Interestingly, the editors of the book in Arabic (of its production and translation I learned only after its publication) needed a picture for the front page of the book. They must have looked for a picture of Jews or ssome sort of symbol of Judaism. Someone, I guess, pulled this painting from the internet. This is a famous painting of the Jewish painter Maurycy Gottlieb (1856 – 1879), a Polish Jewish realist painter whomade significant contributions towards creating the genre of Jewish Art. Gottlieb’s 1878 paintingJews Praying in the Synagogue on Yom Kippurexemplifies many artistic values that are significant to Eastern European Jews at the time and contains many deeper meanings about Gottlieb’s short life. The religious holiday of Yom Kippur (the holiest day of the Jewish year) is shown throughout this piece by the figures and symbolism. However, it has nothing to do with the Jews of the Esat and the Jews of Kurdistan.