Medicine Humus and Falafel by me 02/07/2008

I remember being in the States and meeting Israelis and feeling an unexplicable kindship of love and hate. On the one hand, an Israeli met is one ocean closer to my own home, as compared to North Americans. And yet, on the other hand, such an Israeli met is many walls and checkpoint away in my own homeland. And, which language was I going to use in communicating with such a close cousin, when I did not speak Hebrew, and the Israeli did not speak Arabic? So, I found myself opting for communicating in English, feeling angry and betrayed that an Israeli could claim falafel and humus as his/her own national food, because it was mine; it was Palestinian. The dispute over food ethnicity made no sense to a North American who might have visited the region, and yet would push a North American who lived in Israel/Palestine take sides on the ethnic nationality of humus and falafel.

This is how I remember being a Palestinian in North America: I lived with turmoils of feeling betrayed and cheated. I would meet the American who would praise Israel and say how much s/he loved it, and mention parts of Haifa, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and the Israeli culture that I did not know about. I lived with an unsettling feeling- have I left this country prematurely? Should I have stayed longer? Should I return? Why didnt I speak Hebrew?

So, I returned, not as a Palestinian from East Jerusalem, but as a foreigner, communicating in English, muttering my name in encounters hoping that I could make it a step beyond the usual question of, "Are you Arab? Are you Muslim?" to living my life like everyone else around me. I lived as one of the new North American immigrants to Israel, occasionally told that my accent in Hebrew sounded American. I rarely spoke Arabic or went to familiar Palestinian places. And, if I felt too ostracized for not fitting the classfication of a Russian jewish immigrant, or an Ashekanzi immgrant, I would resolve to being a Jewish spherdi immigrant from Tunisia.

I leave this country having enjoyed my falafel and humus, having decided that there is no sense in arguing over the ethnicity of gourmet, if it brings two people together and gets them busy eating rather than arguing. Medicine has done the same for me as humus and falafel- it separated me from arguments, and brought cooperation in other areas. A fourth year medical student