Rachel Wahba

Writer, Speaker, Psychotherapist

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“Exactly Similar”: from Mecca to Charlottesville

Sep 11, 2017

“Exactly Similar”: from Mecca to Charlottesville

In the mid-1950’s a Saudi company approached my father, Moussa Wahba, an Egyptian import exporter of textiles from cotton goods to keffiyehs, and fine porcelain. His impeccable track record with the Gulf states was about to give him a huge order. The request was specific: 1600 military uniforms for the Saudi army “exactly the same” as U.S. army. My father with the help of Nomura Trading, secured an empty warehouse and enough sewing machines for the project. Finding the seamst

Rachel Wahba is a writer, psychotherapist, and co-founder of Olivia Travel/Companies. An Iraqi -Egyptian Jew, born in India, she grew up in Japan.

The many dimensions of

displacement and exile are a constant theme in her work as a writer, therapist, and in her activism as a Mizrahi Jew who grew up stateless.