Folktales of the Kurdistani Jews

Jonah ben Gabriel

ca. 1843

The Plague of Hailstones

The year 5573 (1813) was a leap year (in the Jewish calendar). On the twenty-fourth of Nisan, the Sabbath right after Passover, after midday, the skies became overcast and rain fell. Afterward it hailed for about half an hour. The hailstones were large and small, some as big as walnuts. However, a few people came forth…

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Creator Bio

Jonah ben Gabriel

1772–ca. 1850s

What we know about Jonah ben Gabriel comes largely from his Folktales of the Kurdistani Jews, written around 1843, as the book includes numerous digressions on current events, superstitions, and other phenomena affecting life in his hometown Arbil—the capital of today’s Iraqi Kurdistan. A pious Jew, ben Gabriel played a prominent role in Arbil, including overseeing the building of a synagogue and negotiating the purchase of a town area from the Turkish governor to allow Jews to carry items on the Sabbath.

Related Guide

Folk Tales and Fiction, 1750–1880

The “return to history” of Jews in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and engagement between Jews and their majority cultures offered new models for imaginative writing beyond those within their ancestral traditions.

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