Dr. Mordechai (Moti) Zaken

Summary

Dr. Mordechai (Moti) Zaken (1958-04-26 – 2021-05-14) was an Israeli historian and scholar specializing in Kurdish Jewry, Kurdish tribal society, Neo-Aramaic languages, and Middle Eastern minorities. Alongside his academic work, he held public-service posts concerned with relations between the state, Arab citizens, and other minority communities. He served as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s adviser on Arab and minority affairs from 1997 to 1999 and later worked as an adviser in the Ministry of Public Security.

His best-known research examined the relationships between Jews and Kurdish tribal chieftains. Through hundreds of in-depth interviews with more than sixty elderly Kurdish Jewish informants, he created an important oral-history record of urban and rural life, tribal patronage, security, trade, conversion, migration, and immigration to Israel. His principal book on the subject was published by Brill in 2007 and was translated, in full or in part, into Arabic, Sorani and Kurmanji Kurdish, Persian, and French. In 2019 he received the Prime Minister’s Prize for encouraging and advancing research on Jewish communities in Arab countries and Iran.

Education and academic formation

Zaken earned his BA and an MA with distinction in Islamic and Middle Eastern studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he also wrote his doctoral dissertation. From 1987 to 1990 he pursued studies in the United States at the State University of New York at Binghamton and New York University. Teachers who influenced his work included Moshe Sharon, Benjamin Z. Kedar, and the Semitic linguist Gideon Goldenberg.

His dissertation, completed in 2003, was titled “Tribal Chieftains and their Jewish Subjects in Kurdistan: A Comparative Study in Survival”. It provided the foundation for his principal book on Kurdish Jews and tribal chieftains. The publisher’s author profile lists 2004 as the year of his PhD; the difference may reflect the date of dissertation completion versus formal conferral of the degree.

Journalism and early public activity

In 1982 Zaken was editor-in-chief of Pi Ha’aton, the Hebrew University student newspaper. One of his notable reports publicized a photograph taken by Arabs in 1948 showing the bodies of Jewish fighters from the convoy later known as the Nabi Daniel Convoy. He published the image and the account of its discovery in a special Independence Day issue on 1982-04-26. He was also co-editor-in-chief of Tipul Shoresh, an annual paper produced by the university’s public activists program; according to the biographical account, the administration stopped its circulation because of its criticism of university social policy.

From 1989 to 1991, online biographical sources state that Zaken served as the last national director of the Institute of Students and Faculty on Israel (ISFI) in New York. The institute operated under the auspices of Israel’s Foreign Ministry and the Israeli Consulate and supplied information and organizing tools to Jewish and pro-Israel student activists in the United States and Canada. This detail is retained with caution because the corresponding section of the English Wikipedia article does not cite an independent source.

Research on Kurdish Jews and Neo-Aramaic

The shortage of written sources on Kurdish Jewish life led Zaken to conduct extensive oral-history fieldwork. He completed hundreds of in-depth interviews with more than sixty elderly Kurdish Jewish informants. Their testimony enabled him to reconstruct relations between Jews and aghas or tribal chieftains, systems of protection and justice, the position of urban and rural communities, Jewish occupations, economic exploitation, violence, abduction and conversion to Islam, as well as the experience of the First World War and mass immigration to Israel in 1951–1952.

Jewish Subjects and Their Tribal Chieftains in Kurdistan: A Study in Survival was published by Brill in 2007 in the Jewish Identities in a Changing World series. Drawing heavily on oral sources analyzed alongside historical records, the book presents a complex picture: chieftains could provide protection, escort, and justice, while also extracting resources and exercising coercive power over their Jewish dependents. A revised electronic edition was issued in Jerusalem in 2015. A complete Arabic translation appeared in Beirut in 2013, and a Sorani Kurdish translation was published in Sulaymaniyah and Erbil in 2015. The section on Jews, Kurds, and Arabs between 1941 and 1952 also appeared in Kurmanji and French translation; biographical sources additionally attribute a Persian translation, in whole or in part, to the work.

Zaken also documented the Neo-Aramaic languages of Kurdish Jews. With Gideon Goldenberg, he published a Neo-Aramaic version of the Book of Ruth in 1990. In 1997 he published “Inventors’ Fate”, a folk tale in the Neo-Aramaic of Zakho. These studies connected his historical research with the documentation of language, oral tradition, and communal memory.

