(TIMESOFISRAEL) — As they do every year, Kurdish Jews in Israel gathered over the Sukkot holiday for their annual Saharana festival. The ancient community came together to sing, dance, eat, and trade stories from the old country in their traditional Aramaic tongue.
But this year, amid the music and revelry in the northern town of Yokne’am, an unshakable sense of worry permeated the atmosphere and conversations. In speeches and in private chats around bowls of steaming Kubbeh soup, Israel’s Kurds expressed anger and concern over the plight of their Kurdish brethren fighting against the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq.
“If you send me, I’ll go to the Kurds to fight Daesh,” said old-timer Yossi Mizrahi with a smile, using the Arabic name for IS. “I’d go tomorrow,” promised Mizrahi, born in the town of Sanandaj in Iranian Kurdistan.
Advertisement - story continues below
