Arab Labor producer offers personal narrative

Acclaimed writer and producer Sayed Kashua, an Arab citizen of Israel, opened the New Political Society’s spring speaker series on Thursday night in the Charles Commons East Room.

Kashua spoke about his life as an Arab in Israel and his recent move, driven by anti-Palestinian riots in Israel last summer, to Champaign, Ill., where he works as a Jewish Studies professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign.

According to Kashua, Arab and Jewish citizens are very isolated from one another in Jerusalem, where Kashua lived with his family before moving to the United States.

“You have to understand that we are talking about complete separation and segregation when we talk about the citizens in Israel,” Kashua said. “For example, I’m not sure that Tel Aviv, the biggest city in Israel, [has] even more than 10 Arab families. And, of course, that’s something to do with the political situation there.”

Kashua showcased the difficulties faced by Arabs living in Israel through his works of fiction. He has written three novels and is also the creator and producer of the critically acclaimed sitcom Arab Labor, which runs on Keshet, an Israeli network.  He also writes a satirical column in Hebrew for Haaretz, an Israeli newspaper.

However, according to an op-ed Kashua wrote for The Guardian, his convictions were shaken after anti-Palestinian protesters stormed the streets of Israel last summer.

“When Jewish youth parade through the city shouting, ‘Death to the Arabs,’ and attack Arabs only because they are Arabs, I understood that I had lost my little war,” Kashua wrote. It was this incident that prompted Kashua to move to the U.S. He wanted to give his children a better chance of being accepted by their peers and by society.

“I really miss home, but I know very well that it was almost impossible for me to be satisfied with the way that I [was] trying to raise my kids there,” Kashua said. “I came to this conclusion that I [had] really two alternatives: it [was] either to [move to the U.S. or to] send my kids to good schools in Western Jerusalem, and they [would] do their best to pass as Israelis in the Jewish society and probably would hide their identity and speak very fluent Hebrew with no accent like I do. And they would never be accepted as citizens. They will never be equal. They might be considered good Arabs like their father, but they will never be part of the Israeli society. Unfortunately, the Israeli society can accept you only if you have a Jewish mother.”

According to Kashua, many U.S. citizens would be more accepted in Israel that his own Israeli-born children.

“If you live in America, and you have a Jewish mother, it’s enough that the State of Israel will be your country more than it is my country and my kids’ country,” Kashua said. “I still consider myself as a citizen of Israel, [but] I cannot say that I am Israeli, because unfortunately the word Israeli means that you are Jewish.”

However, Kashua said that he is still invested in Israel and its future.

“I do very much care about the state and the future of [Israel]... I cannot help being optimistic because I’m silly, and I’m still counting on the elections, [though] I don’t really have any reason to count on the coming elections,” Kashua said.

Kashua also discussed his life as a child and the problems that he and his family faced because they were Arabs.

“I do think that the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel do act and behave and [are] treated sometimes like refugees. I think we are very good proof that you can be a war refugee without leaving your village and leaving your country,” Kashua said, in reference to the Arab-Israeli War of 1948, which resulted in the creation of the State of Israel and the annexation of land and property previously held by Arabs, including Kashua’s grandmother.

“[There’s] this feeling that home is not a secure place because my grandmother — her life was completely destroyed when she lost her land in ’48. I can never really relate to a homeland, a secure place,” Kashua said. “[There’s] this feeling that you have always to be ready for the worst to happen — that you cannot really look at home like a safe place. And it [is] really very tragic because, on the one hand, you want to teach your kids about the history and to have some kind of dignity, let’s call it.”

According to junior Ari Posen, a member of the New Political Society who helped proctor the event, the organization hopes to instigate debate on campus about contemporary geopolitical issues.

“Our goal as a student organization on campus is to spark lively debate about the most pressing issues facing our generation,” Posen said.

Yuval Tal, a first-year graduate student at Hopkins, attended the talk because he is an Israeli and because he is familiar with Kashua’s books.

“I’m Israeli... so I’m involved,” Tal said. “[There was] nothing new in terms of the stories [Kashua told], [but] emotionally it was important to me.”