Israel–Kurdistan relations

In 1993 Zaken founded the Israel–Kurdistan Friendship League in Jerusalem together with Moshe Zaken, Meir Baruch, Michael Niebur, and Mathew B. Hand. The association sought to cultivate relations between Israelis and Jews and Kurds in Kurdistan and the diaspora. One of its first initiatives was Yedidut (“Friendship”), a newsletter edited by Zaken with Niebur and Hand and circulated among Kurdish readers around the world.

In October 2012 Zaken visited Kurdistan at the invitation of the World Kurdish Forum and participated in its second World Kurdish Scientific Congress in Erbil. In October 2013 he took part in the forum’s third congress in Stockholm and delivered a paper there. This activity joined his historical scholarship with a public effort to create channels of contact between Israelis and Kurds.

Government service and work with minorities

Between May 1997 and November 1999 Zaken served as the prime minister’s adviser on Arab and minority affairs. His work concerned relations between the government, Arab citizens, and other minority communities. From 2001 he worked as an adviser in the Ministry of Public Security. His duties included contact with local leaders, attention to intercommunal tensions, and action against hate crimes.

In 2016, within the ministry, he established a governmental forum for dialogue with Arab local-authority leaders. In 2013 he initiated, together with Christian leaders, the Government–Christians Forum to bring the concerns of the Evangelical Christian community before state authorities. Participants identified in the biographical sources included Rev. Charles Kopp of the Baptist Church and Rev. David Pileggi, rector of Christ Church at Jaffa Gate.

The Nazareth dispute

Zaken coordinated the third ministerial committee appointed to help resolve the Muslim–Christian dispute in Nazareth concerning the Shihab al-Din site near the Basilica of the Annunciation. The continuing presence of Muslim activists in the plaza became part of a dispute over preparations for an open square ahead of Pope John Paul II’s visit in 2000. Zaken drafted the final version of the cabinet resolution; between 2001 and 2003 the State Attorney relied on that decision in Supreme Court proceedings opposing the petition filed against the government.

Prize, media, and public recognition

On 2019-03-06 Zaken was announced as one of the recipients of the Prime Minister’s Prize for encouraging and advancing research on Jewish communities in Arab countries and Iran for the Hebrew year 5779. The award recognized his long-term research on Kurdish Jewry and his contribution to preserving its heritage.

Over the years Zaken appeared on radio and television and was interviewed by newspapers as an expert on the Kurds and Middle Eastern minorities. He also lectured to academic and public audiences in Israel and abroad. He died on 2021-05-14 at the age of 63.

Major publications

• “Tribal Chieftains and their Jewish Subjects in Kurdistan: A Comparative Study in Survival”, PhD dissertation, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2003.
• Jewish Subjects and Their Tribal Chieftains in Kurdistan: A Study in Survival, Brill, 2007; revised electronic edition, Jerusalem, 2015.
• Yahud Kurdistan wa-ru’as’uhum al-qabaliyun: Dirasa fi fan al-baqa’, Arabic translation by Su’ad Muhammad Khader, Beirut, 2013.
• Gulekekany Kurdistan, Sorani Kurdish translation, Sulaymaniyah and Erbil, 2015.
• “Jews, Kurds and Arabs, between 1941 and 1952”, Kurmanji translation in Metîn, no. 148, 2006, pp. 98–123.
• “Juifs, Kurdes et Arabes, entre 1941 et 1952”, Études kurdes, 2005, pp. 7–43.
• “The Jewish Communities in Kurdistan within the Tribal Kurdish Society”, in Routledge Handbook on the Kurds, 2018, pp. 181–201.
• “The Lost from the Land of Ashur – the Migrations from Kurdistan and Settlement in Eretz-Israel”, in The Tribes – Evidence of Israel, 2001, pp. 340–373 [Hebrew].
• “Inventors’ Fate: A Folk-Tale in the Neo-Aramaic of Zakho”, Massorot, vols. 9–11, 1997, pp. 383–395.
• Gideon Goldenberg and Mordechai Zaken, “The Book of Ruth in Neo-Aramaic”, in Studies in Neo-Aramaic, 1990, pp. 151–157.

