We Were Here Before the Pot Was Baked
(Kurdish Jews, Iranian Arabs, and the genome that outlives the lie)
Before the wheel,
before the script,
before the seal
or the shepherd’s flute,
we were here.
In Çayönü,
in the bones of Nevalı Çori,
in the hands that raised Göbekli Tepe
to speak with stars,
we were already breathing.
Before “Kurd” was carved into language,
before “Jew” was confined to temples,
we walked the stone paths
barefoot and without border.
Kurdish Jews—
not exiled, not foreign,
but native to the fire
lit in ancient Anatolia.
They grew grain before nations,
sacrificed lamb before Levites,
and buried their dead
with a whisper that still lives
in the Kurdish genome.
And “Iraq” before pottery—
yes, even there
the soil speaks our name.
Not with certainty,
but with shadows that point
to a people Kurdish
and perhaps Jewish,
long before cities,
before Akkad,
before Assur claimed the skies.
Iranian Arabs—
they too walk with memory,
but their root is clouded.
Their origin myth bends under politics,
and the genome
has not yet spoken clearly.
They are called outsiders,
though they breathe in the dust
of a land that forgot
who first fed the flame.
Their blood may reach back,
or it may have come later—
but until truth is certain,
we speak with caution.
Still, the genome remembers
what borders distort.
It traces veins
through Anatolia, Mesopotamia, Khuzestan—
names that shift,
but never disappear.
So when they ask,
Where are you from?
I answer:
Before the pot was baked.
Before borders.
Before even “Iraq” had a name—
we were already home.