Iraqis in Pajamas

Dance as an act of solidarity

Iraqis in Pajamas’ new album is a tribute to the victims of the Oct. 7 massacre.

In the wake of the Oct. 7 massacre of Israelis…. And the celebrations that followed worldwide – glorifying the raping, burning and decapitating of my people….

And the subsequent mass destruction of posters raising awareness of Israeli hostages being tortured in captivity by Hamas….

And the simultaneous call for a violent uprising against Jews worldwide….

And the astronomical spike in hate crimes against Jews – among other things, leading to incessant harassment, assaults and death threats of students at my alma mater, Columbia University, and additionally leading to the murder of a kind Jewish man I knew in Los Angeles….

And the international mob chants of “From the river to the sea,” harkening back to the harrowing cries my father heard on Arabic radio stations as a child in Iraq, “We will throw the Jews into the sea.”…

And the palpable terror I then felt as a Jew, whose family had seen this before, had fled this before, in a pro-Nazi uprising in Baghdad, where a similar massacre had taken place during my father’s childhood….

And the deafening silence in the wake of all this – not even one word of care or kindness from the vast majority of non-Jewish people I had loved, had lived with, had broken bread with….

And I felt as if I had died.

I stopped journaling, stopped writing poetry, stopped writing music, stopped singing, stopped playing bass, stopped dancing. I got sick repeatedly and continuously over the course of two months, even ended up in the emergency room with symptoms of a possible stroke at 2 a.m. one night – this, after years and years of never getting sick, not once, not even when my ex got COVID and I nursed him back to health.

I couldn’t sleep, had nightmares, woke up in the middle of the night, lying awake for hours, my mind circling around and around, imagining the horror and terror the hostages must be suffering through. I was haunted by the video image I accidentally had seen of a young Jewish woman who was naked and chained, publicly being dragged around by Hamas, as they filmed her – one of the many Jewish women they gang raped and mutilated that day, often next to the dead bodies of these women’s friends – filming that violence, too, in something akin to snuff porn.

I could feel it in my body.

I couldn’t breathe.

I couldn’t move.

Despite the impact on me, I felt that, somehow, by energetically experiencing and, by extension, by physically experiencing the pain that my people were enduring, I was communicating a telepathic message to them: I will not forsake you, I will not forget you.

No, I will not frolic on the beach beneath the misty grey soothing skies. No, I will not enjoy the quiet, peace and comfort of the vast rainforest just outside my door. No, I will not detach myself from something “happening on the other side of the world,” as a non-

Jewish acquaintance kindly advised, because there is no “other side of the world” when it comes to Jews. You are me, and I am you, and we are connected. I cannot control the world’s response, but I can control mine. I will face, see, hear and feel your pain, until it is gone.

But wait…. That’s exactly what Hamas wants, isn’t it? To demoralize and destroy Jews. To suffocate us, hijack our imagination. To strip us of our dignity, safety, peace and, perhaps most of all, joy.

So, to reclaim my joy is, in fact, a radical act of Jewish power and solidarity. To flip imagination on its head – instead of visualizing all the horrors and shrinking in my body, to instead expand in my body and visualize all the hostages, injured people and

grieving families as resilient, grounded, surrounded by love, and the dead as soaring freely and peacefully, wrapping their loved ones in comfort.

Nothing is black and white, but this is an article, not a book, so I’m trying to keep it short and sweet. Suffice it to say, I actively and repeatedly attempted to turn the images around over the course of two months – to send white light, to bless the hostages, to emit some kind of protective energetic shield, but it kept seeming silly, foolish, without actual impact, perhaps just making myself feel better, like a hollow New Ager. My prayers would not stop a psychopathic Hamas gunman with absolute control over a hostage, I reasoned, because G-d gave humans both the gift and curse of free will.

But then….

But then I went to a concert of Yemen Blues, which was more of a primal howl of freedom than a “performance,” and which featured an Israeli woman dancing with a defiant, raw ferocity that brought back to life the sanctity, dignity and power of the Jewish female body – and, with that, permission to dance.

And, after that, I started dancing again. And, after that, I started singing again. And, after that, I started frolicking with my beautiful dog beneath the misty grey, soothing skies on the beach, and through the vast rainforest just outside my door.

And I came back to life.

