I want my American dream back

As a little Jewish boy in the streets of Baghdad I was looked upon by Arab boys my age as inferior.

I became accustomed to it as if it were a natural phenomenon which I could do little to change.

When my family and I landed in Israel following the historic exodus of the Iraqi Jews I did not understand why we were uprooted to go to a foreign land.

But even at that tender age of nine or ten I felt that being among other Jewish boys I would no longer be looked down upon; but that was not the case.

I wondered why, why?

'We are Sephardic Jews,' my brother told me 'the Ashkenazi Jews do not think of us as equal' and so, living among my fellow Jews did not change my plight.

I left Israel to study in Europe and could not help but look back but in anger.

To my chagrin, though not as much to my surprise here too, in the cradle of Western democracies, racism and discrimination were just under their skin.

And I could feel it deep in my veins.

In France I was seen as an undesirable intruder.

In England, a foreigner, a stranger.

Though I loved the European culture and their way of life Europe was not a welcoming home To meet my yearning desire.