Arab Israelis: Is anybody listening?

The Masorti (Conservative) congregation to which I belong, in Zichron Ya’acov, chose a meaningful way to mark this period. We invited an Ultra-Orthodox person to address us and a week later, an Arab-Israeli woman. Our mission: To listen. To understand the “other.”

We Israelis have many stellar qualities. But listening patiently to those with whom we may disagree is not one of them. Nor can you truly listen, if you never even meet or encounter “the other”.

We invited Shams Marie Abomokh, a remarkable young woman from Baka al-Gharbiya, a city of 30,000 northeast of Hadera, near the Green Line. She is married, with three children – two daughters, 11 and 13, and a son, 10– and in addition to employment in the Education Ministry, has a private practice in art therapy.

In Arabic, Shams means sun. Her name fits her personality like a “t.” This is her story, in her words.

Shams opened her talk creatively, by offering us all Arab coffee – even though she herself, she explained, prefers herbal tea.

“As an Arab woman, I am of course expected to drink Arab coffee with ‘hel’ (cardamom), and to behave in a certain way – because stereotypes are very powerful in Israel. So this is why I always began my talks with a paradox and with humor, saying that I am a proud Arab but not all of us Arabs are cut from exactly the same cloth.”

“Like all communities, the Israeli Arab community is not homogeneous. There are religious people, atheists, Druze, Bedouin, and so on. I will tell you my own personal story, and perhaps through this you will all understand us better.

“My parents and grandparents: My mother and father are from different parts of Israel. My mother is from Lod, my father is from the Northern Triangle [Kafir Kara, Ar’ara, Baka, Um el-Fahm). Two different worlds! They speak Arabic differently.

“My mother is from a Communist family, not religious, but she is a believer and raised her children on religious values, without connection to what they wear. My father is from a conservative religious family but he himself is an atheist, but for whom traditional dress and behavior (not religion) were very important for him.

“We are a traditional family! So I grew up, walking ‘between the raindrops’. As an adolescent girl, I slowly searched for my own identity. Am I a Communist? Traditionalist?”

“After high school, in college I joined “Perach” [a project in which college students mentor high school kids, both academically and emotionally]. I excelled and was chosen for a delegation to Singapore, as the only Israeli Arab. At Ben Gurion airport, among the 11 participants, I was singled out, taken aside and questioned, body-searched, had to remove my brassiere… why? Because I spoke Arabic? In Singapore, as the only Arab, I did not know what to do about food. In the end, I chose to eat kosher food, closest to ‘halal’ (Muslim kosher). When I returned to Israel, my journey began, to explore my family roots.

“I listened to my grandmother’s story (mother’s mother), when she was 13. In Lod, [in 1948] soldiers opened fire on civilians. You can read about it on Google. Children, women are killed. They are not allowed to retrieve the bodies. The story spreads in Lod; people are afraid and flee. My grandmother’s mother flees, with small children, on foot. She loses contact with her husband. Children die on the way. And there is no time to bury them. They reach a refugee camp in Ramallah. Conditions are very very hard for them there. In winter snow falls. There is little water.

“My mother’s father was jailed as a political activist. And finally, from Ramallah, my grandmother decides to leave and return to Lod, “even if I die there”. She is refused entry to her own home in Lod, now occupied by Jews. She searches for her husband and is told he is dead. But in the end he is found.

“My mother too has an identity crisis. She attended a junior high school, where all the students were Jewish. As a result, her Hebrew is far better than her Arabic. She writes Arabic with many mistakes. She tells me how hard it was, as a small child, between being Palestinian, in Arabic, and Israeli, in Hebrew.

“I too grew up this way, very very careful not to irritate anybody, searching for my own path, ‘between the raindrops’. I know I am a Palestinian Arab but on the other hand, I studied in Israel, in Hebrew. Always I strove not to anger anyone. And around the age of 30, I began my crisis of identity.

“I married into a very traditionalist family. I then chose to cover my head [with the hijab]. Nobody forced me. Like most women in Arab society, it has become customary to wear it. Nobody looks at you strangely if you do.

“I was chosen to join the reality show Big Brother in May 2018, in its 9th season. [A group of contestants, known as house guests, live together in a specially constructed house isolated from the outside world]. This was after I joined a humanitarian relief organization and worked with Syrian refugees in northern Greece. I too am a Palestinian refugee, like them. In the Arab world, we Israeli Palestinians are called “1948 Arabs”. Or “1948 Palestinians”.

“When I returned to Israel, Big Brother said, we heard about you, you have an interesting personal story, about your grandmother, about the refugees, join our show, it’s a fantastic opportunity! People will get to know Arab society through you. And I thought, for my whole life I walk on eggshells, afraid…finally, I thought, someone wants to listen to me. So I decided to participate, even though I was threatened by those who said they will kill me, because it is unacceptable for a modest Arab woman to live in the same house with so many strangers.

“I was attacked by the Jewish right, ‘terrorist’ they called me. Why? Because I said my grandmother was Palestinian. There is no such thing, they said, as Palestine. What chutzpah to let a terrorist appear on Israeli television!

“And from the left, I was told, hey, let them have it with both barrels, tell them the real story, don’t be so cautious! And from the religious Arabs – it is forbidden to show women like this, in shorts! And from nationalist Arabs, talk about the Palestinian conflict!

“Whatever I did, whatever I said, was attacked. I realized I will never ever be able to please anyone. They want me to take sides – and I refused. I found myself smack in the middle of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But also, in the midst of the Israeli Ashkenazi-Sefardi conflict! Within Israeli Jews, too, there is sharp conflict!

“And amidst all this, the producer of Big Brother says to participants, now you must form a government and choose a Prime Minister. And – they choose me, an Arab woman with a hijab. And I thought, this is my chance, to be an Israeli Prime Minister! Why not take advantage? What fun! This was a ‘nut’ government. It decided who would get bunches of nuts.

[Shams was chosen Prime Minister on the 24th day of Big Brother. But H. is insulted at not being chosen PM. D. tells Shams, they’ve decided to disband your government. ‘Nothing personal’, she says. Shams feels injured. J. comforts her; it’s not because we lost faith in you, she says. Y. forms a new government as Prime Minister. And, as the saying goes, Life imitates Art].

“I was asked to join an ad campaign for Hoodies [a brand of sweatshirt with a hood]. Look, they said, we want everyone to look just as they choose. We will have Bar Refaeli (top fashion model), an Ethiopian, a Haredi….you can dress just as you wish. I wore a burka. The burka (which covers all but the eyes) is not just worn by Muslim women, but by other religions too. The idea for me to wear it was that of the production company, not mine. Experts told me it was OK. I felt I was not insulting my religion or hurting anyone’s feelings. In the ad, I appeared in the burka – and then quickly removed it!

“I was photographed with a high cement wall in the background. You want to tear down Israel’s border wall, people shouted. I was attacked from all sides. It doesn’t matter what you do, I thought, things are so sensitive here, whatever you do, someone gets angry!

Is Anybody Listening?

“People simply do not listen to one another. Everybody is stuck in their own prejudices. When even a small spoon falls on the floor, there is war, everyone jumps up in fear. I have been trying to bring people closer together – but it does not help, people simply do not try to see the good there is in other people.

“Rabbi Elisha asks me, what frightens you, Shams? What frightens me most – Not knowing who I am! I have tried so hard to present our case – but along the way, I looked at myself in the mirror and I did not recognize who I was. I lost my identity. Who am I? What am I?

“I am an Israeli-Palestinian. I am trying to listen to my own inner voice.”