In this very difficult but transformative journey, I learned that life begets life begets life, and artistic self-expression is not an indulgence, but rather, a superpower.

As I danced on the beach with my dog over a couple of days, a vision emerged – a global movement of Jews and our allies taking videos of ourselves dancing joyfully, and sending those videos to the people wounded in the Oct. 7 massacre, the families of those who died, the families of those taken hostage, and the young women and men on the frontlines defending Israel from further attack – turning “we will dance again” into “we will dance for you until you can dance again” – sharing whatever strength, freedom and joy we have to uplift those who are in the thick of it, struggling and suffering.

Having snapped out of an emotional coma of sorts, I then picked up my bass, and out poured both the melody and lyrics of a new song, “’Til You Can Dance Again.” That same day, I finally finished the song I had started a few weeks after Oct. 7, “Dear Hostages.” Not having touched my bass for the better part of three months, I played until my fingers were blistered and almost bleeding. Over the next 24 hours, I wrote two additional songs, and then worked with my band on developing a full album, ’Til You Can Dance Again, offering both my journey and my joy as a catalyst for healing and transformation.

It is through song, dance, story, prayer and food that Jews historically have not only overcome tragedy, but have taken that very experience and transmuted it into an vehicle for joy – the ultimate “f*** you” to those who have tried to destroy us. For this reason, my band released our new album on March 23, at the start of Purim, a holiday marking one of many historical traumas that the Jewish people have turned on its head and morphed into a cause for celebration. My heartfelt prayer for this album is that, as broken as we may feel right now, we shall once again rise up, sing and dance ourselves back to wholeness, and honour the victims of Oct. 7 not only through our grief and pain, but also through our fierce and irrepressible Jewish joy – emerging, once again, like that unstoppable phoenix, soaring up and out from the ashes.

Loolwa Khazzoom (khazzoom.com) is the frontwoman for the band Iraqis in Pajamas and editor of The Flying Camel: Essays on Identity by Women of North African and Middle Eastern Jewish Heritage (theflyingcamelbook.com). She has been a pioneering Jewish multicultural educator since 1990, and her writing has been featured in the Washington Post, Marie Claire, Rolling Stone and other top media worldwide. This article was originally published in the Times of Israel.

More about the album

On March 23, Iraqis in Pajamas released the album ‘Til You Can Dance Again, as a tribute to the victims of the Oct. 7 massacre.

Its creation served as a vehicle for Khazzoom’s processing and healing, and the tone of the songs evolved as Khazzoom herself evolved from feeling despair to outrage to core power.

“Dear Hostages” is a love song to those held in captivity, in which Khazzoom pledges, I will not forsake you, I will not forget you, as she explores what it means to act in solidarity from afar.

“’Til You Can Dance Again” is a spin on the Israeli promise, “We will dance again” – vowing to spread the life energy of dance, to help uplift the spirits of those who were shattered by the massacre.

“Bataween” draws from a conversation with an Iraqi Muslim friend, exemplifying the healing imperative of Arab Muslims recognizing and caring about the history of indigenous Middle Eastern Jews, including the experience of Arab Muslim oppression.

“Kids from the Sandbox” builds on that imperative, holding out a vision for Arabs and Jews to embrace the complexity of shared history, using art to express love and hate in healthy ways, effectively co-creating a new reality.

“I’m a F***-You Jew” fuses ancient and contemporary stories of Jewish defiance and soul power in an unabashed expression of Jewish pride and strength amid an onslaught of global accusation and condemnation.

“These Boots” is a campy spin on “never again,” calling out the left’s hypocrisy and betrayal in the wake of Oct. 7, and refusing to contribute Jewish energy and resources to those who do not offer the same in turn.

“Bloody Cross” is a scathing critique of the Red Cross’s racism and hypocrisy in its failure and refusal to properly care for the Israeli hostages in Gaza.

For the full press release, and to listen to the recordings, visit khazzoom.com/blog and click on ’Til You Can Dance Again – New Album Release.

– Courtesy Iraqis in Pajamas

From poems to songs

Loolwa Khazzoom (photo by Moriel O’Connor)

“Dear Hostages, as the world rallies to celebrate your desecration I will not forsake you,” begins the poem written by Seattle-based multimedia artist and educator Loolwa Khazzoom. Posted on her Facebook page, with a #BringThemHomeNow poster featuring photos of Israelis kidnapped on Oct. 7, it continues, “My instinct is to deprive myself of oxygen / Because you are underground / And I will not forget you // But I know that you would dance / In the sun / If given the chance / So I now rise up / And dance for you.”

