The history of the seipa, a sword-shaped protective amulet worn by Kurdish Jews, can help us better understand how to care for one another and build trust across communal divisions in the face of illness and collective hardship.

Postcolonial mythologies are often manifestations of an emotionally-tinged hunger for a life that does not ache of colonialism— but mythology can have a vital role in legitimizing the modern ethnonationalist states and their respective languages, cultures, and propaganda systems.