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Sayed Kashua

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Palestinian author and journalist (born 1975)

Sayed Kashua
سيد قشوع
Born1975 (age 48–49)
Tira, Israel
NationalityIsraeli
Alma materHebrew University of Jerusalem
Occupation(s)author and journalist

Sayed Kashua (Arabic: سيد قشوع, Hebrew: סייד קשוע; born 1975) is an author and journalist. He is a Palestinian citizen of Israel, born in Tira, Israel. He is known for his books and humorous columns in Hebrew and English.

Biography

Kashua was born in Tira in the Triangle region of Israel to Palestinian Muslim-Arab parents. In 1990, he was accepted to a prestigious boarding school in Jerusalem – Israel Arts and Science Academy. He studied sociology and philosophy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Kashua was a resident of Beit Safafa before moving to a Jewish neighborhood of Jerusalem with his wife and children.

Kashua became a journalist, columnist and screenwriter, especially of TV series. In 2002 he published his first novel, Dancing Arabs.Kashua, Sayed (2002). ערבים רוקדים [Dancing Arabs]. Keter.

His Haaretz column of July 4, 2014 was titled "Why Sayed Kashua is Leaving Jerusalem and Never Coming Back: Everything people had told him since he was a teenager is coming true. Jewish–Arab co-existence has failed." It was published at a volatile time in the country's intergroup relations, involving the kidnapping/murders of Jewish students in the West Bank and an Arab youth in East Jerusalem, though prior to the July 8 outbreak of the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict. His declaration elicited numerous responses in the Israeli press from colleagues and readers who were concerned by the issues he raises. Kashua's concern for his family and despair at the Jewish-Israeli community's continued rejection of Arab-Israelis despite his 25 years of writing motivated his move to the United States. In his Haaretz newspaper column, he wrote that "I'd lost my small war" and that he saw no hope of a world for his children where Arab- and Jewish-Israelis could coexist.

Academic career

Kashua accepted teaching positions in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois and Chicago, moving there with his wife and three children for the 2014/15 academic year. Kashua began teaching at the University of Illinois through the Israeli Studies Project, a sponsorship program for Israeli writers and scholars run by Illinois and the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago. He served as a visiting clinical professor from 2014 to 2018. He participated in the Creative Writing program's bilingualism workshop at the University of Chicago, and was a clinical professor in the Israel Studies program.

In the summer of 2018, Kashua and his family moved to St. Louis, Missouri, for Kashua to enroll in the PhD program of Comparative Literature at Washington University in St. Louis, and also taught Hebrew for the Department of Jewish, Islamic, and Near Eastern Languages & Cultures.

Literary career

Kashua's exposure to literature began at the Israel Arts and Science Academy when he was 14 years old. After reading The Catcher in the Rye, he discovered a passion for books and began writing himself, primarily about the Arabic narrative in a Jewish country. Kashua wrote with the goal of creating a more equal Israel. His first novel, Dancing Arabs (2002), tells the story of a nameless Arab-Israeli attending an elite Jewish boarding school and code-switching between Arab and Jewish identities in an attempt to fit in. These semi-autobiographical themes of identity and in-betweenness, often packaged in the tragic comedy genre, became hallmarks of Kashua's writing. Throughout the years, Kashua's fiction often uses stereotypical characters – caricatures of Jewish- and Arab-Israelis – to both foster familiarity with his audience and subvert the perception of these identities in real life.

From the beginning of his career as a writer, Kashua wrote exclusively in Hebrew, although he had grown up speaking exclusively Arabic. This was an intentional choice on his part in reaction to the poor representation of Palestinian characters in Hebrew books at his school library. Kashua wanted to "tell the Israelis ... the Palestinian story", and he does this by using "humor, sarcasm, and absurdity to appeal to readers and utilizes popular media such as television and journalism".

His primary vehicle of communication was a personal weekly column in Hebrew for Haaretz and a local Jerusalem weekly, Ha'Ir. In a humorous, tongue-in-cheek style, his column embedded political and social commentaries about problems faced by Arab-Israelis into anecdotes about parenting and day-to-day life. In one such piece, Kashua pondered one's ability to truly integrate into a new culture while recounting mundane yet familiarly realistic conversations between family members. He uses the perspective of his children to highlight the absurdity of social norms, such as his daughter's sad confession that she knows she will "always be an Arab" to the rest of Israeli society. By writing in Hebrew for a mainstream news platform, Kashua exposed a Jewish-Israeli audience to the Arab-Israeli experience.

