Presbyterian Mission Agency detained Archives

detained

Shades of oppression

Posted August 25th, 2021

I was born in Nazareth, but spent five years of my childhood in Haifa, Israel’s third largest city, where my father was the Anglican priest. In some ways, living on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea was idyllic. I remember with joy road trips to Nazareth and fishing excursions with my grandfather. But I also remember having to speak my mother tongue, Arabic, in hushed tones on the street, lest we attract unwanted attention from our Jewish Israeli neighbors and always sensing that somehow, we might be seen as different.