Tell us about your memoir Homebound and what inspired you to write it.
my book is called Homebound: A Memoir Traversing Oman. It started when many countries were lifting their Covid travel restrictions. I decided to plan a trip to Oman, Yemen’s neighboring country, where my ancestors come from. The cholera epidemic in Yemen was adding to the humanitarian disaster. From my apartment in Paris, I thought maybe I’d find out what the Kingdom of Hadramaut was like, which extended east to Yemen and west to Oman. I had saved up from the stipend that France was offering during the COVID pandemic and thought I would use it to travel to Oman. It was like a gift I was giving myself. I flew to the southern city of Salalah, rented a car and drove east to the border with Yemen so I could hike the entire coast from the Yemeni border to the Strait of Hormuz.
I used to sleep every night in my car with the trunk open facing the ocean. After being confined to my homes, being amidst nature was just a gift for me. I think we all felt a little suffocated, no matter our position. So it was wonderful to be among nature. The population density there is very low and I have had these existential moments thinking about my maternal lineage, because I was raised in a very religious Zionist family where Hebrew was my first language. Although I was born in Los Angeles, my mother’s entire family lives in occupied Palestine. I grew up thinking that I was taught that we were not Arabs, although, you know, Arabs are a regional and cultural thing. So, if our family is Yemeni, we are clearly Arabs. But the European colony known as Israel teaches its citizens to consider Arabs the enemy. It is not necessary that this is what I was taught in my home, but this is the education of the country. I had to do this kind of unlearning myself, which I did. And in traveling to Oman, I adopted that identity, or continued to embrace that identity. I dove deep into that maternal lineage (my father’s ancestry is Polish, and also Jewish) and it was really beautiful. I met people who were very generous and welcomed me without exception. So, this memoir ended up being a focus on home, lineage, and what it means. And I don’t know if I’ll necessarily arrive at an answer, but I’ll definitely figure it out. It’s also a visual memoir, because my background is visual journalism. I write my stories and take pictures, so it’s easier for me to balance. The book was intended to be a photo book with some captions, and I kind of vomited out this memoir.
Growing up as a Yemeni Jew in a Zionist household, what does the word home mean to you personally?
This is exactly the subject of the book. So, I don’t know if I can summarize it in a few sentences. But honestly, I’m still figuring it out.
How is the inherent hybrid nature of your cultural heritage, or the migrant identity that is crumbling upon you, reflected in how you adopt the English language as a medium to express your travel experiences?
I think the English language is colonial by its nature, and I don’t need to tell that to Indian people. There is a section where I talk about the four languages ​​that Yemeni Jews spoke in Yemen. I end that section by saying that I feel like Arabic is a language stolen from me. Because it’s the language that my grandparents spoke as a first language. They spoke Arabic, the lingua franca of Yemen. They spoke the Yemeni Jewish dialect of Arabic. Many people do not associate Jews with Arabs, but this is just ignorance. And they spoke Biblical Hebrew, which is in the text but is also spoken, and then Aramaic. Yemeni Jews are the only Jews who read our Bible, the Torah, in the Aramaic language, called the Targum. I grew up in Los Angeles and consider English as my language of education. Hebrew is the language of my connection to my mother. But Arabic is the language of my lineage, and I’m trying my best to catch up. When I am with my Arabic speaking friends, it is the biggest compliment that they naturally start speaking Arabic with me. I wait a few minutes before I interrupt them and say, I can’t understand a little bit of what you’re saying. And they say, oh, yes, I forgot. Because it feels like I should. Oh, and French is my daily language because I live in Paris. Yes. But that’s also colonial (laughs).
Please talk about your experience with the Freedom Flotilla and your detention and its exposure in the international media?
A lot of the international media wanted to focus on what happened to me. It’s important to focus on Palestinians and what they endure. This is why we go sailing. We set out to break the siege. We’re moving to refocus on the Palestinians because that’s where it needs to be. And Israel is committing genocide on them.
Therefore, many people wanted to focus on the sensational aspects of our treatment. Israel oppressed us. But they continue to inflict endless atrocities on Palestinians every day and continue to massacre them. Our treatment had an expiration date. Obviously, because you’re talking to me. Unfortunately, there is no end date to what is happening to the Palestinians. Therefore, we fight for the liberation of the Palestinians. We lead them on how to resist. We fight for the liberation of all people. Free Palestine!
You were aboard a ship called The Conscience.
Correct.
Language has become a battlefield. International journalistic enterprises have been hesitant to associate ‘genocide’ with what is happening in Palestine.