Many of Khazzoom’s songs begin as poems. In this case, she told the Independent, “I felt as if I could not breathe and as if I did not even want to breathe, out of solidarity with the hostages and with all of Israel, in particular, all the victims of the Oct. 7 massacre. It’s like I wanted to physically feel their pain and suffering, as a way of physically demonstrating that I would not forsake them or forget them.”

In a traumatized mental state, Khazzoom returned to the “healing tools of poetry and music,” which was another way she could show her solidarity and do her part in keeping the issue of the hostages in front of people.

Similarly, Khazzoom and her band, Iraqis in Pajamas, recently released another poem-turned-song, “#MahsaAmini.” They did so this past Sept. 16, the first anniversary of the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini at the hands of Iranian “morality police.”

Finding out about Amini’s murder soon after it took place, from TikTok videos posted by Iranian women, Khazzoom “jumped into action.” She wrote to her political representatives, raised funds for United 4 Iran and reposted Iranian women’s videos on her feed constantly, to help boost the content’s views. “In addition,” she said, “a day after I found out about what happened, a poem with my feelings poured out of me, and I posted it on social media. Months later, I put that poem to a melody, and the band developed it into a full band song, which we released on the [anniversary of the] day of Amini’s murder.”

The death affected Khazzoom deeply for many reasons.

“First, the women in my family wore the abaya, the Iraqi equivalent of the hijab – Jewish women throughout the region were subject to Muslim dress codes, so it’s a Jewish issue, too,” she said. “Second, so many people assume that Islam is indigenous throughout the Middle East and North Africa, but it’s not. Arab Muslims rose up from the Arabian Peninsula and conquered the entire region, forcibly converting masses under the threat of death. So many indigenous ethnicities and religions predated the Muslim conquest, including Jews, Persians, Berbers and Kurds. The Iranian women protesting and burning their hijabs felt to me like challenging that Muslim conquest and awakening the ancient Persian warriors. Third, Persia is central to Jewish history and the origins of the Mizrahi community, dating back nearly three millennia ago…. And, lastly, the fire of these women, and the men who joined them, and their willingness to risk their lives for their dignity and freedom was just breathtaking and profoundly inspirational.”

Another of Iraqis in Pajamas’ releases this year was also intensely personal for Khazzoom.

“I wrote ‘The Convert’s Quest’ in response to some friends on social media sharing how hurt they were, coming under attack during the process of their conversion to Judaism. I had ample experience witnessing variations on this theme throughout my life – both first-person, seeing it happen to friends, and through my research as a Jewish multicultural educator. For decades, I felt very disturbed by this seemingly growing trend.

“I am the daughter of a Jew by choice, as my mother called herself, so the matter of conversion to Judaism is very personal for me,” she said. “I remember understanding very clearly as an Orthodox Jewish child that, according to halachah (Jewish law), once you convert, you are no longer to be called ‘a convert,’ but rather, a Jew, period. So, even from a religious Jewish perspective itself, I was very distraught by the ways that Jewish leaders and communities were rejecting or harassing converts, or even all-out forbidding people from converting. It all flies in the face of Jewish history, theology and practice.”

The band released “The Convert’s Quest” on May 24, on the harvest holiday of Shavuot, which celebrates the giving of the Torah to the Jewish people and on which the Book of Ruth is read. It tells the story of Ruth, a Moabite woman who converted to Judaism, whom Jewish tradition teaches will be the ancestor of the Messiah.

“To me, Jewish converts are the lifeblood of the Jewish people,” said Khazzoom. “I have a provocative line in my song, saying that converts are ‘the most Jewish Jews of all,’ because they are intentionally and consciously practising the foundational precepts of Judaism, which so many either take for granted or do rote, as is often the case in the Orthodox Jewish world where I was raised. In addition, amidst life-threatening levels of racism and violence against Jews, converts choose Judaism…. Why would we reject, in any way, from subtle to blatant, someone with such a heroic Jewish soul?”

