Margie and her keffiyeh

Margie’s younger son, a physician working in Manhattan who calls himself a good Jewish boy from the Bronx (although he grew up in California), recently vacationed in Jordan, Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank. When he visited his mom for Thanksgiving, he brought her a Palestinian keffiyeh, made by the Hirbawi family in Hebron in the traditional black and white fishnet pattern made famous by Yasser Arafat. 

He told her the countries of that area, countries we usually only hear about when violence breaks out, are in fact very beautiful, calm, peaceful places to the eyes of a tourist; and that the Palestinian people are much like the Jewish people. “You can’t tell us apart unless we start talking. We’re all Semitic people,” he said. “Wear your keffiyah in health and in solidarity with Palestine.”