![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1789518504_372_Local-Baggage-from-BaghDAD-1-300x284.jpg\")
Valerie David\u2019s father in Baghdad as a kid. (Courtesy of Valerie David)<\/p>\nValerie David\u2019s father in Baghdad as a kid. (Courtesy of Valerie David)<\/p>\n
Before World War II, there were more than 150,000 Jews living in Iraq. Today, there are fewer than 5,000.<\/p>\n
That exodus started in the early 1940s when pro-Nazi sentiment and even a pro-Nazi government in Iraq led to the Farhud pogrom. Valerie David\u2019s father was one of the Jews forced to flee in the wake of the pogrom.<\/p>\n
The actor and playwright wrote a one-woman show, \u201cBaggage From BaghDAD,\u201d about her father\u2019s exodus, and now she\u2019s bringing it to the Philadelphia Fringe Festival for three performances at the Asian Arts Initiative Third Floor on Vine Street.<\/p>\n
Philadelphia Fringe brings over 300 independent artistic performances to the city at more than 100 venues. David\u2019s shows will run at 7:15 p.m. on Sept. 17, 3:45 p.m. on Sept. 19 and 4:30 p.m. on Sept. 20.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was so influenced by my family\u2019s story that I decided to write a play about it. No one\u2019s aware that there was a pogrom on June 1 and 2, 1941,\u201d David said.<\/p>\n
The New York City-based playwright and performer said her father \u201cnever really talked about his past.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was very traumatic for him,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
But in 2005, David, her mother and her father went to the New York Sephardic Jewish Film Festival and watched \u201cThe Last Jews of Baghdad,\u201d a documentary about the Farhud pogrom and the decline and exodus of the Iraqi Jewish community.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was so influenced by the film because it talked about Farhud,\u201d David said. \u201cIt became something that I needed to do. I didn\u2019t realize it was going to be a show until later.\u201d<\/p>\n
After that screening, David interviewed her father about what happened. Then, she went to Greensboro, North Carolina, and talked to her aunt and uncle. Finally, she visited Queens to speak with her cousin.<\/p>\n
Her dad was 8 when he left his childhood home.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was so influenced by my family\u2019s story that I decided to write a play about it,\u201d David said.<\/p>\n
During those conversations, David learned that there were going to be gas chambers in the Middle East if Hitler had gone \u201cfurther than he did.\u201d Hitler\u2019s infamous autobiography and manifesto, \u201cMein Kampf,\u201d had also been published in Arabic, sparking antisemitic fire \u201camong Arab people.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMy grandfather had to dress as an Arab because he got beat up,\u201d David said.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1789518504_35_Local-Baggage-from-BaghDAD-2-207x300.jpg\")
Valerie David\u2019s Iraqi Jewish grandparents at their wedding. (Courtesy of Valerie David)<\/p>\n
The daughter started writing in the late 2000s. On Aug. 10, 2018, she held the first public reading of \u201cBaggage From BaghDAD\u201d in New York. Two months later, she was diagnosed with breast cancer for the third time.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had to put that on hold,\u201d she said of the play.<\/p>\n
David recovered. By 2020, she was ready to perform again, but COVID-19 broke out.<\/p>\n
Two years later, as the pandemic subsided, David brought \u201cBaggage From BaghDAD\u201d back to the stage at the Bernie Wohl Center on the Upper West Side. She had performed another one of her plays \u2014 \u201cPink Hulk: One Woman\u2019s Journey to Find the Superhero Within\u201d \u2014 at the venue before COVID. At the time, she had told the venue operators about \u201cBaggage From BaghDAD.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThey said, \u2018Why don\u2019t you do a reading?\u2019\u201d she recalled. \u201cThe night before we did the reading, my father passed away.\u201d<\/p>\n
David spoke with her mother, who told her that her father would want the show to go on. So, she took to the stage with 70 people in attendance.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was the hardest performance I\u2019ve ever had to do,\u201d the actor said.<\/p>\n
During the talkback session that night, a woman asked David what her father thought of the show.<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember I took a pause because I didn\u2019t want to make the woman uncomfortable with the answer I was about to give. I said, \u2018My father is very proud of the show, and unfortunately he passed away last night,\u2019\u201d she recalled. \u201cThere was a collective gasp. I said, \u2018I know he\u2019s up there very proud of me.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
After that night, David started traveling with the show. She performed it in Stockholm, Sweden; Vermont; and New York, among other places. It won Best Play at the 2022 Sweden Broadway World Regional Awards and the Spoken Word & Theatre Award at the 2022 Stockholm Fringe Festival.<\/p>\n
But earlier this year, David survived the \u201csuccessful removal of a malignant brain tumor,\u201d according to a news release on \u201cBaggage From BaghDAD.\u201d It turned out to be metastatic breast cancer, which she then survived for the fourth time.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1789518505_775_Local-Baggage-from-BaghDAD-3-225x300.jpg\")
Valerie David with her father on her bat mitzvah day. (Courtesy of Valerie David)<\/p>\n
After the removal, \u201cI wanted to get back on my feet,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The performer came up with the idea of bringing it to Philly. She was already on Fringe\u2019s email list. Then she got an email with information about applying.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m thrilled to be performing this show,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019ve loved Philly. I had known the Philly Fringe.\u201d<\/p>\n
David credits her resilience to her father.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey went to India for six years before they came to the U.S. They built up a life again and started over,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
jsaffren@midatlanticmedia.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Valerie David\u2019s father in Baghdad as a kid. (Courtesy of Valerie David) Before World War II, there were…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":286874,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[182,139,69,71,70],"class_list":["post-286873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=286873"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286873\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/286874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=286873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=286873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=286873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}