The New Yorker:

In my homeland, where we used to cook and celebrate together, my relatives are eating animal feed to keep from starving.

By Mosab Abu Toha
February 24, 2024

Recently, my wife’s distant aunt, Leila, invited me, my wife, and our three children to her home in the Faisal neighborhood of Cairo. She promised to cook us maftoul, a Palestinian dish that we had not eaten since we fled Gaza in December. Back home, making maftoul was often a family affair. One person cooks a rich stew from pumpkin, onions, tomatoes, and chickpeas. Someone else mixes wheat flour into a dough. A third person rubs the dough through the holes of a sieve, creating tiny balls that are similar to pearl couscous. Finally, the balls are steamed and served with a hot ladleful of the stew. We looked forward to tasting it again.

Leila speaks with the same warmth as my mother, and she cooks the same familiar foods. When we arrived at her sixth-floor apartment, I felt the comfort that comes from shared history. Only months ago, my family survived Israel’s bombardment of northern Gaza, and I was detained by Israeli forces. Leila’s husband, who was deaf, was killed during Israel’s 2014 offensive in Gaza. The moment I sat down, their eleven-year-old son, who lost his father as a toddler, took out a box of dominoes and taught me to play. I thought about how none of us meant to live in Egypt. Leila and her brother came here for her son’s medical treatment, and they can no longer go home.

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