Patriot Who Wrote Iraq’s First Film

Anwar Shāʾūl (1904–1984) was among the most renowned Arab
writers in twentieth-century Iraq. Much has been written about Shāʾūl , long
considered the archetype of the Iraqi Jewish intellectual and an embodiment of
the Arabization of the Iraqi Jewish community. He was both active in Iraqi
literary circles and in Jewish communal affairs, serving as secretary of the
lay council for the Jewish community of Baghdad from 1929–1938. Born in Hillah,
Iraq, on his mother’s side he was a descendent of Hermann Rosenfeld,…