Tag Archives: Arabic

by Brad Jacobson (Columbia, MO)

“Tear a small piece of pita,
use forefinger and thumb,
dip into hummus, and fold in half,”
Ra’ed instructs me
at the same hummus shop
his father took him as a little boy.

A bearded man wearing a black suit
and kippah walks a mountain bike
past three women with white head scarves
and long black abayas.    

Tonight I fly back to the States,
but now I smell the hummus
topped with spiced meat and chickpeas.
We share a large bottle of orange Fanta.

Six of us sit around the table. Tsipi and I
are Jewish. Ra’ed, Mysum, and the others
are Palestinians. All around me
I hear Arabic.  

I raise my eyes to look at Ra’ed.
I think,

“You invited me to your
favorite hummus shop.
You taught me marhaba means hi
and shokran is thank you.”

Mysum says, “We love you, Brad.”

I tell myself to be friends
but in the back of my mind
are cobwebs that are very old.

Brad Jacobson is a volunteer every summer in Israel in the SAREL program. He teaches TESOL at the Asian Affair Center at the University of Missouri, where he has an MEd in Literacy. In the summers he enjoys exploring places with his camera like the Old City of Jerusalem, Tzfat, and the Red Sea where he scuba dives. He has been published in Tikkun, Voices Israel, Poetica, Cyclamens and Swords, and the University of Missouri International News.