Remember and Be Grateful

Gratitude is the mother of Happiness. Happy people make the world a better place, and unhappy people do not. Gratitude doesn’t come naturally; parents must teach their children to say thank you a million times a day. Memory is the mother of gratitude. If we do not remember our past, it is difficult to improve our present or build a better future.

I first experienced gratitude as a young boy in Baghdad, Iraq, running to Yumma, my paternal grandmother. She was old, walked with a limp and would hug me when I was crying, saying, “Don’t cry, Ayuni” (my eyes), “You’re going to be rich.” I didn’t understand the connection between my pain and being rich, but I knew the feeling of being comforted and came to deeply appreciate it.  Later, I realized she had survived extreme poverty when she was widowed in her mid-20s after a plague ravished Baghdad. Left with three boys, she survived with the help of the Jewish community, who supplied second-hand clothing and food. 

Like everyone, I couldn’t choose my parents, genes or environment. The only thing in my power was how I reacted to uncontrollable and unpredictable events. In spite of the broken dreams, disappointments and failures I have faced in my life, I learned to create new dreams, build upon disappointments and make failures a stepping stone to success. 

Developing gratitude didn’t come easily. My first major disappointment came after high school. My dreams of studying in the United States vanished when Iraq refused to give me an exit visa, solely for being Jewish. I became bitter, feeling betrayed by my own country. In 1948, following the failed Arab military campaign against the newly born State of Israel, Iraq turned against its Jewish population, which had resided there for over 2,500 years. Accusations of Zionism triggered summary arrests, torture, imprisonment, and public executions. It became impossible for me to stay in Iraq.  In December 1949, at age 19 and without saying goodbye, I left my family and culture behind, risking my life to smuggle out in a riverboat hidden underneath hay, traveling from Iraq to Iran and finally to Israel.

When I arrived in Israel, I kissed the ground. I tasted freedom for the first time — walking freely, talking freely and sleeping freely. It is impossible to describe that feeling to those born into a free society. However, I also became homeless and penniless refugee, standing in line with a tin plate in a camp, sleeping on a steel bed with a straw mattress in a tent anchored in the sand, without electricity or water. Soon, I realized I couldn’t survive solely on freedom. As a spoiled teenager from Baghdad, this harsh new reality made me miserable and I made everybody around me miserable. I felt alone and depressed and asked, “Why me?”

In the darkness of night, a voice, perhaps from God, awakened me: “What are you complaining about? You made it out of Iraq safely. You are young and healthy in a free country. Pick yourself up and build your future.” I walked out of my tent, looked at the stars, and felt grateful for the unlimited potential ahead. Looking at the other tents, I realized everyone faced the same situation; I was not alone.

Instead of university, I joined the compulsory service of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). After three months of grueling training, I served in the Navy in Haifa, where my aunt and uncle lived. I learned discipline, camaraderie and mutual support. After finishing my service two years and four months later, I felt truly matured, grateful for my transformation and full of hope and ambition. I felt happy with the new me. 

The dream of higher education still kindled in me. In 1956, I moved to Montreal, Canada, to attend Sir George Williams College. A harsh reality set in: at 26, facing a new culture, language, severe weather and no money, I painfully dropped out to find a job. With no profession, no degree, nor special talent, the job market was limited. 

I dreamed of traveling the world, marrying and giving my future children the education I missed. Jealous of the wealthy people I met, including Holocaust survivors, and wanting to emulate them, I asked them the secret to their wealth. The common answer was that they all started from zero. Waking up in the middle of the night in my cold apartment, I told myself, “I‘m a member of the rich club. I, too, have zero.”

They advised me: “Don’t be deluded by the security of a job. Start your own business, take a chance and be resilient.” Remembering Helen Keller’s words, “Life is an adventure or nothing,” I realized adventure includes disappointment and failure. Inspired, I joined a real estate firm. After struggling for a year and a half, sometimes surviving on one meal a day, I became a top salesman, then a manager and eventually co-founded a brokerage firm. When I discovered my partner was shortchanging the salesmen, I realized he would eventually cheat me too. I immediately sold my share at a discount, grateful to be out.

In 1960, less than five years after arriving in Montreal, I started Fulton Realties. Within two years, I had over 30 salesmen. I branched out into finance and construction, and by 1976, I was involved in building over 1,200 apartments. Not all were profitable.

In the summer of 1976, my partner and I completed a 21-story apartment building in Downtown Montreal. Simultaneously, Quebec elected a French separatist government, causing many English-speaking residents to flee the province. The building remained empty, forcing me to abandon it due to a lack of tenants. I lost nearly all my assets. Yet, I am grateful for that failure; it pushed me to develop a resoluteness to discover new ideas, approaches and opportunities. I immediately started a new venture converting rental apartments to condominiums, recovering my losses within a couple of years.

In 1978, I moved with my wife and three teenage children to Santa Monica, California, continuing in real estate. In the latter half of 2025, at 94, I faced a new battle, being hospitalized seven times and surviving three major surgeries. There were moments when I struggled to stay alive and wished it all would end. With the continual encouragement from my family, caregivers and friends, I recovered slowly. Today, I can walk steadily with a walker.

I am deeply grateful for my faith in God, which helped me fight and recover so I can continue my purpose: to enlighten people about the Jews of Arab lands and how they became forgotten refugees. Having visited over 100 countries and lived in four, I can state unequivocally that America, despite its divisions, remains a beacon of hope, liberty and justice. I am grateful and proud to be an American. As a survivor from Iraq and a former refugee, I feel obligated to continue sharing my story. Remembering Einstein’s words, “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle,” I am profoundly grateful that my life has been, and still is, a chain of miracles.

Joseph Samuels is a survivor of the 1941 Farhud pogrom in Baghdad and author of the memoir, “Beyond the Rivers of Babylon: My Journey of Optimism and Resilience in a Turbulent Century.”