In this special episode of Quakers Today, we share a conversation from The Seed: Conversations for Radical Hope. Host Dwight Dunston speaks with Dr. Riyam Kafri AbuLaban, an educator, writer, and former principal at Ramallah Friends School.

From her home in Ramallah, Dr. Kafri AbuLaban reveals how Palestinian cuisine is deeply tied to identity, history, and resilience. Despite the challenges of forced displacement and cultural appropriation, Palestinian food remains a bridge to the past and a testament to memory, resistance, and celebration. The Seed podcast is a project of Pendle Hill, a Quaker study, retreat, and conference center welcoming all for Spirit-led learning and community.

About Dr. Riyam Kafri AbuLaban: Dr. Kafri AbuLaban is a writer and educator whose work spans essays, poetry, and articles on Palestine, motherhood, and education. Formerly a chemistry professor, she transitioned to educational leadership as a principal and now leads initiatives at AlNayzak Organization. A proud Ramallah Friends School and Earlham College graduate, Quaker values continue to shape her life and faith. Follow her on Instagram and LinkedIn.

Special Music: This episode features “Sada” by the Sada Trio—Ahmad Al Khatib, Pedram Shahlai, and Feras Sharestan—Middle Eastern virtuosos keeping their cultural roots alive in Sweden.

Friends Journal Fiction Issue: Explore Quaker-themed fiction in Friends Journal’s November 2024 issue, including “Bread of Life” by Vicki Winslow and “Penn’s Spring” by our co-host, Peterson Toscano. Read more at FriendsJournal.org.

Monthly Question: What novel, film, or television series changed your relationship with the world? Share your answer by calling 317-QUAKERS or responding on social media.

Follow Quakers Today on TikTok, Instagram, X, and visit us at QuakersToday.org.

Selected Quotes:

1. “Our cuisine is a direct extension of the land…we hold on to our food because it’s really our identity.” — Dr. Riyam Kafri AbuLaban.
2. “Food is resistance, memory, healing, and celebration for displaced people.” — Dwight Dunston.

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Transcript for Palestine, Food, and Memory with Dr. Riyam Kafri AbuLaban

Peterson Toscano: Hi, I am Peterson Toscano, co-host of the Quakers Today podcast. In this special interim episode of Quakers Today, I share a conversation Dwight Dunston, the host of The Seed, Conversations for Radical Hope, had with Dr. Riyam Kafri AbuLaban. Riyam and her family come from Palestine and currently live in Ramallah. An educator and a writer, Riyam served as the Upper School Principal at the Ramallah Friends School.

In this short conversation, Riyam shares with Dwight the pleasure and pain refugees experience when they eat traditional meals from lands they can no longer visit or inhabit. 

After you hear the episode, I will tell you about season four of Quakers Today and how you can appear on our show. 

Riyam Kafri AbuLaban: Those flavors were connected to that land, connected to a better time, connected to the time where she was still a child and played out in the sun right before she turned into a refugee and suddenly this place.

Dwight Dunston: You’re listening to a mini-episode of The Seed: Conversations for Radical Hope. In this Pendle Hill podcast, Quakers and other seekers come together to explore visions of the world growing through the cracks of our broken systems. I’m your host, Dwight Dunstan. Some of these shorter episodes feature parts of conversations never aired before. In others, I will share excerpts from previous seasons. Occasionally, you get to be a fly on the wall as I share conversations and sounds from the Pendle Hill campus. This is Season 5 of The Seed, and we are exploring world-building. It is easy to point out all that is wrong today, but what is the world we long to see and inhabit? 

In this mini-episode, I share a part of my conversation with a guest who joined me from Ramallah, Palestine. She reveals food’s power for people displaced by war and occupation. Dr. Riyam Kafri AbuLaban is a writer at heart. She crafts personal essays, poetry, short stories, and insightful articles on Palestine, motherhood, and education. 

Food is such a big part of Palestinian culture, and I’ve gotten a chance to read your articles about food and recipes and the power of food. I want to read a quote from your article “The Splendid Palestinian Table” and ask you to share some thoughts on it. You wrote: “For Palestinians forced out of their land in 1948, food is in the past tense, only to be brought into the present when dishes from their villages are made today, to bring back a glimpse of the colorful squash herbs and crops of village life for those who live in Gaza. Food in the refugee camp is unwholesome, an unfinished puzzle with pieces missing.” Yeah. I’m just curious if you have thoughts or reflections from from that quote or just how you think about the power of food in Palestinian culture?