In his Haaretz article announcing his move to the United States, Kashua anticipated having to switch again to writing in English "about a far-off land in which children are shot, slaughtered, buried and burned", although "the readers will probably think I am a fantasy writer". He did not think Hebrew speakers would care to read his work for much longer. While he has begun to publish in English, beginning two weeks later with an article for The Observer about his leaving Israel, he continued his Haaretz column. He also wrote his most recent novel, Track Changes, in Hebrew; an English translation was published in 2020.

Kashua ended his Haaretz column in November 2017, announcing his hiatus in a final column entitled "Sayed Kashua Bids Adieu: The Perils of Being an Arab-Israeli Writer”. It detailed his view of the role of a Palestinian writer and his hopes for Israel's future. Today, Kashua continues to publish opinion pieces through various platforms, including The Guardian, The New Yorker, and The New York Times.

Media career

Television

Avoda Aravit (2007), or in English, Arab Labor, is a satirical sitcom written by Kashua and aired on Israel's Channel 2. A large part of the dialogue is in Arabic with Hebrew subtitles. The show is about a young Arab couple, Amjad (Norman Issa) and Bushra (Clara Khoury), and their young daughter, who live in an Arab village on the outskirts of Jerusalem. Amjad is a journalist working for a Hebrew newspaper (much like Haaretz) who desperately seeks to assimilate into the prevailing Israeli Jewish cultural milieu with mixed and hilarious results. The show holds a mirror up to the racism and ignorance on both sides of the ethnic divide and has been compared with the All in the Family series in the United States. The show received overwhelmingly positive reviews, winning awards for Best Comedy, Best Lead Actor in a Comedy, Best Lead Actress in a Comedy, Best Director, and Best Screenplay at the 2013 Israeli Academy of Film and Television awards.

In the auto-fictional drama The Writer [he] (2015), the character Kateb draws on his own experiences for his depiction of the turbulent daily life of a young Arab and his family living in Israel. However, the more successful his satirical TV series becomes, the more Kateb feels alienated from his alter ego.

Madrasa (2023) is a comic series taking place at an Arabic-Hebrew bilingual school in Jerusalem.

Film

  • Dancing Arabs (2014)
  • A film adaptation of Kashua's second novel, Let It Be Morning, was slated to begin production in early 2017. The film was completed and released in 2022. The screenplay was written and the film was directed by Eran Kolirin. Most of the cast are Palestinian and the film is mostly in Arabic.

Reception

Praise

Kashua is highly acclaimed internationally, often praised for his frankness and "striking satire". Reviews of Native, his 2016 collection of personal essays, commend the universality of his human message and its artful presentation through comedy. The winner of many international awards, Kashua has been lauded as the "greatest living Hebrew writer".

Criticism

Critics of Kashua accuse him of hypocrisy and cynicism. One article in The Jerusalem Post lambasted him for being unappreciative of the freedoms offered to Arabs in Israel. Track Changes has been criticized as "rambling" and "self-pity". His choice to write exclusively in Hebrew has also garnered him criticism, estranging him from Israeli Arabs who see the Arabic language as the primary means with which to preserve their Arabic identity; Kashua lamented in an interview that he is no longer welcome in his hometown of Tira. The content of Kashua's Haaretz column has also led to controversy. In one such instance, after director Maysaloun Hamoud became victim to threats and verbal abuse, Kashua issued an apology column for his column criticizing the director's film and emphasized the importance of engaging with thought-provoking material and standing with the filmmakers to "silence the violence".

Published works

Documentaries

A 2009 documentary film (directed and written by Dorit Zimbalist, produced by Barak Heymann and Dorit Zimbalist), Sayed Kashua — Forever Scared, documents the upheavals and events that changed Kashua's life over a period of seven years.

