Recipe for Being Palestinian

Rise like our bread to speak for those who have no food.

Artwork by May Grabli

By Alia Yunis

Use olive oil every day, many times a day…
it will keep strong those of us who have a home in which to
cook,
even when the news makes it hard to breathe.
Rise like our bread to speak for those who have no food.
Experiment with maqluba until it stands upside down perfectly
while you stay upright no matter how others try to bring you
down.
Soak knafa cheese until is sweet enough to counter the
aftertaste of tears.
Fold into conversations with those who only know us as
terrorists or hummus experts,
hummus and humanity sound similar in English, and they are
better shared.
Remember our heritage is baked into Palestine’s soil-- sage in
the fall, grape leaves in the spring,
And rooted year-round in our family trees –pomegranate, fig,
apricot, almond, orange.
Taken care of by our ancestors to garnish with pine nuts
memories for our descendants.
Use olive oil every day, many times a day…
…lest we be eaten away.

Alia Yunis

Alia Yunis is a writer and filmmaker and a past PEN Emerging Voice Fellow. Her feature documentary, The Golden Harvest (2019), a 6,000-year-old love story that began in Palestine, is currently playing in festivals and other venues and won Best of the Fest at its US debut at the Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival. Her debut novel, The Night Counter (Random House), was critically-acclaimed by the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, Entertainment Weekly and several publications. Alia thinks about trees a lot and is currently producing an interactive documentary, Tree-Routed, connecting people’s personal stories around their trees to a shared heritage across the oceans. She is also writing a screenplay about a Muslim girl in small Minnesota town obsessed with Christmas trees. Her fiction and non-fiction writings and film works have have been translated into 10 languages.

May Grabli

May Grabli is a Palestinian-Israeli artist born in Jaffa. Being born in Jaffa means that May is a "48 Arab" as she does not hold a Palestinian identity card, but an Israeli one. Being a minority in her country of origin has strongly influenced her work which deals with the struggle of understanding one's identity. May's parents moved her family to Ontario, Canada in the early 2000s while the Second Intifada was taking place to try to raise her and her siblings in a more peaceful environment. Five years later, they returned to Jaffa where May slowly began to learn about her history and embrace her Palestinian roots.

‹Also in this Issue›
My Gifts from Gaza

Yousef Abu-Salah

Baba once mentioned how Palestinians were the patient dough of the Taboon. No matter how much we are kneaded, beaten, and stretched beyond our limits, our capacity for hope is supernatural. Taboon, even burnt beyond recognition, is still Taboon.