Yona Sabar ( he, יוֹנָה צַבָּר, born 1938 in
Zakho,
Iraq) is a
Kurdistani Jewish scholar, linguist and researcher. He is professor ''
emeritus
''Emeritus'' (; female: ''emerita'') is an adjective used to designate a retired chair, professor, pastor, bishop, pope, director, president, prime minister, rabbi, emperor, or other person who has been "permitted to retain as an honorary title ...
'' of Hebrew at the
University of California, Los Angeles. He is a native speaker of
Northeastern Neo-Aramaic
Northeastern Neo-Aramaic (NENA) is a grouping of related dialects of Neo-Aramaic spoken before World War I as a vernacular language by Jews and Christians between the Tigris and Lake Urmia, stretching north to Lake Van and southwards to Mosul and ...
and has published more than 90 research articles about Jewish
Neo-Aramaic
The Neo-Aramaic or Modern Aramaic languages are varieties of Aramaic that evolved during the late medieval and early modern periods, and continue to the present day as vernacular (spoken) languages of modern Aramaic-speaking communities. Within ...
and the folklore of the
Jews of Kurdistan
, image = File:RABBI MOSHE GABAIL.jpg
, caption = Rabbi Moshe Gabai, head of the Jewish community of Zakho, with Israeli President Yitzhak Ben-Zvi in 1951
, pop = 200,000–300,000
, region1 =
, pop1 ...
.
Sabar was born in the town of Zakho in northern Iraq. His family moved to
Israel in 1951. He received a B.A. in Hebrew and
Arabic from the
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI; he, הַאוּנִיבֶרְסִיטָה הַעִבְרִית בִּירוּשָׁלַיִם) is a public research university based in Jerusalem, Israel. Co-founded by Albert Einstein and Dr. Chaim Weiz ...
in 1963 and a Ph.D. in Near Eastern Languages and Literatures from
Yale University in 1970.
His immigrant journey from the hills of
Kurdistan to the highways of
Los Angeles is the subject of an award-winning
memoir by his son, Ariel Sabar, an American author and journalist.
Ariel Sabar's boo
''My Father's Paradise: A Son's Search for his Jewish Past in Kurdish Iraq''won the 2008
National Book Critics Circle Award for autobiography.
Works
*''The Folk Literature of the Kurdistani Jews: An Anthology'',
Yale University Press, 232 pp., 1982.
*
*
*
References
External links
Yona Sabar's UCLA websiteMy Father's Paradise
by Ariel Sabar
Hollywood Calling
by Ariel Sabar
Prof. Sabar on the claim that Barzani is Jewish
by JTA
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sabar, Yona
Iraqi Jews
Iraqi emigrants to Israel
Kurdish Jews
1938 births
Living people
Hebrew University of Jerusalem alumni
Yale University alumni
University of California, Los Angeles faculty
University of California Near Eastern Languages and Cultures faculty
Kurdish scholars
Kurdish social scientists
American people of Iraqi-Assyrian descent
People from Zakho