Arab labor deals with the Arab status In Israeli society, the controversy surrounding issues of identity and the sensitivities of both populations.  The series explores the daily conflicts that Arabs face between the desire to integrate and their own values and traditions.

 

Amjad is a 35-year-old Arab journalist, married to Bushara (a social worker) and father to Maya.  In order to become the darling of the In-crowd, Amjad is willing to lie, flatter and conceal all of his Arab traits.  Meanwhile, he vehemently represents the suffering of Arabs at any given forum.  This excessive Israelization is a source of conflict between Amjad and his conservative parents.  His wife mocks his ways and deeds, but shows restraint in order to preserve domestic peace.  Amjad`s only ally is his friend Meir (an Israeli Jew) - a photographer who works with him at the newspaper, a sworn bachelor who falls In love with Amal, Bushara`s feminist Arab friend. 

" Kashua has managed to barge through cultural barriers and bring an Arab point of view into the mainstream of Israeli entertainment."

 

" Sayed Kashua, a noted satirist, offers a wry take on the challenges and foibles of an Arab family loosely based on his own."

 

"…a groundbreaking TV Show that finds humor in sharing a homeland."

 THE NEW YORK TIMES

 

TV comedy depicts world of the Arab Israeli

 

By Isabel Kershner

Monday, January 7, 2008

BEIT SAFAFA, Israel: Being an Arab Israeli has always been a complex affair, at times almost a contradiction in terms. For Sayed Kashua, 32, an Israeli-born Arab journalist and author, it just got more complicated.

His latest work, a prime-time situation comedy on Israel`s commercial Channel 2 television, deals with Israeli society`s prejudices and peccadilloes through the eyes of a Muslim Arab family that bears an uncanny resemblance to Kashua`s own. The series is popular with its mostly Jewish audience, which finds it irreverent and funny. But many among the 1.4 million Palestinian citizens of Israel - 20 percent of the population - say it borders on insulting.

The Arabic press reviews have been "deadly - the critics are attacking everything I`ve done," Kashua said. "They say that I work at a Zionist newspaper" - he writes a satirical weekly column in the liberal Hebrew daily Haaretz - "and that I supply stereotypes for the Jews." The lavish praise by the Hebrew-language critics has not helped.

Welcome to Kashua`s world, which, like the series, "Avoda Aravit," or "Arab Labor," works on multiple, often paradoxical levels. The title is Hebrew slang for second-rate work, and the one that Kashua chose.

On one hand Kashua has managed to barge through cultural barriers and bring an Arab point of view - mostly expressed in colloquial Arabic - into the mainstream of Israeli entertainment. On the other, "Avoda Aravit" reflects a society still grappling with fundamental issues of identity and belonging in a Jewish state that, Kashua says, still largely relates to its Arab minority as "a fifth column or a demographic problem."

"I wanted to bring likable Arabs into the average Israeli living room," he said.

Israel`s Arab citizens are guaranteed full equality under the state`s 1948 Declaration of Independence, and they participate in Parliament. The current government includes the country`s first Arab minister. But discrepancies in budget and land allocations have resulted in yawning gaps between the state`s Arabs and Jews, a disparity that is reflected in popular culture.

A study published in 2006 by the Second Authority for Television and Radio, which regulates commercial broadcasts in Israel, showed that 50 percent of the characters appearing on prime-time commercial television were secular Jewish Israeli males with standard accents.

Arabs accounted for 2 percent of the remaining 50 percent and were portrayed negatively.

In a refreshing departure, "Avoda Aravit" focuses on a young professional Arab couple, Amjad and Bushra, and their way-too-smart, eye-rolling, preschool-age daughter, who live in an Arab village on the outskirts of Jerusalem. Amjad is a journalist working for a Hebrew newspaper. His best friend, Meir, is a Jewish photographer there.

Kashua resorts to some unflattering stereotypes on both sides for the sake of comedy, but he is also a master of subtle nuance in dealing with both Arab and Jewish society, and is self-deprecating enough for the borscht belt.

Kashua`s alter ego, Amjad, sometimes goes to ridiculous lengths to fit in with what he views as Israel`s Ashkenazi elite. He sends his daughter to a Reform synagogue kindergarten after lampooning the local religious Islamic Movement one.

For Passover, Amjad and his family are invited to participate in a Seder, when Jewish families traditionally gather to read the story of the Children of Israel`s exodus from ancient Egypt. Amjad joins in with gusto, having memorized the classical Hebrew text, and gobbles down his gefilte fish, after which Bushra refuses to go near him.

