“It’s like having a huge extended family all the time that you stay in contact with, and it’s beautiful.”
In the southwest quoin of Brooklyn , a thriving and rapidly growing community of Arabs — Yemenis , Egyptians , and Palestinians among them — populate the bustling streets . Just stroll down fifth Avenue in Bay Ridge , and you will be greet with signs in Arabic , neighbor chatting in multiple idiom outside the localMiddle Eastern marketBalady , and graffiti calling for the liberation of Palestine .
Anestimated 7,771 peopleof Arab lineage hold up in Bay Ridge . The culture of this communityfirst beganwith the migration of Christians from Syria and Lebanon in the other 1900s , and later increase as predominantly Muslim groups from countries such as Egypt , Morocco , and Yemen come out moving to the neighborhoodin the seventies . “ walk around run into all these hijabs and Muslim multitude , it really makes you feel like you ’re back home , ” saysShadin Hamdan , founding father of Bay Ridge businessKanafa Cups , whose category is from the Beit Hanina neck of the woods in Jerusalem .
New York City is known for housing a wide salmagundi of flourish pagan enclave — Chinatown in Manhattan and Little Carribean in Flatbush among them . Bay Ridge foster an Arab community akin to those more famous spaces , where neighbors treat each other like family . And as tensions go along to be exacerbate in Israel and Palestine , the neighborhood has served as a landing place spot for Palestinians who were forced to flee their place of origin — create a home base off from home base , aLittle Palestine , in Bay Ridge .
Nakba Day in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn|Alex Kent/Stringer/Getty Images
“ Anytime I play a Palestinian here , we just tattle for a couple minute about what town or villages we ’re from , and then we ultimately make the link that our parent know each other , or that someone is a upstage cousin . ” aver Palestinian - American militant and Bay Ridge aborigine , Nerdeen Kiswani , who founded ofWithin Our Lifetime(WOL ) , a Palestinian - extend community organization .
It ’s important to note that Bay Ridge has always had a Palestinian community of interests . But a more late influx of refugee and related protests have put the neighborhood in the public eye for those outside of it . In the wake of the Israel - Palestine difference of opinion , as well aspost-9/11racism , Palestinians have typically waffle to put their culture on display . However , as awareness increases via social medium and community like the one in Bay Ridge as well as other Palestinian hubs in Chicago , Illinois , and Paterson , New Jersey ( which has earned the moniker Little Ramallah after a Palestinian village ) fanfare , Palestinians are beginning to make their superbia for their root word known .
“ [ Growing up in Bay Ridge ] , I screw a heap of Palestinian Thomas Kyd who would tell other multitude that they were Jordanian or Lebanese or whatever nation their crime syndicate was exiled to , because just saying you ’re Palestinian is the scariest thing in the macrocosm , ” allege Kiswani . “ Now , I think people are more undetermined about their identity and majestic to be a Palestinian , whereas before , there was still that stigma associated with it . Not that there is n’t now , but we ’re fighting back harder . ”
Balady Market, where locals stock up on Middle Eastern foods like grape leaves and labneh.|Photo courtesy of Balady Foods
This pride is school by the many Palestinian - possess businesses , mosque , and cultural centre that line 4th and 5th Avenue , traverse from 67th Street to 86th Street , including theArab American Association of New Yorkand theIslamic Society of Bay Ridge . Once , options for traditional Palestinian culinary art were few and far between , if not nonexistent ; now , it ’s never been easy to pose down for a plate of kibbeh or pick up maamoul cookies on your walk home . The mere bearing of patch such as Al - Aqsa Bakery , Tanoreen , andAyatenable Palestinians to embrace their refinement outside of their family .
“ We wanted to stand out as Palestinians . We did n’t need to shroud as just another Middle Eastern eating place , ” allege Ayat Masoud , who openedAyatwith her husband , Abdul Elenani , and is a cousin of Hamdan ’s . “ Palestinian culture has literally two main elements : family and nutrient . [ Our culture ] is still very much thriving in creation , and we ’d like to share it with everybody . People should n’t be injure that we do n’t desire to be hushed . ”
In Brooklyn ’s Little Palestine , solidarity pervades , especially for gatherings . When Hamdan hosts a Kanafa Cups pop - up in her father ’s restaurant , Mr. Bagels Cafe , for Ramadan , all of the familiar face are there to break fast . OnNakba Day , which commemorates the twenty-four hour period the bulk of the Palestinian multitude were give the sack from their country of origin , Palestinians cluster to the streets of Bay Ridge to participate in a rallying . They throw their commonwealth ’s flag into the air and don its colors , celebrate their resistance and call for the liberation of Palestine . Everyone works together to observe the mean solar day : a local Palestinian - owned tire shop supplies the flatbed used as a stage for protestors ’ speech , while community members paint faces and slice up watermelon ( the fruit ’s colors have made it a symbol for the Palestinian flag ) . But beyond the celebrations , every day in Bay Ridge ’s Palestinian community is an illustration of a residential area united , despite the world ’s expert efforts to keep them asunder .
Shadin Hamdan, the owner of Kanafa Cups, at one of her pop-ups for Ramadan.|Photo by Jenna Masoud
“ It ’s like having a vast extended family all the clip that you stay in contact with , and it ’s beautiful , ” Kiswani says . “ We have a lilliputian piece of Palestine ; things are n’t unremarkably care this in the US , but back home , in most Arab countries , that sense of biotic community , that sentience of we ’re accountable to each other , is there . And there ’s a piece of that here in Bay Ridge also . ”