Selected lectures and conferences

• “Jews, Kurds and Palestinians”, German Parliament, Berlin, 2010-10-20.
• “Genocide, Minorities and Memories”, keynote address at a symposium commemorating the Armenian genocide, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2012-04-22.
• Second World Kurdish Scientific Congress, Erbil, 2012-10-11–2012-10-15.
• Third World Kurdish Scientific Congress, Stockholm, 2013-10-11–2013-10-13.

Contribution to Sinior’s Diary

In 2019–2020 Zaken corresponded with Michael Demirel about Sinior’s Diary. After receiving the translated manuscript, he read it in full, described it as important and compelling, and encouraged its online publication. He raised a series of editorial and historical questions intended to clarify the sequence of events, the identity of places, and the distinction between eyewitness testimony, hearsay, and hypothesis.

His comments helped identify Persian and Neo-Aramaic expressions; clarify the titles khan and khanum; identify Kohna Shahr and Taze Shahr and distinguish them from modern Salmas; estimate the chronology of Simko’s conflicts and the period of captivity; and clarify where Shimon Demirel worked as a tailor. He also drew attention to the number of deaths enumerated in the diary after the assassination of Mar Shimun and to the need to say explicitly when a story had reached Sinior through other people. Explanations he proposed — for example, concerning why Assyrian forces held the Jews — were preserved as research hypotheses rather than established facts.

In the correspondence, Zaken stated that he was working on a new book containing a chapter on the Jews of Persian Kurdistan and intended to draw on several issues in the diary with full credit. The present review found no confirmation that the planned book appeared before his death. His contribution to the diary project therefore lies primarily in an early critical reading, precise questions, corrections of language and place names, and guidance on corroborating the testimony against other sources.

Response to the previous edition

On 8 May 2020 at 15:04, Zaken posted a comment on the Nash Didan website about the previous edition of the diary. The screenshot is preserved here as historical documentation of the diary’s reception before the renewed edition was prepared for demirel.co.il.

English translation from the Hebrew original: “I am only at the beginning of the book, but it is a fascinating and interesting book, rich in details about relations between Jews and Muslims in Kurdistan. It is essential reading for anyone interested in the history of the Jews and their Muslim and Christian neighbours in the Middle East.”

Research note

The English Wikipedia article was used as a map of topics, but it carries cleanup notices concerning citation style and over-citation, and its ISFI section is unsourced. Wherever possible, the account was checked against an Israeli government announcement, the National Library of Israel catalogue, publisher records, and the publications themselves. Details lacking independent confirmation are stated cautiously. The diary section is based on the original transcript of the correspondence between Mordechai Zaken and Michael Demirel.

Principal sources

• “Mordechai Zaken”, Wikipedia, English edition.
• Prime Minister’s Office and Ministry for Social Equality, announcement of the 2019 Prime Minister’s Prize for research on Jewish communities in Arab countries and Iran.
• Mordechai Zaken, Jewish Subjects and Their Tribal Chieftains in Kurdistan: A Study in Survival, Brill, 2007.
• Google Books, bibliographic record and description for Jewish Subjects and Their Tribal Chieftains in Kurdistan.
• National Library of Israel, authority record “Zaken, Mordechai (1958–)”.
• Gideon Goldenberg and Mordechai Zaken, “The Book of Ruth in Neo-Aramaic”, Studies in Neo-Aramaic, 1990.
• Mordechai Zaken, “Inventors’ Fate: A Folk-Tale in the Neo-Aramaic of Zakho”, Massorot, 1997.
• Mordechai Zaken, “The Jewish Communities in Kurdistan within the Tribal Kurdish Society”, Routledge Handbook on the Kurds, 2018.
• Dr. Mordechai Zaken’s website, biographical, scholarly achievement, publications, and lectures sections.
• MotiZaken.txt, transcript of correspondence between Mordechai Zaken and Michael Demirel, September 2019–August 2020.
• Screenshot of Mordechai Zaken’s comment on the previous edition of Sinior’s Diary on the Nash Didan website, 8 May 2020, 15:04; the website is owned by Michael Demirel.