Some Arab viewers took particular exception to Amjad`s father, a wily character who does not hesitate to cheat his own son out of a few shekels and who has taught his granddaughter that eight plus three equals a jack.

Samih al-Qassem, a renowned Arab poet from the Galilee and former editor of Kul al-Arab, an Arabic weekly newspaper, said that he applauded Kashua`s courage and good intentions but that Arabs were "insulted by the tendency to ridicule the victim."

With 70 percent of the dialogue of "Avoda Aravit" in Arabic with Hebrew subtitles, going for prime time was a risk. Arabic-language programming on Channel 2 is usually confined to news and current affairs broadcasts at siesta time on Friday afternoons.

"Of course we had to think of the ratings," said Avi Nir, the chief executive of Keshet, the company that has the concession for half the air time on Channel 2 and invested in the series. "We weighed up the risks against having something original, different and interesting."

In late December, after five episodes, the ratings stood at a respectable 20 percent, putting "Avoda Aravit" among Keshet`s 10 most popular programs.

The idea for the series came from Danny Paran, a successful Israeli television producer and an observant Jew. He called Kashua in 2004, and the two met in a caf鮠"He kept adjusting his skullcap," Kashua recalled, "but when he paid for my beers I realized he was for real."

Kashua`s work is better known in Jewish circles than in Arab ones, since he usually writes in Hebrew. That, he says, is because he is not capable of writing literary Arabic. Kashua was born in the Arab town of Tira in central Israel. He was accepted at age 15 to a prestigious boarding school in Jerusalem where everything was in Hebrew.

"Arabic was something I had to get rid of, quick," Kashua said.

His two novels, "Dancing Arabs" and "Let it be Morning," were written in Hebrew and were also published in the United States.

Kashua currently lives in Beit Safafa, an Arab neighborhood in southeast Jerusalem that straddles the boundary with the West Bank.

In real life, his daughter, a second-grader, studies at the Max Rayne Hand in Hand School for Bilingual Education. The school, situated in predominantly Jewish West Jerusalem, is a haven of coexistence where Jewish and Arab Israelis learn and play together, and where each class has two teachers, one Arab and one Jewish, who repeat everything in Arabic and Hebrew.

Kashua says it offers the best education at the best price. But here, too, the staff struggles with the dominance of Hebrew, the language of power and advancement in Israel. If one Jewish child joins nine Arabs in the yard, everyone switches into Hebrew, the Jewish and Arab co-principals say.

Away from the school, the outlook is bleaker. A recent survey of 500 Jewish Israelis found that 55 percent of respondents who watch "Avoda Aravit" would agree to have Arabs like Amjad and Bushra as neighbors. Of those who do not watch the series, only 38 percent said they would agree to live next door to Arabs. (The survey`s margin of sampling error was plus or minus four percentage points.)

Kashua, typically deadpan, was happy to hear that so many Jews would live near an Arab. "I told my wife we can start looking for an apartment in West Jerusalem," he said. What is less clear is how many Arabs would now be happy to live next door to Kashua.

 

Airtime for Israel`s Arabs

By Ken Ellingwood, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
November 23, 2007

NAZARETH, ISRAEL -- Maram frets that she`s fat. Tony says men don`t care how they look. Shahd thinks nose jobs are fine.

It may sound like usual talk-show blather until you consider that the three commentators are preteen children. And something far more unusual for Israeli television: They are Arabs.

Every week, Maram abu Ahmad, 12; Tony Khleif, 11; and Shahd Shahbari, also 11, get together on camera with an adult host to discuss, in Arabic, their lives and views during freewheeling chats that regularly veer into the minefields of politics and identity.

The children have aired opinions on religion, their relations with Israel`s majority Jews and the ever-tricky issue of being Arabs who are citizens of the Jewish state. (Maram got in trouble with her mother by saying on air that she considered herself Israeli, not Palestinian.)

They also have discussed homosexuality, Iran and the United States. The children hammered President Bush for the Iraq war -- Tony declared him a "dictator" -- but they praised the United States for pretty landscapes, hamburgers and hip-hop. A recent taping focused on beauty and image, at one point delving into what physical characteristics Arabs prefer. (All three said blond hair and blue eyes.)

"I want everyone to hear my thoughts," Maram, with lively brown eyes and braces, said before a recent taping. She writes songs in English and dreams of directing animated movies. Maram, who is Muslim, said she wants Jewish viewers "to think that we are smart, that we know how to express our feelings."

The half-hour program, called "Haki Kibar," or "Grown-Up Talk," is part of a new effort by the country`s dominant commercial broadcaster, Channel 2, to put more Arab citizens on the small screen. Arabs make up a fifth of the Israeli population, but they are almost never seen on locally produced television.



