Linda Menuhin | |
---|---|
ليندا عبد العزيز | |
Born | Linda Abdul Aziz 1950 (age 73–74) Baghdad, Iraq |
Other names | Linda Abdul Aziz Menuhin, Linda Menuhin Abdul Aziz, Linda Menuhin Abdul–Aziz, Linda Abu Aziz Menuhin |
Occupation(s) | Journalist, editor, blogger |
Father | Yaakub Abdul Aziz |
Linda Abdul Aziz Menuhin (born 1950; Arabic: ليندا عبد العزيز, Hebrew: לינדה מנוחין) is an Iraqi-born Israeli journalist, editor, and blogger who has written for Arab news.[1] Menuhin was a refugee to Israel in the 1970s and has been nicknamed, the "Anne Frank of Iraq".[2] She previously served as head of the Middle East desk and commentator on Arab affairs on Arabic television channel 1.[1] She was the subject of the 2013 Israeli documentary film Shadow in Baghdad, directed by Duki Dror.[3]
Menuhin was born in 1950 in Baghdad, Iraq into an Arab Jewish family.[4][5] After the Six-Day War in 1967, the Jews of Baghdad became targets.[6] At the age of 21, she fled to Israel via Pahlavi Iran with her brother. A few months later her mother and sister did the same route, leaving her father behind.[5] When she first arrived in Israel in 1971, there was a struggle for people to understand the history of Jews in Iraq and she has expressed feeling like, "there was no room for the Arab culture in Israel" during that time.[6]
In 1972 her father, Yaakub Abdul Aziz, a prominent lawyer in Iraq, was abducted by government agents and was never heard of again.[4][5] In the following years in Iraq, Saddam Hussein was put into power, by which point many of Baghdad's Jews had fled, were missing, or had been killed.[7]
The film Shadow in Baghdad is about Menuhin's family and trying to answer some of the unsolved mysteries around her father’s disappearance and the disappearance of Baghdad's Jewish population.[5]
In 1981, Menuhin started working for Arabic television on Channel 1 (Israel), first as a magazine editor and later as head of the Middle East desk.[1] She later worked as a consultant with the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs for the Arabic digital media.[8][9]