Awards and recognition

References

  1. ^ Kashua, Sayed (July 30, 2018). "Opinion | Israel Doesn't Want to Be My State". The New York Times. Retrieved February 4, 2019.
  2. ^ Kershner, Isabel (January 7, 2008). "Straddling Cultures, Irreverently, in Life and Art". The New York Times. Israel. Retrieved July 19, 2011.
  3. "Sayed Kashua". Atlantic Books. Retrieved June 5, 2024.
  4. ^ Kashua, Sayed (July 4, 2014). "Why Sayed Kashua is leaving Jerusalem and never coming back". Haaretz. Retrieved June 5, 2024.
  5. "Israel Studies Project". Jewish Culture and Society at Illinois. Retrieved May 8, 2020.
  6. ^ "Sayed Kashua". Program in Jewish Culture & Society. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Retrieved May 8, 2020.
  7. "Sayed Kashua". Gray Center. University of Chicago. Archived from the original on August 26, 2014.
  8. "Israel Studies Project". Program in Jewish Culture & Society. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Archived from the original on August 8, 2017.
  9. ^ "Book Launch: Sayed Kashua's 'Track Changes'". Jewish Culture and Society at Illinois. April 25, 2018. Retrieved June 5, 2024.
  10. "Negotiating Israeli and Palestinian Identity: A conversation with author and journalist Sayed Kashua". Diversity & Inclusion. Washington University in Saint Louis. Retrieved May 8, 2020.
  11. ^ Kashua, Sayed (July 19, 2014). "Why I have to leave Israel". The Observer. ISSN 0029-7712. Retrieved May 8, 2020.
  12. "Dancing Arabs". Grove Atlantic.
  13. Mendelson-Maoz, Adia; Steir-Livny, Liat (2011). "The Jewish Works of Sayed Kashua: Subversive or Subordinate?". Israel Studies Review. 26 (1): 107–129. doi:10.3167/isr.2011.260111. ISSN 2159-0370. JSTOR 41804748.
  14. "Sayed Kashua on drawing inspiration from his Israeli-Palestinian life". CBC Radio. January 22, 2016. Retrieved May 8, 2020.
  15. Scott, Emily Tobia (May 7, 2019). Israeli-Arab authors claiming Hebrew identity : the case of Anton Shammas and Sayed Kashua (M.A. thesis). The University of Texas at Austin. doi:10.26153/tsw/3302.
  16. "Sayed Kashua". Haaretz.
  17. Kashua, Sayed (June 29, 2013). "An open letter from the piece of shrapnel in the rear end of an IDF soldier". Haaretz.
  18. Kashua, Sayed (December 4, 2015). "How Sayed Kashua Found Himself Identifying With a Dead Bird". Haaretz. Retrieved May 8, 2020.
  19. Kashua, Sayed (November 17, 2017). "The Perils of Being an Israeli-Arab Writer". Haaretz. Retrieved May 8, 2020.
  20. "Sayed Kashua". The Guardian. Retrieved May 8, 2020.
  21. "Sayed Kashua". The New Yorker. Retrieved May 8, 2020.
  22. Steinberg, Jessica (January 13, 2013). "'Arab Labor' TV show sweeps local awards". The Times of Israel. Retrieved May 8, 2020.
  23. "Keshet International's the Writer Chosen as One of Six Premium Dramas to Make the Berlinale Special Selection 2016". Keshet International. January 22, 2016. Archived from the original on March 25, 2016.
  24. "Madrasa (Episodic Spotlight)". San Francisco Jewish Film Festival 43. Jewish Film Institute.
  25. Goodfellow, Melanie (July 8, 2016). "Eran Kolirin to adapt Kashua's 'Let It Be Morning'". Screen Daily. Retrieved June 6, 2024.
  26. ^ "Dancing Arabs". The Deborah Harris. Retrieved May 8, 2020.
  27. Kirsch, Adam (February 7, 2016). "Why Sayed Kashua Is Every 'Ha'aretz' Reader's Favorite Ex-Israeli Arab". Tablet Magazine. Retrieved June 5, 2024.
  28. Kamin, Debra (June 2013). "The Greatest Living Hebrew Writer Is Arab". The Tower. No. 3. Retrieved June 5, 2024.
  29. Miller, Abraham H. (August 9, 2018). "Sayed Kashua's hypocrisy regarding Israel's Nationality Law". The Jerusalem Post. Retrieved June 5, 2024.
  30. "Track Changes (Review)". Kirkus Reviews. Retrieved June 5, 2024.
  31. Alperin, Michele (April 21, 2014). "Israeli Arab describes a life 'in between'". New Jersey Jewish News. Retrieved June 5, 2024.
  32. Kashua, Sayed (January 23, 2017). "Sayed Kashua's Apology to Palestinian Filmmaker". Haaretz. Retrieved May 8, 2020.
  33. "Cameroon: A trilingual shortlist for the Grand Prix of Literary Associations 2017". camer.be. March 6, 2018. Retrieved June 5, 2024.
  34. "Sayed Kashua – Forever Scared". Heymann Brothers Films. Retrieved June 5, 2024.
  35. "Sayed Kashua – Forever Scared". Ruth Diskin Films. Retrieved November 5, 2014.
  36. "Sayed Kashua". The Institute for the Translation of Hebrew Literature. Archived from the original on January 27, 2013.
  37. ^ "Sayed Kashua". The Lion House Agency. Retrieved May 8, 2020.
  38. "Sayed Kashua- Forever Scared". Jewish Film Institute. Retrieved May 8, 2020.
  39. "Award winners". www.jff.org.il. Archived from the original on November 23, 2013.
  40. פרס ברנשטיין לסייד קשוע [The Bernstein Prize to Sayed Kashua]. Israel Hayom (in Hebrew). July 19, 2011. p. 31.

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