Prodded by governmental regulators and by Arab-rights activists who have long complained of discrimination, the broadcaster has hired a full-time diversity director and, in addition to the children`s program, begun to add Arabs to some of its most popular shows, including Israel`s version of "American Idol."

The children`s talk show, produced by an Arab-run company in the northern city of Nazareth, has aired weekly since late summer, albeit during a daytime slot when viewers are scarce. The program, which carries Hebrew subtitles, also features a separate segment with a trio of 8-year-olds with the same host, comedian Hanna Shammas.

The children sit snug on a couch, clutching pillows and fidgeting as they respond on the spot to improvised questions relayed to Shammas by an editor in the control room.

The studio, painted cherry red and canary yellow, is decorated with stuffed animals to evoke a playroom. But the subject matter is often startlingly grown-up, as when the younger threesome was asked which side was responsible for Israel`s war last year with Hezbollah guerrillas in southern Lebanon. A skinny boy named Fares blamed Israel, but botched the facts by saying the Israelis had kidnapped three soldiers from Lebanon. (The war began after Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers from Israeli territory.)

In what may prove a riskier television venture, Keshet Broadcasting, one of the two companies that operate Channel 2, is readying a drama written by Sayed Kashua, a noted satirist, that offers a wry take on the challenges and foibles of an Arab family loosely based on his own. Most of the dialogue will be in Arabic, with Hebrew subtitles. (Hebrew portions will carry Arabic subtitles.)

One subplot will be a budding romance between a Jewish man and an Arab woman -- incendiary stuff for Israeli television. Even the show`s title, "Arab Work," walks the edge by playing on a Hebrew phrase used to refer to slipshod work.

"It`s a crazy adventure," said Udi Lion, an observant Jew who as director of special programming at Keshet oversees efforts to get more TV time for Israel`s various underrepresented groups, including Ethiopian and Russian-speaking immigrants and devout Jews. "It can only be a hit or a catastrophe."

Still, these are baby steps in a land where Arab citizens complain of discrimination and social inequities extending far beyond their role on television. Advocates for Israel`s 1.4 million Arabs say the reforms at Channel 2 are insufficient to reverse decades of media neglect.

Most Arabs in Israel skip local television and instead tune in shows via satellite from Arabic-speaking countries, such as Syria and Egypt, said Jafar Farah, director of the Mossawa Center, a Haifa-based advocacy group for Arabs in Israel.

The result is that ordinary Jews and Arabs, who don`t talk to each other much in daily life anymore, are increasingly alienated from each other on television, he said.

"Jews don`t see Arabs in media, and Arabs don`t watch Israeli media," Farah said.

Few in Israeli television disagree with that assessment. Studies by private groups and the governmental agency that oversees the nation`s two commercial television stations, Channels 2 and 10, have found an almost complete absence of Arabs on Israeli shows. Most of the time, a recent study found, Arabs are presented in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and thus in a threatening manner. A few Arab lawmakers are featured regularly to criticize Israel`s policies, bringing them frequently into Israeli living rooms but gaining little affection for Arabs among Jewish viewers.

Israelis are unlikely to see ordinary Arabs talking about healthcare or raising children, said Dror Sternschuss, a former advertising executive who is chairman of Agenda, the Israeli group that did the study.

 

By Joel Greenberg

Tribune foreign correspondent

9:54 AM CST, December 14, 2007

JERUSALEM

Driving up to an Israeli police checkpoint with his wife and daughter, Amjad Alayan, an Israeli Arab journalist, puts on the Army Radio station just for good measure and orders everyone in the car to speak only Hebrew.

"Not a word now in Arabic," he says as he pulls up to the men in uniform, instructing his daughter to smile and say in Israeli-accented Hebrew: "Good morning, Mr. Policeman." But when an officer puts his head through the window, the girl blurts out the greeting in Arabic: "Sabah al-kheir, ya bolees!"

The officer gets tough and orders Amjad to show his license and open the trunk. Amjad is exasperated. His wife and daughter, amused by his failed attempt to pass for a Jewish Israeli, trade high-fives.

The encounter is the opening scene of a new sitcom on Israeli television about the daily dilemmas of the country`s Arab citizens, as seen through the life of the Alayan family.

Shown in subtitled Arabic and Hebrew, with a mostly Arab cast, the sitcom is the first in Israel to deal with the predicament of the country`s Arab minority, which has long complained of discrimination. There are some 1.4 million Arab citizens in Israel, about one-fifth of the population, most of them descendants of Palestinians who stayed behind during the war that followed Israel`s creation in 1948.

