134 Honoring the Women of Palestine with Mai Kakish

Today, I’m welcoming Mai of Almond & Fig to the podcast so that, together, we can all honor Mai’s grandmother, her beloved Teta.

Mai’s grandmother was born in Palestine long before 1948, when the international community took it upon themselves to declare that parts of her Palestine as the new nation of Israel. She was a young woman when she saw the suffering of 1967, and already a grandmother many times over by the first Intifada of 1987, when both of her sons were arrested. One of those sons, Mai’s father, was imprisoned for a year, without charges or evidence of those charges in the Negev desert. At night, he and fellow prisoners took shifts watching for dangerous wild animals. Later, Teta Um Hanna’s grandsons, Mai’s brothers, were arrested in the second Intifada. Although they were juveniles, they were tried and imprisoned as adults. Victimized by the occupation until the very end, Teta Um Hanna’s ambulance was stopped and searched by Israeli’s soldiers as she was rushed, dying, into Jerusalem. This is a difficult thing for any family to accept.  

However, we do not join Mai in honoring Teta Um Hanna because she suffered these things. Rather, we honor Teta Um Hanna because of the things she did with her life: She raised her siblings, her children, her grandchildren with love and patience. She joined countless other Palestinian women in preserving their culture & recipes, becoming breadwinners, nurturing children made fatherless through resistence, and feeding their entire worlds. How did she manage to do these things? She did them all through her garden, her cooking, and the joy she took in both. 

Regardless of our politics (which may or may not be influenced by Mai’s powerful story), today, Listener, you and I are coming together to honor this small but mighty woman, [name], and the many other women she represents. Here is Mai.

• “From the moment she wakes up, she thinks, ‘What should they be eating?’”
• The 4 men in Mai’s family who were arrested – why, where they went, and the conditions
• How Mai’s grandmother, her Teta stepped in with her “fatherless” grandkids – and how she loved with food
• Teta’s remedies