Even when delivered in a playful manner, Khazzoom’s song are serious to the core. The campy “Kitchen Pirate,” for example, “emerged from my choice to reject the conventional option of surgery, in the wake of a cancer diagnosis in 2010,” she said. “Instead, I chose to radically alter my diet and lifestyle. Simply by overhauling my diet, I cold-stopped the growth of the nodules, which remained stable for the next five years – neither growing nor shrinking – until I returned to my lost-love of music, following which they began shrinking.”

Khazzoom said her songs “are always questioning, always challenging, always defiant. Sometimes, it’s more explicit, other times it’s embedded in silliness, which, parenthetically, I also see as defiant. I am and forever will be a curious, playful and awe-inspired child. I think that, if and when we ‘outgrow’ that, we die inside. And I refuse to capitulate to that norm of expected behaviour once we enter adulthood. By way of example, to this day, at age 54, when I am flying in a plane, if there is nobody sitting next to me, I will stretch out my arms and pretend I’m a bird, during takeoff.”

Not everyone has appreciated this aspect of her personality. “I have constantly gotten into trouble for it and have been at odds with my family, my community and society at large,” said Khazzoom. “I have endured terrible loneliness and often even self-doubt as a result. But I always come back to my core. And all of my songs emerge from that place – that raw, gut-wrenching place of being fiercely alive and allowing the clash with everything around me, and then writing about it.”

It is this enthusiasm that Victoria-based band member Mike Deeth enjoys about being in Iraqis in Pajamas, whose third member is Chris Belin.

“Loolwa and Chris are both easy-going, creative people. The energy is very positive, which makes collaborating with them fun and organic,” Deeth told the Independent. “Further, I appreciate the passion Loolwa has for the subject matter she writes about. One thing I always struggled with as a musician is ‘What do I have to say?’ At the end of the day, I’m a privileged guy who has never had to face oppression, hate, war or genocide. I have a lot of respect for artists who have experienced darker parts of humanity and have the courage to bring that perspective into their art.”

Born in Toronto, Deeth, who is not Jewish, spent most of his adolescence in Calgary, and moved to Vancouver Island when he was 18. He first picked up a guitar a few years earlier and has been playing ever since. “I was in my first band at 18 and played in bands throughout my 20s. For the past several years, I have been mainly focused on recording,” he said.

photo - Mike Deeth — Mike Deeth *(photo from Mike Deeth)*

Deeth got hooked on music production in his teens, getting his first digital recorder at age 16. “I still remember pulling all-nighters with friends trying to write songs and get ideas down on tape. Production was always fascinating to me, as I could layer parts together into something bigger than I could ever play on my own.”

Deeth and Khazzoom met a couple of years ago through a Craigslist posting. “She was looking for a guitarist to contribute to an early version of her track ‘The Convert’s Quest,’” he explained, complimenting Khazzoom on the fact that she “puts her full heart into her songs.”

“I recorded some initial guitar demos and, about a year later, we reconnected and worked up the current releases,” he said.

Deeth adds guitar to the songs and completes the mix and master of the songs when they are ready for those steps. Khazzoom sings, writes and plays bass, while Belin – who lives in Pennsylvania – composes the drum parts and performs them.

Among his other music ventures, Deeth has “played the guitar with Bryce Allan, a country musician here on the island, and recorded a few tracks with him. I also work closely with Jennie Tuttle, another musician from Victoria. We have been recording together for seven or eight years now.”

For Deeth, “recording is such an interesting combination of art and science. I get to be musically creative, but I also get to play with cool machines, solve problems and think about gain staging, compression ratios and other technical aspects. I thoroughly enjoy both the artistic and scientific parts of the process – they work my mind in different ways.

“I also love how each project starts as a blank canvas and ends with a new piece of music out in the world. There are an almost infinite number of possibilities when recording a track (all the possible settings on the equipment, the subtleties of different instruments) and it always fascinates me how each song takes shape during the process.”

“Mike has an exquisite sensitivity in his musical composition, performance and recording,” said Khazzoom. “He’s not only super-talented and -skilled, but he’s warm, upbeat, enthusiastic and professional. It’s a joy to create music with him. As is the case with our drummer Chris Belin, Mike has an uncanny ability to capture the essence of the songs I write, to the point that I feel he is playing back to me the sound of my soul. I have literally sat and cried after hearing the mixes.”

