metro

Foreign Mother Tongue'

Palestinian writer in Israel will speak about his identity search.

Yaffa Klugerman

Special to the Jewish News

S

ayed Kashua is arguably one of
Israel's most accomplished and
celebrated writers, but just fig-
uring out what to call him has political
ramifications. Is he an Israeli-Arab? An
Arab-Israeli? A Palestinian Israeli citizen?
Or all or none of the above?
His search for identi-
ty, as expressed through
his many written works,
will be the subject of his
talk on Sept. 30 at the
University of Michigan,
"The Foreign Mother
Tongue: Living and
Sayed Kashua Writing as a Palestinian
in Israel:'
The event is sponsored by the Jean &
Samuel Frankel Center for Judaic Studies,
the Center for Middle Eastern and North
African Studies, Near Eastern Studies and
the Helen Zell Writers' Program. It will

take place at the Alumni Center Founders
Room at 200 Fletcher St. in Ann Arbor.
Kashua is the author of three nov-
els: Dancing Arabs, Let It Be Morning
and Second Person Singular, which
was the winner of the Bernstein
Prize. He also writes a satirical weekly
column in Hebrew for the Israeli newspa-
per Haaretz, and is the writer and creator
of the hit Israeli TV show Arab Labor
(Avoda Aravit), now in its third season.
In 2004, he was awarded the Prime
Minister's Prize in Literature. He is
renowned for addressing the problems
faced by Arabs in Israel, caught between
two worlds, in a tongue-in-cheek style.
"Sayed Kashua is my favorite con-
temporary Israeli writer," said Shachar
Pinsker, U-M associate professor of
Hebrew literature and culture who
arranged Kashua's visit. "There is nobody
quite like him.
"He is an acclaimed Palestinian writer,
film and TV maker, whose mother
tongue is Arabic, but he writes almost

exclusively in Hebrew. His use of laughter
through tears brings to my mind the best
of modern Jewish writing in the diaspora
— but he probably has a great joke that
will contest this statement?'
Yet the issues that Kashua addresses
through his humor are quite serious.
"I always start with a joke or humor-
istic thing to say," Kashua has said about
his lectures, "and when I realize they are
listening, then I can make them cry:'
Recently, his writings have turned
more somber because he made the abrupt
decision to move permanently to the
United States as a result of the recent
escalation in Gaza.
"Twenty-five years of writing in
Hebrew," he wrote in a column in The
Guardian on July 19, "and nothing has
changed ... Twenty-five years during
which I had few reasons to be optimistic
but continued to believe that one day this
place in which both Jews and Arabs live
together would be the one story where
the story of the other is not denied ...

"Twenty-five years that I am writing
and knowing bitter criticism from both
sides, but last week I gave up."
His words are expected to resonate at
U-M, where tensions were high among
Jewish and pro-Palestinian students ear-
lier this year, when a highly publicized
resolution by Students Allied for Freedom
and Equality (SAFE) to divest from Israel
was defeated by the Central Student
Government.
"Through Kashua's writing and art,
diverse audiences in Israel and around the
world can hear and see the 'other within,-
Pinsker said. "He is a poignant, personal
and deeply human voice, something that
is rare and so sorely missing in the current
political climate in the Middle East?' ❑

Sayed Kashua's lecture, "The Foreign Mother
Tongue: Living and Writing as a Palestinian in

Israel," will take place at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Sept.
30, at the Alumni Center Founders Room at
200 Fletcher St. The event is free and open to

the public.

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September 18 • 2014

