Monthly Archives: March 2013

Bodega Yemeni Style in Brooklyn

Immigration Issues, Yemen


Photo by Kiran Sury

Yemeni Immigrant Saga
Every time you buy a beer or a lottery ticket at a bodega run by Mohamed Mohamed or one of his countrymen, you tap into a story of ethnic succession and a struggle to reconcile one culture with another

by Kiran Sury, The Brooklyn Bureau, Monday, Jan 7, 2013

On the corner of Flatbush Avenue and Glenwood Road in Brooklyn, Mohamed Mohamed runs Gold Star Deli Grocery with his father Mohamed and another employee, also named Mohamed, all of them from Yemen. This unique situation arises from Arabic nomenclature. “The customers get confused, but not us,” jokes the younger Mohamed. His father, whose full name is Mohamed Abdullah Alrohani, has come up with a more pragmatic solution: just call him Alex.

Across Glenwood Road, Sadek Almontaser mans the counter of the recently opened Glenwood Deli, a corner store. Cigarettes are sold behind the counter, drinks and chips line the walls, and a small deli section offers fresh sandwiches – staples for any bodega.

But to the discerning eye of a corner-store connoisseur, there are several features that are not so standard.

As Almontaser deals with a steady stream of lottery ticket buyers, he happily discusses how Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad isn’t a bad man, just misunderstood. His uncle Ali, who runs the deli station, is 11 years his junior, a genealogical feat made possible by his grandfather’s four wives back in Yemen. Ali will be happy to make you a BLT, though he may forget to mention that the bacon is made of beef, not pork. And every so often a man will enter the store, nod to Almontaser, and make his way downstairs. Not every bodega has a prayer room in the basement.

Across the street yet again, on the other side of Flatbush Avenue, the eponymous Yafai Deli and Grocery is run by Saad Yafai. He shares it with his brother Nabil, who is currently back home in Yemen. His entire family is in Yemen, and he and his brother take turns staying in America and running the family store.

Most New Yorkers would agree that the deli/convenience store, once the exclusive purview of Jews, Italians and Germans, has come to be associated with Latinos. The word bodega, which is used interchangeably with deli, is Spanish for “warehouse” or “cellar”. According to data from the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce, the number of firms in the borough classified as supermarket or convenience stores almost doubled during the first decade of this century. But the three stores on the corner of Glenwood Road and Flatbush Avenue show that Latinos are no longer dominant, as shifting demographics have opened up a new ethnic segment of the market. An influx of Arabs has brought a corresponding increase in Arab storeowners, each eager to pursue his own version of the American Dream.

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Clifton Clarke, professor of finance and business management at Brooklyn College, says that shifting populations opened a void for new businesses to fill, and that companies often change according to their target market. When Arab immigrants started to populate new neighborhoods, it made sense for them to manage the corner stores as they could better cater to Arabic needs. “Ethnicity, population, drives the type of businesses that are developed,” he says. “And these bodegas, which are now mostly run by Arabs, just fit in nicely.” Continue reading Bodega Yemeni Style in Brooklyn →

The Price of Freedom

Gender and Sexuality, Lebanon, Literature


The Price of Freedom: A Reading of Ghada al-Samman’s Beirut ’75
by George N. El-Hage, Ph.D.

“Beirut has ruined me, that’s all!”

“That’s not true,” he replied, “You women all accuse Beirut of ruining you when the truth of the matter is that the seeds of corruption were already deep inside you. All Beirut did was to give them a place to thrive and become visible. It’s given them a climate where they can grow.”

“She wondered to herself…if they had allowed my body to experience wholesome, sound relationships in Damascus – would I have lost my way to this extent?”

A sense of alienation, pessimism, and ultimate nihilism, which stems from al-Samman’s existential viewpoint, envelops the main characters in Beirut ‘75. The protagonists (Yasmeena, Farah, Ta’aan, Abu’l-Malla, and Abu Mustafa) feel trapped, alone, and disconnected from each other and from society. Each character’s personal struggle sheds light on some negative aspect of Lebanese society as seen by al-Samaan in 1975. Each character is exploited in some way, either sexually, politically or economically. Although these underlying evils of Lebanese society may have existed, al-Samman only shows a unilateral view colored by her own perception of reality. She fails to offer a multidimensional and more realistic view of the society at that time. In addition, she fails to successfully convey the depth of existential crisis that each of her characters endures, consequently resulting in characters that remain shallow and who do not convince the reader that their tragic demise is warranted.