For more on Khazzoom, visit khazzoom.com. For more on Deeth’s production and sound services, visit glowingwires.com.

Khazzoom has new EP

The cover of Iraqis in Pajamas’ new album, Pijamama, features Loolwa Khazzooom’s grandfather, Abraham Khazzoom.

The multifaceted, multicultural and impossible-to-pigeonhole Loolwa Khazzoom is back, along with her band, Iraqis in Pajamas, with a studio-produced album, Pijamama, that was released on July 16.

The new album by the Seattle-based musician honours her mother, E.J., who passed away on July 16, 2019, and who encouraged Khazzoom to pursue her music. Khazzoom credits E.J. with demonstrating that we all have “the ability to radically transform ourselves and our relationships – and to stop the crushing boulder of intergenerational trauma – when are willing to face and go through the darkness together.”

A photo of Khazzoom’s grandfather, Abraham Khazzoom, who she describes as “the original Iraqi in pajamas,” graces the album’s cover. The band’s name, she explained, derives from an uncomplimentary reputation Iraqi expatriates had in the Israeli city of Ramat Gan for putting on their pajamas when they had arrived home and the work of the day was completed.

The EP features Khazzoom on vocals and bass, Robbie Morsehead on drums, Cali Hackmann on keyboard and backup vocals, and Alden Hackmann on guitar. The melodies and lyrics were written by Khazzoom. Pijamama showcases three songs.

“Mahalnu” explores the Jewish practice of asking forgiveness ahead of Yom Kippur. It then raises the question of what happens when someone asks for forgiveness, without changing their behaviour, especially in the case of violence. “What is the difference between forgiveness of you and erasure of me?” Khazzoom asks.

“The Fixer,” a declarative prayer, advocates the rejection of compensating for another person’s not doing necessary work in a relationship. The chorus, “ashir shir hadash” (“I will sing a new song”), comes from “Ezer Musarai,” an Iraqi Jewish song for Purim, which inspired Khazzoom as a child.

“Fireball” looks at being a caregiver in spite of emotional violence. The lyrics proclaim: “You can be downright vicious / Throwing a fireball / At the one who cares most about you / The one who is always there for you….”

photo - Loolwa Khazzoom — Loolwa Khazzoom *(photo from Iraqis in Pajamas)*

Khazzoom has had a varied career. Among other things, she has been an educator, writer and health coach, all of which share, she says, the central principle of individual and collective healing. Ultimately, Khazzoom says she “ditched her power suit and Powerpoint in favour of combat boots and cat glasses to offer bold songwriting as the catalyst for deep and heart-centred conversation.”

The connections between her diverse activities have been subjects she has long contemplated.

“I have been keenly aware of interconnectedness since I was very young, partly because I was highly sensitive and thinking about things deeply, and partly because my identities were a crisscross of those considered at odds or even at war with each other – making it obvious to me that many social constructs and divisions were false,” Khazzoom explained.

“My songs reflect this awareness – explicitly or implicitly connecting dots between things that most people don’t initially recognize as being related to each other, and inviting listeners to rethink their notions and paradigms.”

Khazzoom said she likes to play with this crisscross of identities. For example, people may react one way if she tells them she is Iraqi, and another way if she tells them she is Jewish.

“People generally like shortcuts or scripts in determining what to think about someone, instead of doing the work of getting to know someone, with all the complexity and nuance involved…. I am the same person, yet an entirely different set of assumptions are projected on to me. Standing at the intersection of identities and experiences, I can poke fun at the absurdity of it all,” she said.

Khazzoom refers to her music as “conscious rock,” a way of exploring all our emotions, especially those that allow us to be loud in a healthy way.

“As a collective, we fear intense emotions like rage and grief, and we suppress those feelings in ourselves and others, leading to astronomical levels of addiction and a host of other social and personal ills,” she said. “I believe that all of our emotions are a gift, a GPS system of sorts, pointing us in the direction of that which is true and good, and I find it tremendously liberating, healing and transformative, to express the spectrum of emotions in healthy and constructive ways.”

Khazzoom’s songs are written in English, Judeo-Arabic and Hebrew, and blend Iraqi Jewish prayers, alternative rock and personal storytelling about subjects ranging from cancer, racism and mental illness to national exile.

