Published: 14 May 2025
Last updated: 14 May 2025
Following the success of last year’s stage production of Yentl, Sydney’s Shalom Collective is set to make its first foray into visual arts with Recollections, a multimedia exhibition by acclaimed Israeli artist Dor Zlekha Levy that will coincide with this year’s Vivid festival.
But unlike Yentl, which invited audiences to celebrate Yiddish culture, Recollections is an opportunity for visitors to engage with Sephardi-Mizrahi stories, as Zlekha Levy’s work is inspired by the cultural history of Arab Jews.
Zlekha Levy’s maternal grandparents arrived in Israel from Iraq in 1951. (In 1950, the Iraqi government passed legislation allowing Jews to leave the country, provided they renounce their Iraqi citizenship and relinquish their assets. Between 1950 and 1952, the vast majority of Iraqi Jews – around 125,000 – were airlifted to Israel, after which only 6,000 remained.) Growing up in Tel Aviv in the 1990s, Zleka Levy was extremely close to his Saba Ezra and Savta Margalit, and to their story of leaving Basra for northern Israel.
Comments1
Suzette20 May at 11:27 am
I loved reading this article. It’s rare for me to glimpse someone’s writing about aspects of me as a part-Arab-Jewess and part-Sephardi-Jewish woman. My first language was Hebrew. I grew up hearing Arabic music. My father spoke many languages, including Yiddish and the multiple dialects of Arabic.
But may I say that, “Slicha Habibi” to me would be translated as: “Sorry, darling” rather than the translation offered in this article as “excuse me, my friend”. But I am not a linguist. This is based on what I know growing up in the type of blended culture I was exposed to.
Thanks for writing this piece. Will this exhibition come to Melb? Or, can we get some visuals online so we can visit “virtually”?