists who try and destroy peace and coexistence because of extreme ideologies. I am here writing because I believe most people are good.

We rarely read the whole paragraph of Anne Frank’s quote:

“In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can’t build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery, and death. I see the world gradually being turned into a wilderness, I hear the ever approaching thunder, which will destroy us too, I can feel the sufferings of millions and yet, if I look up into the heavens, I think that it will all come right, that this cruelty too will end, and that peace and tranquility will return again.”

Anne Frank experienced the basest evil of people, and yet still knew the silent majority are good. I too believe this. I also believe the silent majority are scared. Scared of being shamed, disrupting their lives, worse persecuted, tortured, condemned to death. When bad things happen we hope they don’t happen to us.

When the world breaks and the wilderness of violence reigns, I believe it will eventually return to its natural order and harmony that the silent majority seek. A kitchen, a warm meal, family sitting around a table, safe. The question is how many will die before…

We are living in a time where we need to speak up for what we believe to save lives. We need to say no to anyone who spreads hate and lies, inciting violence. (It is always my red flag for any movement.) So this is my new space for sharing stories, joy, and yes my grandmother’s kitchen wisdom and my kitchen disasters. I am inspired by Maria Popova's words here from TheMarginalian based on René Magritte:

“In a world pocked by cynicism and pummeled by devastating news, to find joy for oneself and spark it in others, to find hope for oneself and spark it in others, is nothing less than a countercultural act of courage and resistance. This is not a matter of denying reality — it is a matter of discovering a parallel reality where joy and hope are equally valid ways of being. To live there is to live enchanted with the underlying wonder of reality, beneath the frightful stories we tell ourselves and are told about it.”

Magritte writes:

“We think that if life is seen in a tragic light it is seen more clearly, and that we are then in touch with the mystery of existence. We even believe that we can reach objectivity thanks to this revelation. The greater the terror, the greater the objectivity.

[…]

Life is wasted when we make it more terrifying, precisely because it is so easy to do so. It is an easy task, because people who are intellectually lazy are convinced that this miserable terror is “the truth”, that this terror is knowledge of the “extra-mental” world. This is an easy way out, resulting in a banal explanation of the world as terrifying.

Creating enchantment is an effective means of counteracting this depressing, banal habit.

[…]

We must go in search of enchantment.”

And now you are here. And I will keep writing as I seek to spark complex joy, sharing what I can as an Australian born daughter of an Iraqi Jewish refugee, and a married mother of four boys living in Jerusalem. As I keep picking lemons.

Join my journey!

For your interest - Read my essay “The Alternative Story to Suffering is Joy” based on René Magritte’s concept of joy, published first in Consequence Forum and then Zibby Magazine.

Extra Reads and Recipes Below

Best Article Read - By my insightful and talented literary agent Jessica Kasmer-Jacobs a moving piece for The Free Press about Israelis reaction to the recent hostage rescue - “When Hostages Come Home”

Shavuot - Tonight is Shavuot, the biblical pilgrimage to Jerusalem festival celebrating the first harvest. In Iraqi tradition it’s called Id al Ziyara, which literally means festival of pilgrimage. And just like in biblical times the Israelites traveled to Jerusalem, Babylonian Jews traveled to their holy shrines, especially the prophet Ezekiel’s in Al Kifl, and Ezra the Scribe’s in Al Uzair (which is where my grandmother is from. Her family were custodians.) Today both sites are mosques. (There are only 3 Jews left in Iraq after the mass community expulsion which began in 1951.)

It’s traditional to eat cheese products and study all night. In Iraq the Jewish women would make kahi and qaymar which is a sweet thin pastry folded with buffalo cream drizzled with date syrup.

Jews at the Prophet Ezekiel’s shrine in Al Kifl in 1932

First Baby Boys Kibbutz Shavuot Practice - My friend just shared me this video from her daughter’s kibbutz, Tirat Zvi. Shavuot is the harvest festival of the first fruits. First fruits also include the first baby boys. On this kibbutz alone there were over 20 babies as part of the father-son ceremony to celebrate the first baby boys, who in biblical times were consecrated to serve in the Temple in Jerusalem, unless redeemed by the father with a Pidyon HaBen. Here’s the video of the ritual that my friend sent me.

Best Shavuot Cheese Cake Recipe - I’ve perfected the cheese cake as part of my war effort because it’s my son’s favorite cake. It’s this recipe by Sam Merritt on Sugar Spun Run which I adapted with 250 g ricotta cheese to replace part of the cream cheese proportion, and do not put sugar in my cookie base (I use Lotus cookies or French butter cookies). If this is too confusing and you ask I’m happy to type it up for future posts.

For more about me and my writing visit my website www.sarahsassoon.com

To 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.