The first chapter of the novel repeatedly foreshadows the characters’ impending doom; nevertheless, the reader is still left with a sense of bewilderment at such an astonishing and violent end to an otherwise ordinary set of characters. Did they really merit such a catastrophic conclusion of events? Several reviews have been very critical of such a sensational conclusion, and some critics, as well as many readers, have been shocked and dismayed. The author loves to admit, though, that she herself was puzzled with this conclusion as she tries to justify it to the public: Continue reading The Price of Freedom →

History Channeling “The Bible”

Bible and Holy Land, Film and Video, YouTube Watch

Hollywood loves making biblical movies and once in awhile there is one worth watching. Last night the so-called “History Channel” premiered a 10-part series with the novel title of “The Bible.” To cut to the chase, this is a really awful cinematic flop. It is definitely not worth watching, no matter what you think about the Bible as history. The first episode starts with Noah brandishing a Scottish accent in a leaky ark with pairs of animals, like giraffes, in the background. How giraffes migrated to Mesopotamia where Noah lived is, for historical accuracy, better left unmentioned. In between plugging up holes in the shittim wood, with water swirling in the air around the inside of the box-like ark, Noah tells the story of creation, day by day. We get a glimpse of Adam and Eve, but not with any full body frontal nudity. Our first sight of Adam is a guy literally caked with mud, not the dust of the ground. How Eve got there is left out. The bashed-in head of Abel is shown, but no one delivers the classic line “Am I my brother’s keeper?”

The story jumps from Noah to Abraham, who convinces Lot to drag his wife along as the “tribe” moves to the promised land. The actor for Abraham could have taken lessons from Mel Brooks, who had Moses down pat in History of the World, Part One. There is a lot of hugging, but for the most part God is absent from the life of Abraham. Why anyone would want to believe in this bullying absentee creator is a mystery. Then one day three messengers appear, one looking Asian and another looking African and all three with full body armor. When Abraham hears that wicked Sodom is about to be destroyed, he asks the messengers to save Lot and his family. Sodom is a steamy and seedy place with little evidence that the young looking Lot was actually made into a judge and sat at the city gate. Good King Melchizedek of Sodom, who was saved by Abraham, is left out of the cast. Nor is the command for Abraham to circumcise, the sign of the covenant and a rather important part of the story, included. Beyond the drunken street carousing in Sodom, Lot’s willlingness to send out his virgin daughter rather than give up the messengers he had given shelter to is missing. He hardly needed to offer his daughter, as in this film the Asian looking messenger is a martial arts specialist and slices his way through the streets with Lot and family, after letting Jehovah (it is hard to tell because God is off camera much of the time) blind the evil doers. Lot’s wife turns into a pillar of salt, a historical item one should probably take with a pillar of salt, but the incest of Lot with his daughters in the case is conveniently omitted. Continue reading History Channeling “The Bible” →

Travels of Sir John Mandaville, 2

Books You Should Read, Islam and Christianity


Silk Road

[One of the most widely read Holy Land travel narratives of the 14th century was attributed to a certain Sir John Mandaville. Some scholars believed it was compiled from writings of It appears to have been compiled from the writings of William of Boldensele, Oderic of Pordenone, and Vincent de Beauvais. Whoever the author, it is a fascinating read for the positive depiction of Islam. But part of the praise is to heap shame on the Christians for not keeping faith as well as these Saracens. Martin Luther used the same tactic, even accusing the Catholic Church of being worse in keeping faith than the Turks of his day. The entire book is online, but here is the part comparing Muslim and Christian devotion. For part one, click here.]

And, therefore, I shall tell you what the soldan told me upon a day in his chamber. He let void out of his chamber all manner of men, lords and others, for he would speak with me in counsel. And there he asked me how the Christian men governed them in our country. And I said him, “Right well, thanked be God!”

And he said me, “Truly nay! For ye Christian men reck right nought, how untruly to serve God! Ye should give ensample to the lewd people for to do well, and ye give them ensample to do evil. For the commons, upon festival days, when they should go to church to serve God, then go they to taverns, and be there in gluttony all the day and all night, and eat and drink as beasts that have no reason, and wit not when they have enough. And also the Christian men enforce themselves in all manners that they may, for to fight and for to deceive that one that other. And therewithal they be so proud, that they know not how to be clothed; now long, now short, now strait, now large, now sworded, now daggered, and in all manner guises. They should be simple, meek and true, and full of alms-deeds, as Jesu was, in whom they trow; but they be all the contrary, and ever inclined to the evil, and to do evil. And they be so covetous, that, for a little silver, they sell their daughters, their sisters and their own wives to put them to lechery. And one withdraweth the wife of another, and none of them holdeth faith to another; but they defoul their law that Jesu Christ betook them to keep for their salvation. And thus, for their sins, have they lost all this land that we hold. For, for their sins, their God hath taken them into our hands, not only by strength of ourself, but for their sins. For we know well, in very sooth, that when ye serve God, God will help you; and when he is with you, no man may be against you. And that know we well by our prophecies, that Christian men shall win again this land out of our hands, when they serve God more devoutly; but as long as they be of foul and of unclean living (as they be now) we have no dread of them in no kind, for their God will not help them in no wise.” Continue reading Travels of Sir John Mandaville, 2 →