Sayed Kashua complains he can't complain about seder night
What is the proper Arab reaction to the strange prohibitions against eating bread on Passover and driving on Yom Kippur?
By Sayed Kashua |
I was very happy to return home after a long and difficult trip of several weeks abroad. I missed the children so much, and was so much looking forward to seeing them that it was very moving when I entered the house that evening. After 10 minutes of hugs, kisses and giving out presents, I took a sleeping pill that my wife bought for overcoming jet lag. It worked wonders and I decided to adopt the method on my future trips.
I slept for an entire night and when I woke up the next morning the kids were at home. “Passover vacation,” said my wife, “did you forget?”
The truth is I had.
“So, what are we doing?” she added. “The children are bored.”
The children are bored is the sentence I heard every morning from the time I landed until the day I went back to the office. The kids are bored, and when they’re bored the older ones can kill each other, and the little one will continue his attempts to commit suicide by jumping off the sofa head first, or by sending his plastic bicycle down the stairs while riding it.
So, on Passover, because the children are bored, we drove to my parents on seder night, and ate stuffed vine leaves. Kids in Tira are also bored. The schools have closed for a vacation of over two weeks, which is called “spring vacation.” What else should they call it? Forced Passover vacation for Arabs?
I know that Passover, or any school vacation, can be very problematic for parents, both Jewish and Arab. But it becomes intolerable when you’re not part of the holiday, and you don’t enjoy any rituals, as boring as they may be, related to the holiday. So for us, instead of Sukkot there is the “winter vacation,” and in the Arab sector it definitely doesn’t mean ski vacations. Plus, as mentioned, there’s spring holiday, during which we don’t exactly frolick on green hills and chase colorful butterflies.
We’re just stuck in a Jewish holiday without the slightest idea of what we’re supposed to do. We don’t even have the right to complain about seder night, or about the annoying aunties. And when it comes to people like us, who live in a Jewish city, we’re stuck with a spring vacation, without bread.
Sometimes I think about the country during Jewish holidays and it strikes me as a place that’s clearly insane. Mainly on Yom Kippur and Passover, when an entire country adopts religious prohibitions. An entire country that can stop traffic because of a divine commandment, an entire country in which supermarkets cover banned foods with plastic sheeting. I might have understood this behavior when it comes to Jews living as a minority in foreign countries, where they try to maintain some kind of identity, a shared destiny and a unique character. There are week-long rituals during which they refrain from eating hametz, and by doing so feel like a chosen − or oppressed − people. Take your pick. But when it comes to an entire country, to a law, to people who have already become the majority, it starts to be somewhat worrisome.
Come to think of it, it is actually the Arabs, as a minority, who should adopt some kind of secret rules to distinguish them from other people a few days a year.
“Listen,” I said to my wife as we sat down to eat hummus in Abu Ghosh, like all the Jews. “We have to find Passover rules for ourselves.”
“What does that mean?” she said, perusing the menu.
“We won’t survive this without certain rules, without special rituals − it’s a nightmare that’s liable to continue for many years to come, and we have to prepare accordingly.”
“By doing what?” asked my wife, when one of the waiters in a blue shirt approached with a notebook to take our order.
“Hummus with ful,” said my daughter.
“With an egg?” asked the waiter.
“We don’t eat eggs during the spring holiday,” I answered the waiter in Arabic, and the children were actually pleased with the idea, smiled, and only my wife made a face and ordered kebab.
“Rules like that,” I said to my wife, “small but meaningful rules in the process of consolidating a people and building a nation.”
The children and I hadn’t eaten eggs for an entire week, and the Passover vacation was not yet over. Before the final day of the holiday, we drove to a Dead Sea hotel that cost us NIS 3,000 for a single night. In the evening we stood in line with Israeli, French and American vacationers; there was no bread, and we didn’t touch any dish containing eggs. The children were even willing to tolerate the idea that they couldn’t eat schnitzel.
In the morning, we tried to find empty seats next to the pool. Although the pool was empty, the seats had been taken by guests who left towels and other items on them and beneath the umbrellas. Despite the oppressive heat the water was freezing, and the air was filled with sand. Aside from the pool or the beach there’s nothing to do at the Dead Sea, so the pool gradually filled up with tourists.
“What’s that? The one with the area code 059,” shouted a short, fat guy next to me to his wife, as he looked at the screen of the cellphone ringing in his hand. “It’s an Arabush [pejorative term for Arab] area code, isn’t it?” he giggled out loud, and I continued to smear the children with sunscreen.
“Dad,” my son whispered to me, glancing at the short, fat guy, and back at me, waiting for me to react.
“Because of that,” I said to my son, as I took a deep breath, “because of people like him, we don’t eat eggs during the spring holiday.”
