Claire Berlinski, Ed.: A Kumbaya Anecdote for Nakba Day

Yesterday afternoon I went to a neighborhood I don't usually go to on the Anatolian side of the city. It's a neighborhood where it's easy to get hopelessly lost--everything there looks alike--and that's just what I did. So I asked some guy on the street for directions. I assumed he was Turkish. He looked Turkish and he spoke Turkish. I didn't notice an accent.

He didn't know where the street I was trying to find was, either, so he called a friend. His friend didn't know, so he tried another one. While he was doing that, he asked me where I was from. 

"I'm American," I said.

"Oh, how nice," he replied.

"What about you?" (I asked because he obviously wasn't from that neighborhood.)

He switched to English. "I'm from Palestinian." 

"Really?" 

"Yes, do you know what is from Palestinian?"

"Sure," I said.  "Where exactly are you from?"

"I'm from the West Bank. From Jenin."

"Oh, how nice," I said. 

Friend number two answered the phone; he at least had a general suggestion: Go uphill, across the overpass, downhill. It sounded plausible. The guy from Jenin walked me to the overpass to make sure I was on the right path; I thanked him; he expressed his hope that I'd find my way, and we wished each other a nice day.

And there's nothing more to the story.