This paper aims to use narrative as a methodological tool for the study of the changing nature of Jewish identity from late Ottoman to early national Iraq. While there are at least nine Iraqi-Jewish memoirs that I am aware of that recall the events of the 1920s, only two are written by individuals who had come of age before the early national period, and thus can shed direct light on both individual and communal changes during this period. The memoirs of these two brothers, Abraham and Yehezkal El-Kabir, form the backbone of this paper's case study, but in certain instances will be supplemented by evidence from other narratives. This paper's central argument is that the two writers in question represent how Iraqi-Jews drew upon and actively re-interpreted communal narratives in order to fashion new identities suitable to life in modern Iraq. These new identities helped facilitate Jewish adaptation to Iraqi national life but also fostered feelings of resentment towards the new state while simultaneously re-affirming the positive aspects of life under Ottoman rule. This, in turn, created new communal narrative tropes of hope, disappointment, and nostalgia. Building on the works of Peter Wien and Ronald Suny this paper makes several original contributions to the field of Iraqi-Jewish studies. First, it sheds light on how formerly Ottomanized Jews adjusted to new political realities in post-Ottoman Iraq. Second, it highlights both the potential and limitations of the use of memoirs in reconstructing the past. Third, it uses narrative as a tool to critically engage the concept of the 'Arab-Jew' and its corollary of harmonious Arab/Jewish relations prior to the outbreak of Zionist-Arab hostilities in the 1940s. Thus this paper fills in both methodological and historiographic gaps in the field of Iraqi-Jewish studies.