Salima Pasha

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Salima Mourad or Salima Murad (Arabic: سليمة مراد; ‎2 February 1900 – 28 January 1974) was an Iraqi Jewish singer who was well-known and highly respected in the Arab world. She was given the nickname "Pasha" by the Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Said. She was also known as the 'Voice of Baghdad' or 'Voice of Iraq'. When she started her career, singing in public was not considered respectable but she was much loved and respected, sang at many private homes and known for helping people financially and even interceding with the government on their behalf. The Iraqi Jewish singer Saleh al Kuwaitiy composed many songs for her, including the hit Khadri el chai (Brew the Tea) about a woman who refused to make tea until her beloved came - if he didn't come she would smash the teapot with an axe. She sang on the radio, in films and at Baghdad nightclubs, including one she ran with two other women. She married Iraqi singer and actor, Nazem Al-Ghazali. After the bulk of Iraqi Jews left Iraq, she continued to live there until her death in 1974. However from 1950, the Iraqi government banned her from singing on the radio in Iraq after an antisemitic campaign.[1] She appears in many books by Iraqi Jews. In Samir Naqqash's novel Tenants and Cobwebs, a young man falls for her and starts writing bad poetry. In Eli Amir's novel The Dove Flyer she is a "golden-throated enchantress" with fiery eyes who is "lethal" to young men, fans, poets, politicians and sheikhs. She improvises a song for the Jews who are leaving for Israel in 1950 about "the paths that don't come back".