For more information, visit iraqisinpajamas.com. To participate in the evolution of Loolwa’s work, from poem to spoken word performance to song, go to patreon.com/khazzoom?fan_landing=true.

Sam Margolis has written for the Globe and Mail, the National Post, UPI and MSNBC.

Video on healing, light

Loolwa Khazzoom in Iraqis in Pajamas’ video for their song “Cancer Is My Engine,” to be released on Chanukah. (photo by Ailisa Newhall)

With shared themes of finding light in the darkness, Seattle-area band Iraqis in Pajamas is releasing the video for their song “Cancer Is My Engine” on Chanukah.

Amid the global pandemic, volunteer cast and crew drove in from across Washington state, donning masks and practising social distancing, to film the music video against the backdrop of the Olympic Peninsula forest.

The video tells the story of front woman Loolwa Khazzoom’s choice to reject the conventional thyroidectomy treatment for thyroid cancer, despite medical and financial pressure. Khazzoom instead chose to approach the diagnosis as an opportunity for radically transforming her life, such as by going vegan and practising numerous forms of mind-body medicine. (See jewishindependent.ca/healing-powers-of-song.)

After cold-stopping the growth of the nodules for years, through these measures, Khazzoom moved to Washington state from California, returned to her lost love of music, and launched her band, which combines ancient Iraqi Jewish prayers with original alternative rock. Immediately following, the thyroid nodules began shrinking. Through magical realism and metaphor, the music video reveals how, by listening to her inner voice, Khazzoom self-healed through her actual voice, by singing – the ability to do which may have been destroyed by a thyroidectomy, given the proximity of the thyroid gland and vocal chords.

The video begins with Khazzoom standing at the edge of a cliff, singing the opening line of the song, “Cancer is my engine.” As she sings, a candle is lit by her voice. She is transported to a forest, where she is searching in the dark with the light of that candle. She comes across a stuffed bear – representing Khazzoom’s mother – and picks it up, then continues on her quest.

An insurance agent and doctor appear and begin chasing Khazzoom. As she runs from them, she comes to a fork in the road – with the doctor on one side and the insurance agent on the other. She pauses, then runs forward, where there is no path, heading toward the light. She keeps running until she comes to a cliff and jumps off it.

photo - Loolwa Khazzoom in the “Cancer Is My Engine” video — Loolwa Khazzoom in the “Cancer Is My Engine” video. *(photo by Ailisa Newhall)*

She lands in the middle of a drumming circle and starts dancing wildly. A few scenes later, she is drumming in the middle of the circle, and everyone else is dancing around her. Both circles represent the pivotal importance of music and dance in Khazzoom’s healing. The video then shifts from magical realism and metaphor to real-life shots, with the band playing music in a vegetable patch in Khazzoom’s garden, representing Khazzoom’s regimen of juicing daily and eating a whole-foods, plant-based diet. The video ends with Khazzoom standing on the edge of the cliff and singing the last words of the song, in the original a cappella Iraqi Jewish prayer that exalts the power of the Divine.

The video was sponsored by nonprofit Healing Journeys and funded by the Lloyd Symington Foundation, both of which offer programs for people living with and healing from cancer.

Studies on the healing possibilities of music are documented in books like The Power of Music by Elena Mannes and The Healing Power of Sound by oncologist Dr. Mitchell Gaynor, and the National Institutes of Health has launched a series of studies on the healing powers of music. Whether singing lullabies or sacred chants, mothers and religious leaders have known for millennia what scientists are only beginning to understand. Singing bypasses our mental process, both awakening and soothing us at the core. Among other benefits, we are able to access, release and heal from the experience of trauma, without having to recount and risk getting triggered by painful memories.

Khazzoom has had a career as an educator, activist, journalist, health coach, and more, all with the central organizing principle of individual and collective healing. Her work has been featured in media including the New York Times and Rolling Stone; she has presented at venues including Harvard University and the Simon Wiesenthal Centre; and she has published two books, which are taught at universities nationwide.

Iraqis in Pajamas comprises Khazzoom on both vocals and bass, Sean Sebastian on guitar and Robbie Morsehead on drums. The trio opens up audiences to contemplation about trauma, healing and transformation, whether addressing domestic violence, cancer, racism, mental illness, street harassment, family caregiving or national exile.