Why My Father Made Me Forget Our Palestinian Catastrophe
How does a boy growing up in Israel remember how many of his people lost their homes in 1948, if no one will teach him?
When the creation of the State of Israel 70 years ago led to a mass Palestinian exodus, only about 150,000 Palestinians out of nearly 1 million who had lived on the territory managed to remain within the new state. Among them were my grandparents. And yet, it wasn’t until I was 20 years old that I first heard of the nakba, an Arabic term meaning “catastrophe” that many Palestinians use to mark the events of 1948.
Ironically, I heard the word from a Jewish friend at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. In my excitement, I called my father and told him about my thrilling new discovery. He faltered, then advised me to get this nakba out of my system.
