The National Movement

Born in Baghdad, Aharon Sason was instrumental in organizing the Zionist movement in Iraq after World War I. He established a modern Jewish school, Pardes Ha-Yeladim, in Baghdad, which employed the ivrit-be-ivrit method for teaching Hebrew. In the late 1920s, the Iraqi authorities began restricting his Zionist activities and, after the 1936 Arab riots in Mandate Palestine, they arrested him, charging him with advocating Zionism. He was acquitted and fled to Palestine, fearing for his safety. His poetry was didactic, a tool for national revival, and not noted for its aesthetic sophistication.