Share
Three Worlds by Avi Shlaim: An Arab-Jewish Memoir That Challenges the Israeli Narrative
Oxford historian Avi Shlaim revisits his childhood in Baghdad, his forced exile, and the erasure of Arab-Jewish identity in a memoir that rewrites Middle Eastern history from the margins.
🎥 Scroll to the end of the article to watch the full video review from The Nook.
If memoir is a form of excavation—of self, of society, of silence—then Avi Shlaim’s Three Worlds: Memoirs of an Arab Jew arrives with a pickaxe in one hand and a matchbox in the other. It is both delicate and incendiary. Shlaim charts the collapse of a world that once shimmered in the light of coexistence. Now, it is reduced to ashes by the careless, often cruel hands of politics and power.
Shlaim is best known as one of Israel’s formidable “New Historians” and a long-standing professor at Oxford. Here, he turns his scholarly lens inward. But don’t mistake this for a quiet, introspective stroll. This is not just the story of a boyhood in Baghdad or a coming-of-age in Israel. It is gripping—and at times uncomfortable. The book reckons with modern Middle Eastern history through the prism of personal loss, collective displacement, and ideological betrayal.
At the heart of Three Worlds is a remarkable portrait of Baghdad’s once-thriving Jewish community. Shlaim’s family lived in palatial homes, socialised with Iraqi ministers, and fretted over the finer things in life—like whether to employ Jewish or Armenian nannies. This world is steeped in refinement and rootedness. It feels almost too sumptuous to last. And of course, it doesn’t.
The memoir’s emotional axis is the Farhud, the 1941 pogrom against Baghdad’s Jews. Shlaim examines it unflinchingly. Fueled by Arab nationalism, German propaganda, and the British colonial administration’s inaction, the Farhud shattered the illusion of permanence. Jews were attacked in the streets. Homes were looted. The trauma echoed far beyond that summer. Here, Shlaim’s scholarly instincts fuse with a son’s sorrow. The result is devastating.
Perhaps the most controversial—and crucial—part of Shlaim’s account comes after the family flees to Israel. There, he writes, they were stripped not just of material comfort but of dignity. In the young Israeli state, Jews of Middle Eastern origin were not celebrated as returning exiles. Instead, they were demoted to second-class citizens. In a bitter irony, the promised refuge became another site of alienation. European Jews—the Ashkenazim—saw Oriental Jews as backwards, foreign, and lesser. The polite salons of Baghdad gave way to refugee camps and racial hierarchies.
This is not a memoir of triumph, nor is it an easy read for those invested in the myths of Israeli exceptionalism. Shlaim offers an unflinching critique of the Zionist movement and its consequences—not only for Palestinians, but for Jews like himself. He contends that the creation of Israel, rather than solving the “Jewish problem” of Europe, created a new problem. It destroyed Arab-Jewish identity and erased a long and complex shared history between Jews and their Arab homelands.
He is careful to distinguish between Judaism as a religion and Zionism as a political project. For Shlaim, Israel is not a homecoming but a colonial enterprise. He argues it was founded partly by acts of terror and coercion that targeted not only Palestinians but, in some cases, fellow Jews. Shlaim references incidents of Zionist sabotage in Baghdad. He suggests that agents may have staged attacks on Jewish targets to accelerate emigration to the nascent Israeli state. It’s a claim that stings—and one that has long drawn ire. Shlaim presents it not as a conspiracy but as contested history, demanding engagement rather than dismissal.
Three Worlds is compelling because it never strays into polemic for its own sake. Shlaim writes with the restraint of a historian and the soul of an exile. He neither sentimentalises the past nor seeks vindication. Instead, he writes to remember. Forgetting, he reminds us, is the first step toward erasure.
As an editor and reader, I found myself moved not only by the tragedy of Shlaim’s family, but by the larger tragedy of a region undone by divisions that were neither inevitable nor ancient. The Arab-Jewish identity he embodies is today an anomaly, even a provocation. Yet, as Shlaim shows, it was once a reality—flawed, fraught, but real.
In today’s climate, identities are hardened and historical narratives weaponised. Three Worlds offers a rare, necessary third space. It asks us to sit with discomfort and question what we’ve been taught. The book reminds us that the story of the Middle East is neither monolithic nor binary. There are no easy heroes here, only human beings shaped—and often crushed—by the forces of history.
This book is essential reading. It is not just for those interested in the Israeli-Arab conflict, but for anyone willing to explore the tangled roots of belonging, exile, and the politics of memory. In Three Worlds, Avi Shlaim does more than tell his story. He tells the story we’re often too afraid—or too comfortable—to hear.