Baghdadi Jewish Networks in the Age of Nationalism explores different components of Baghdadi participation in global Jewish networks through the modernization of communal leadership, satellite communities, transnational Jewish philanthropy and secular education during the Hashemite period (1920-1951).

The Jewish community in Baghdad used to speak its own dialect of Arabic, which was distinct from the one spoken by its Muslim and Christian neighbors. This dialect served as their mother tongue for centuries, up until the massive immigration of Iraqi Jews to Israel following its establishment. Today, a few thousand native speakers of the dialect are still alive, but, unfortunately, in the next few decades this ancient dialect will evidently become extinct. To commemorate this historical community, this volume glances into its language and culture. It provides the reader with a firsthand opportunity to read transcriptions and translations of original oral texts by native speakers. The texts cover different aspects of the community's lives, including its history, traditions, cuisine, folk stories, personal stories of immigration, absorption difficulties in Israel, and even a collection of small talks. The volume opens with a grammatical sketch of the phonological and morphological system of the dialect. It focuses on the most important features to enable readers a fluent reading.

Haim Blanc’s Communal Dialects in Baghdad is one of the most influential works ever written on the on the linguistic diachrony of vernacular Arabic. Based on original fieldwork conducted during the years 1957–1962, this book portaits the extensive regional continuum of modern spoken Arabic stretching across parts of Mesopotamia and N. Syria, evinced by the Muslim, Jewish, and Christian speech communities in Baghdad. Typos and other mistakes have been corrected in this reprint, which is accompanied by an Editorial Preamble by Alexander Borg and a Foreword by Paul Wexler, and contains references to the original page numbers.

This collection of essays brings to Jewish Language Studies the conceptual frameworks that have become increasingly important to Jewish Studies more generally: transnationalism, multiculturalism, globalization, hybrid cultures, multilingualism, and interlingual contexts. Languages of Modern Jewish Cultures collects work from prominent scholars in the field, bringing world literary and linguistic perspectives to generate distinctively new historical, cultural, theoretical, and scientific approaches to this topic of ongoing interest. Chapters of this edited volume consider from multiple angles the cultural politics of myths, fantasies, and anxieties of linguistic multiplicity in the history, cultures, folkways, and politics of global Jewry. Methodological range is as important to this project as linguistic range. Thus, in addition to approaches that highlight influence, borrowings, or acculturation, the volume represents those that highlight syncretism, the material conditions of Jewish life, and comparatist perspectives.