They are late to the game.
You also mentioned how the word ‘Arab’ was demonized.
Correct. Sorry, game isn’t the right word. I was just getting very light headed.
Genocide is a term that international journalists should have adopted long ago. It’s obviously a shame if they’re not using it right now. Because, as a journalist, you have to call things as they are. If you’re not doing that now, you’re not doing your job.
How do you react to this as an activist and writer?
It depends on what kind of writer you are. Journalism, you have to call things what they are. Obviously, if you’re a fiction writer, there’s artistic license. However, I think if you’re talking about a historical period, you also have to call things what they are. We call the Armenian Genocide what it is. We call the Rwandan Genocide for what it is. We call the Nazi genocide genocide for what it is. We Namibians call it the Herero Genocide. I mean, there are so many. Sudan Genocide. We have to call things what they are so we can compete with history. If we’re not doing that, we’re not going to be able to move forward and get to a place where we can talk about liberation and justice.
In your JLF session, you said that your family was manipulated into moving to occupied Palestine. What do you mean by that?
I delved into this in an article I wrote for the magazine Discontent, issue 5, titled “The Miseducation of an Arab-Jew.” Please feel free to read it. It’s a magazine about Palestinian and Lebanese issues, so I was really honored to be able to write for them, because I don’t have any of those backgrounds. However, I think that Palestinian and Yemeni Jews, Arab Jews broadly, or Jews from Arab and majority Muslim lands, because obviously there are also minority communities of Christians and other religions in those lands, are, unfortunately, the bricks of the building built by Zionism. They were actually fodder for them. You asked how my family was tampered with. Zionist emissaries were sent to many of those countries to persuade them to move to the European colony of Israel, newly established, and even earlier, when it was, still Palestine.
For example, in Iraq, where the writer Avi Shlaim was born, the city of Baghdad was one-third Jewish, and there was a false flag attack. At that time the terrorist Zionists, who later became the IDF forces, I mean, the Israeli occupation forces, bombed that place so that the Jews would feel unsafe and leave Baghdad. This is manipulation, isn’t it? It was a false flag attack, so they did not know that Jews were bombing at the time. This came to light later. This did not happen directly in Yemen. But angels would come and encourage them, saying, oh, you know, ‘the promised land,’ because the Messiah is coming, so you should come. Jews in Yemen lived a fairly isolated life not from their Yemeni community, but from the rest of the world. So, they simply left with their messengers. They were not told that they would have to walk hundreds of kilometers. Many people died on the way to where the plane was. Many people had never been in a car before, including my grandparents, so they had been on a plane before they had ever sat in a car. Many people died of hunger in the transit camp. The Zionists were responsible for this. Eventually, they made their way to occupied Palestine, where they were treated as lower class citizens. They were brought there because there were not enough European Jews to meet the labor and demographic needs, because they were trying to depopulate the Palestinians, against whom they had just carried out the Nakba – mass deportations and ethnic cleansing against Palestinians. If there were enough European Jews to meet those needs, they certainly would not call in Jews from Arab and Muslim-majority countries. So, I’m talking massive rigging.
You said you identify as an anti-Semitic Arab Jew. What role has literature played in your learning?
It is important to read research from authors around the world. When I was younger I had a moment where I looked at my bookshelf and I thought, it’s like 95% white men. Why so? It has a lot to do with my education, what I was asked to read, and the active effort I made to diversify my bookshelves. Going to the library, obviously, helped me get a better understanding of different cultures, being open-minded, talking to different types of people, the questions I ask, who I look for to talk to. Yes, so books are everything.
Will you share your experiences on the flotilla in book form so that it can be tangibly documented for future generations?
First and foremost, I leave it to the Palestinians to tell their stories. They are doing the heroic work of documenting their stories while enduring genocide. I am working on an article that contextualizes our detention with the experience of Palestinian prisoners. But the book? No, not at the moment.
What is the way forward to envision an equitable future?
I believe in a free Palestine. I don’t believe in ethno-national countries. So, a free Palestine for all, and led by the Palestinians.
Sarah Ihmoud once wrote that love is the Palestinian fire for survival. would you agree?
I think we can do better than just survive. I want Palestinians to flourish in their own land. And can also become soft. Softness and comfort.
Simar Bhasin is a literary critic and research scholar based in Delhi. Her essay ‘A Tale of Resistance: Desire and Dissent in Selma Dabbagh’s Short Fiction’ was awarded ‘Highly Commended’ by the Wasafiri Essay Prize 2024.
