Avoda Aravit - Sitcom Addresses Tough Topics

[mohinav]

My name is not Awad, my name is Yehuda, but I look like Arab and have 'mizrahi' accent. When I go to airport everyone is questioned for 1-2 minutes, I am questioned for an hour minimum. When I go from Beer Sheva to Jerusalem I am checked, questioned, searched for at least seven times. When I fly El Al (I no longer do it now) i am asked all the details including about my great great parents. Now I live in LONDON !!!!!! And it's coool! NO TEUDAT ZEHUT!!!!!!

[ShmorgelBorgel]

My paternal great grandfather changed his surname 100 years ago, and I'm light-skinned, Ashkenazi, with a non-Jewish surname. Before making aliyah I often traveled to Israel on a US passport in the early 2000s, after the 2nd Intfadeh started and when tourism was way down. Security was very suspicious. I was almost always interrogated and questioned closely about why I was traveling to Israel, which synagogue do I go to (as I am hiloni, I said none), who were my parents..etc.

[ShmorgelBorgel]

Now, even though I have one grandmother who was born in the Yishuv HaYashan and came from a Mizrahi background, like I say, I am fair-skinned and my last name sounds English. Nevertheless, since childhood, I speak a fair Hebrew albeit with an American accent--so sometimes I would answer in Hebrew at secuirty, when I was asked "le eizo kehila ata shayyakh" I would answer "La kehila ha yehudit!". They were never satisfied with that answer--I would often be searched more etc.

[ShmorgelBorgel]

Traveling to and from Israeli maybe a dozen times between 2000--2003, having a WASPY-sounding last name, not wearing a kippa or tsitsit, and speaking an American-accented Hebrew--I didnt fit the profile of an American Jew who visited Israel at that time, and for that reason I made Israeli security nervous.I think they believed I was a left-wing radical/anarchist type (perhaps by the way I dressed), although I am very far from a Rachel Corrie admirer--I'd always be questioned at great length.

[mohinav]

@ShmorgelBorgel LOL! Now I feel better, not being alone :)כשהם שואלים אותי בבן גוריון 'מה עשית באנגליה כל כך הרבה זמן?' אני אומר : שהיתי!!! :)))

[ShmorgelBorgel]

"Now I live in LONDON !!!!!! And it's coool! NO TEUDAT ZEHUT!!!!"

There is a National ID Card in Britain, but it's not yet compulsory for all citizens to carry it--although many other EU countries, like Belgium, Germany, Czech Republic require citizens to carry ID at all times and show to the police if asked. In any case, I'd be really careful of the Metropolitan Police in London, don't forget what they did to that poor Brazilian guy on the Tube after 7/7/05.

[ShmorgelBorgel]

Its' called "hutzpah". But again, he wouldn't be a true Israeli if he didn't have it.Also re: the beautiful Arab-Israeli actess Mira Awad who says in the clip about how unfair it is,how she an Arab citizen of Israel, who looks the same as Israeli Jews, who speaks Hebrew just as well as a Jew,how she's searched extra at the Israeli airport just because of her Arab name on her IDs.I say to her:"Mira,habibiti (sweety) you're right it's unfair,but maybe this happens because of the terrorism?" C'mon!

[surfingnirvana]

Don't even dare to act like you would know what Arab Israelis go through. I'm not, I'm a Jew, but I would never be as arrogant as to belittle what they must face do to certain members of their community.  Whether it is because of the Hamas, PLO, or whatever, it is STILL discrimination, and us Jews should be much more sympathetic to that more than any other demographic. It is one of the constants of our own history. In case you forgot, Rabin was killed be a JEW.

[ShmorgelBorgel]

I never denied that Arab citizens of Israel encounter discrimination, and I support a just, two-state solution, and equal opportunity for the members of the Arab minority in Israel. But there is a reason why Arabs are subjected to additional scrutiny at airports, and the reason is fair. And yes, Jewish terrorism exists also, and the Shin Bet monitors Jewish radical groups. (They failed in their duty in the case of Yigal Amir.)

[ShmorgelBorgel]

If you had a clue-- you would realize that the whole point of this show is that it gave a platform to Israeli Arab writers and actors to discuss the fact that there is such a thing as discrimination against the Arab sector in Israel. None of my comments dismissed that reality. However, I was pointing out the irony of the fact that while some unjust discrimination exists, some of it is fair. And the Israeli society that Mira Awad disdains gives her a platform to air her complaints.

[ImamSoffian]

wow... That statement coming from a jew, really change my perception towards you guys... peace man... if all the people are like you, there would be peace in the world instead of just unexplainable warfare...

peace man...

[surfingnirvana]

It is virtually impossible for Arabs to get building permits. I wonder why? Maybe so that more and more settlers can build on their lands while their population diminishes so that their claim can be challenged in future negotiations? Hm. Maybe. They don't get to study their own history in their own SCHOOLS; not even the work of their national poet Darwish. Yet Jewish Israelis can. You think that's fair? Don't call yourself a Jew, you hardly act like one.

[ShmorgelBorgel]

I know of many cases of Israeli Jews who were denied building permits as well, for houses within Israel for failure to comply with this or that bureaucratic regulation, or for violating codes. Arab citizens of Israel are not exempt from those same regulations. Don't tell me what to call myself or what not to call myself--a Jew is a Jew by dint of having a Jewish mother--end of story. I would not presume to tell you that you are not a Jew because your value system is different than mine.

[mohinav]

@ShmorgelBorgel Terrorism happens just like McDonalds happens and CoCa Cola happens and Ebay happens - it's a buisness. But we create a fertile ground for it by humiliating, explotating and discreminating people whom we call 'sector' or 'minority'

[ShmorgelBorgel]

"But we create a fertile ground for it by humiliating, explotating and discreminating people whom we call 'sector' or 'minority'"

Many other nation-states contain national and ethnic minorities. In most cases, those minorities are reconciled to being part of an ethnic minority sector and don't demand that the state or the majority of the population abandon their ethnic/national identity.

[ShmorgelBorgel]

Romania, for instance, has a large ethnic Hungarian minority. They are entitled to cultural and civic rights as Romanian citizens who belong to the ethnic Hungarian minority--but they are not entitled to demand that Romania abandon its national identity as a Romanian state and they don't advocate terror to achieve that aim. Likewise, the Arab sector in Israel should be reconciled to living as a national/ethnic/linguistic/cul­tural minority in a Jewish state and can still demand its rights.

[ShmorgelBorgel]

first off, let me say I've seen several epidodes on the web and when I visited and the show is cute and funnhy and I enjoyed it-the writing and the acting--BUT--Sayyid Kashua (the Arab-Israeli writer whose life it's based on and who they interview) is FULL OF SHIT. (And I've read his columns and one of his books and I say he's a good writer and funny and all that.) But, again, I repeatm he's FULL OF SHIT. (In the commment he makes here.) -- Israel is not a real democracy.

[ShmorgelBorgel]

I dunno,maybe it's part of his comedic writing persona when he bitches about how he as an Arab can't see Israel as a "true democracy" because it excludes him.This is a country that allows him to write a bilingual comedy show exploring Arab identity in Israel. It gives him an uncensored column in one of the country's biggest and most prestigious Hebrew newspapers.His show, critiquing Israeli society is the biggest hit AMONG JEWISH AUDIENCES.And then he whines about Israel isn't a true democracy!