When We Were Arabs

June 7, 2019

Journalist Hayoun (Al Jazeera English; Pacific Standard) begins this nostalgic family history by describing a world he's never seen; gleaned from journals of his much-loved and loving grandparents who raised him as a Jewish Arab in Los Angeles during the 1990s and 2000s while his single mother worked long hours. The author describes his childhood and his grandparents' lives in Tunisia, Egypt, Israel, France, and New York before arriving in L.A., drawing on film, food, and song to demonstrate their Jewish Arab identity. Moving to history's contribution to his family's journey, Hayoun starts from the premise that the suffering (illuminated for him in the works of Frantz Fanon and others) of Jewish Arabs and all North Africans is caused by "European colonizers" who invented a transnational Jewish nation united only by victimhood and supported by Zionism. He dismisses any claim of Ashkenazi Jews being part of the biblical People of Israel and considers them colonizers of "occupied Palestine." VERDICT Hayoun's debut memoir offers a new perspective on world affairs and will be appreciated by readers interested in family histories told through personal narratives.--Joel Neuberg, Santa Rosa Junior Coll. Lib., CA

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