Ratings for the first three shows, broadcast Saturday nights on Channel Two, one of Israel`s two main commercial channels, were high, with an average of about half a million Jewish and Arab viewers.

The series was written by Sayed Kashua, 32, a popular Israeli Arab columnist and author who writes in Hebrew on the identity crisis of Arabs in the Jewish state. His first two novels were best sellers, translated into several languages.

Satire is Kashua`s main tool in the sitcom, ironically titled "Arab Work," an Israeli slur used to describe shoddy workmanship. The show, where the characters speak an Arabic peppered with Hebrew idioms, lampoons stereotypes of Israel`s Arabs but also their attempts to blend in with their Jewish surroundings.

Amjad is obsessed with his failure to pass police checkpoints despite his efforts to look Jewish. He complains that he buys clothes at trendy Israeli stores and spends money on expensive deodorant yet still gets stopped. "Do we look different?" he asks. "Do we smell like fear?"

The problem, Amjad is told by a Jewish photographer he works with, is that he drives a battered Subaru, a tip-off to police of his ethnic identity. With the help of a shady auto mechanic in his village, Amjad comes into possession of a classier car, a British-designed Rover, and the police wave him through.

Mideast road map?

In another scene, Amjad is in his car, giving a phone interview to a radio station about the high traffic accident rate among Israeli Arabs, blamed by many Jewish Israelis on Arab driving habits. Amjad rails against the inferior road network in Arab areas but gets pulled over by a police officer for talking on a cell phone while driving.

When Amjad decides to enroll his daughter in an Israeli "Peace Kindergarten," the Jewish teacher is reluctant to take in the Arab girl but lets it be known in a roundabout way. She cautions in a meeting with Amjad and his wife that the kindergarten places strong emphasis on Bible stories, the Jewish Sabbath, patriotic songs and the Israeli flag.

When Amjad responds that it`s no problem, because "we`re also citizens of this country," the teacher adds that on the Purim holiday, when children don costumes, the kindergartners dress up as soldiers and play at shooting Arabs. "You should think good and hard about it," she cautions before the Alayans get the hint and leave.

In another episode, the Alayans join a Jewish family`s Passover seder, and Amjad reciprocates by playing host to the family at his home for what he calls a "civilized" version of a Muslim holiday, replacing the traditional slaughter of sheep with a contrived ritual at the dinner table, mimicking the Passover meal.

Amjad is "trying to survive," Kashua said in an interview in his Jerusalem office. "It`s very complicated."

Kashua speaks from experience, having made the transition from his hometown to an elite Israeli boarding school in Jerusalem and the Hebrew University before writing for Hebrew-language newspapers.

`This is a first`

Using a light touch to convey political messages is the best way to reach a broad Israeli audience, Kashua said.

"This is a first: Arabs on prime-time commercial TV who are not terrorists," he said. "I want to make people laugh, to let viewers connect with the characters instead of preaching about discrimination and occupation. The message has to be subtle, more subconscious than conscious, and it has to be padded with a lot of humor. Otherwise it won`t work."

Kashua said he is "poking fun at this thing called an Israeli Arab, who is trying to undergo a process of Israelization." At the same time, he said, he is confronting Jewish Israelis with their own stereotypes of Arabs. "I am telling them: `I speak your language. Have a laugh, now let`s move on.`"

While the program has been well-received by reviewers in Hebrew newspapers, it did come under criticism from at least one columnist in the Israeli Arab press, who accused Kashua of denigrating his people and promoting negative images of Arab Israelis.

Daniel Paran, the producer and originator of the series, said he encountered initial skepticism when he tried to sell the idea of a prime-time show about Israeli Arabs to television broadcasters.

"People said, `Arabs on prime time? Come on,`" he recalled.

But Avi Nir, the CEO of Keshet Broadcasting, the company airing the program, said he was quickly convinced that the idea had potential, because of the talents of the people involved.

"When we saw the first chapter and all that Arabic, we said, `Wow, this is unusual,`" Nir recalled. "But it touched the right places and it was funny, and we were willing to take the risk, even if it got people angry. In the end we got positive responses."

"People are fed up with round-table debates about the political situation," Nir said. "But they are interested in the human situation of themselves and the Arabs."

Limor Assis, 32, a Jewish teacher, said she loved the show.

"It deals with a difficult reality in a way you can digest," she said. "You don`t resist it, even if you have a different opinion. It puts the truth in your face, and even if it`s hard, you don`t get up and walk away."