Liron Lavi Turkenich
Israel Story

Jarab

Welcome to the complicated world of Israel’s Jews and Arabs: They’re enemies and cousins, neighbors and rivals, lovers and haters, and at times even one and the same

July 28, 2017
Liron Lavi Turkenich

More often than not, we think of Jewish-Arab relations in Israel as adversarial. We frequently hear tales of hatred, violence, animosity, and discrimination. But the reality is, of course, much more complicated: Not only are some Jews actually Arabs and vice versa, but there is a tremendous amount of intermingling, sharing, and cooperation. In this episode, the Israel Story team explores these points of contact.

In the prologue, “Aravrit,” host Mishy Harman talks to Liron Lavi Turkenich, a type and graphic designer from Haifa, who invented a hybrid Hebrew-Arabic script.

(Animation by Gur Margalit)

Surprisingly, perhaps, the script became a national meme, and even caught the eye of President Reuven Rivlin.

(Videography by Avi Kanner; sound recording by Uri Buzaglo)

Then, in “No Man’s Land,” Yochai Maital brings us the story of an unlikely love affair between Sarah, a formerly religious Ukrainian Jew, and Tamer, a Palestinian dancer from Ramallah. As regional geopolitics makes their union nearly impossible, they retreat to a tent in the desert, living a carefree existence that seems to defy reality.

The original music in this episode was composed and performed by Eran Zamir, Ruth Danon, Nili Fink, and Noam Sadan. The final song, “Tamally Ma’ak,” is by Amr Diab and covered here by Tsahi Halevi. Ahmed Ali Moussa wrote the lyrics and Tag Sherif composed the music. The episode was mixed by Sela Waisblum.

Listen to the full episode here, or download it from iTunes. You can hear all of Israel Story’s episodes in English here and in Hebrew here.

Israel Story, the English-language version of the popular Israeli radio program Sipur Israeli, is distributed by PRX and produced in partnership with Tablet.

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