Writer Sayed Kushua Addresses Life As A Palestinian Citizen Of Israel In Talk
February 26, 2015
The writer spoke to a crowd of about 80 people on Wednesday in the Stamp Student Union.
By Morgan Eichensehr, The Diamondback.
When Palestinian citizen of Israel Sayed Kashua moved his kids from their Jewish schools in Jerusalem to a public school in Champaign, Illinois, it surprised him the school's registration forms had no race option for Arab, Jewish or Israeli.
He asked an official which race he should be identified as, and she told him to say he is white.
“I cannot really relate to home as a safe place,” Kashua said. “And I didn’t want [my kids] to feel just like me, that they should always be ready to lose their home. It’s really very difficult when it comes to kids.”
Kashua, a writer and author best known for his satirical Hebrew column for Israeli newspaper Haaretz, spoke to a crowd of about 80 community members and University of Maryland students and staff Wednesday night in the Prince George’s Room at Stamp Student Union. During a discussion presented by the Gildenhorn Institute for Israel Studies, the creator of the Israeli TV show Arab Labor discussed challenges he has faced living and writing as an Arab in Israel.
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