The article is a reminder that ethnic, religious, nationalist, and linguistic identities for a person, or a people, need not be dependent. Ishaq Bar-Moshe was

The article is a reminder that ethnic, religious, nationalist, and linguistic identities for a person, or a people, need not be dependent. Ishaq Bar-Moshe was Iraqi, he was Israeli, he was Jewish, and he was Arabian too. He wrote in Arabic, knowing not many of his Israeli compatriots could understand him, and knowing not many Arabs would want to. Language taboos are tragedy. So much is lost when a nation-state culture becomes synonymous with one language.