The Neo-Aramaic Oral Heritage of the Jews of Zakho

In 1951, the secluded Neo-Aramaic-speaking Jewish community of Zakho migrated collectively to Israel. It carried with it its unique language, culture and customs, many which bore resemblance those found in classical rabbinic literature. Like others Kurdistan, for example, Jews retained a vibrant tradition creating performing songs based on embellishing biblical stories Aggadic traditions. Despite recent growth scholarly interest into Neo-Aramaic communities, however, studies have this point almost exclusively focused linguistic analysis their critically endangered dialects little attention has been paid sociological, historical literary cultural output diverse isolated communities Kurdistan. innovative book, Oz Aloni seeks redress balance. focuses three genres community’s oral heritage: proverb, enriched narrative folktale. Each chapter draws authors’ own fieldwork among members now living Jerusalem. He examines proverb performative context, rewritten epic Ruth, Naomi King David, folktale unusual theme magical gender transformation. Insightfully breaking down these examples drawn from variety conceptual fields, succeeds his mission put speakers language equal footing speech.