After living in Israel his entire life and enjoying much success as writer there, Sayed Kashua decided last summer he needed to leave.

“You cannot rely on something called home, it’s something you can lose. This is the feeling I got last summer, the fear of home being a very dangerous place,” Kashua said to the audience Thursday evening in Maxwell Auditorium at an event hosted by the student organization LIME: An Israeli-Palestinian Dialogue Group.

During the event, the writer spoke about what influenced him to be a storyteller and how it led him to move from the place he called home for entire life. Kashua’s work has generated significant recognition in Israel as well, as he is the recipient of the Bernstein Prize and the Prime Minister’s Prize in Literature.

Kashua has spent his career writing about the complexities of being a Palestinian citizen of Israel. His sharp writing and tongue-in-cheek humor earned him praise as a journalist, screenwriter and author. He said he hoped that by writing about the Arab-Israeli perspective on the issue, he would bring attention to another side of the conflict, Kashua said.

But after last summer’s Gaza war he said he realized that he couldn’t change the rules of the game. So, he packed up his bags and move to Champaign, Illinois with his wife and three children. He teaches Hebrew at the University of Illinois Urban-Champaign.

Before moving to the U.S., Kashua spent the last 25 years living in West Jerusalem with his family. He had been born in Tira, Israel and lived there until he was 14 when he was accepted into a boarding school for gifted children in Jerusalem.

Kashua recalled the move being a difficult because he didn’t know Hebrew or have the same interests as the other students at the school.

Eventually, Kashua said he worked hard at his Hebrew and felt a sense of accomplishment when he was able to finish an entire book in the language. The book was “A Catcher in the Rye,” which he had identified with because the main character had also went to boarding school. By this point he said he had fallen in love with reading, which led him to read more about the history of his home.

His interest in reading about history was inspired by the stories his grandmother told him growing, much of which was about the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. During the war, also known as Nakba by Palestinians, Kashua’s grandmother lost her husband and ownership of the land that had been hers for years. Kashua recalled hearing stories about the war but not being able to make sense of them until he started reading about history.

Kashua said he decided to start writing to make the experience of in the hopes that those experiences could be improved.

“I thought that by telling my story as a citizen of Israel and how difficult it can be that maybe I can change what’s happening,” Kashua said.

He described one of his earliest experiences of discrimination, when he attempted to travel to Tira from Jerusalem for the first and he was asked to step off the bus. He recalled the humiliating experience being the first time he came to the realization that he was thought of as a threat because of his identity.

Despite his success as a writer, Kashua decided he couldn’t stay in Israel any longer after the Gaza War in 2014.

Those in attendance at the event said they learned from Kashua’s experiences, and said the enjoyed hearing a different perspective on issues they were familiar with before the talk.

“I appreciated him using his sense of humor to talk about the issue, which I know very well as someone from Gaza,” said Hani Albasoos, a Leaders for Democracy Fellow visiting Syracuse University.

Ronit Davis, an e-board member of LIME, was pleased with Kashua’s talk as it contrasted from her experience living in Tel Aviv last summer.

“It was very eye opening experience to hear about some of the anecdotes that he gave growing up because it made me question some of the things I have been presented with,” Davis said.

Published on March 27, 2015 at 3:53 pm

Contact Rahimon: rnasa@syr.edu