Riyam Kafri AbuLaban: I wrote this a couple of years ago, but it’s so relevant today. The thing is, I don’t think of food as only something that happens in the kitchen. I think our cuisine is a direct extension of the land and the land that we are being forced out of, and have been forced out of several times. Now, we hold on to our food because it’s really our identity. 

And when I say that, it’s in the past for refugees, and I was specifically talking about the Gazan cuisine. Of all the foods in Palestine, it’s the most vibrant because Gaza had so many refugee camps, because people had a, had an influx of refugees in 1948 to begin with, people came from different villages around Gaza, from in the north, and they brought together with them their own kitchen. 

But then, when the blockade started, the props weren’t as readily available, and access to olive oil, which is a staple, for example, was not really as readily available as before. And so suddenly that this vibrant, colorful kitchen was slowly losing those colors in a sense, or at least fading in color because of the blockade, because there was no way in and out of Gaza at that, at that point. And so that’s, that’s where this, this particular sentence came from. I was thinking of that there’s an incredible book and a wonderful person who worked on it called, it’s called The Gaza Kitchen and, and I think the author is, is right now, her name is escaping me, but, but she’s, she has family in Gaza currently, and she’s spoken a lot about this and she’s an activist as well. But she’s one who kind of brought me into The Gaza Kitchen through her book and, and that’s where, where that came from. 

So but, but for Palestinians, it’s, it’s really not a well-lit stainless steel bench kitchen. It’s really the kitchen and the land are our extensions and are intertwined together because when, when people lived in villages, they ate what they what they were harvesting. So if it was tomatoes, they had tomato salad and Palestinian salad. And if it was olive oil, then they would have olive oil, fresh olive oil with fresh bread and olives. And if it was wheat, then it was, you know, something else. And if it was okra, then it’s okra for dinner. And they would cook out in the land, because they would be out in the sun all day, and were not going to go back to their countries, to their homes. So so this is so that’s what I think of when I think of the Palestinian cuisine, that it is really an extension of the land, and that’s why we stick to it, and that’s why my late mother-in-law would ask for specific dishes that she used to make as a child or as a younger person that were directly, you know, her specialty in her village. She was she, she was a refugee. She left her village in 1948. She was only 12 at the time, and she lost three brothers during the Nakba. So, so, so those flavors were connected to that land, connected to a better time, connected to the time where she was still a child and played out in the sun, right before she turned into a refugee and suddenly displaced and suddenly older and you know, because when you go through that kind of trauma, you’re no longer your, your age in years no longer matches your age and cognition and emotional development. So, so she’s, you know, she would say, you know, she would specifically mention and request specific foods that reminded her of her village.

Dwight Dunston: Yeah, the food food as memory, food as healing source, food as a grief portal, food as celebration portal, joy portal. Food as resistance.

Riyam Kafri AbuLaban: You know, we face appropriation of our food on a, on a regular basis, right? And so suddenly we’re, you know, we’re like, but wait a minute, knafeh is Palestinian. Has always been Palestinian. For the unknowing, you know, they would say, why is it important to know where hummus came from, or where makluba came from, or where any of those dishes came from? It’s, you know, food is a hedonistic pleasure that really is in the now, but it’s really a lot more than that, even if a good meal really lasts only 45 minutes, there are memories typed, and what you know about this food really informs your experience.

Dwight Dunston: Yeah, yeah, that’s so rich. It’s such a rich part of Palestinian culture I’m hearing in food pathways and food histories, as you share, carry so much of the people’s history. 

That was Dr. Riyam Kafri AbuLaban, a writer and educator who served as the Upper School Principal at the Ramallah Friend School. She crafts personal essays, poetry, short stories, and insightful articles on Palestine, motherhood, and education. You can read more of her food writing at riyamoskitchentablestories.com. That’s riyamoskitchentablestories.com. Follow Riyam on Instagram @riyamkafri. For more of my conversation with Riyam, listen to season five, episode two of The Seed. Thank you for listening to this mini-episode of The Seed: Conversations for Radical Hope. What spoke to you in this episode? How does this conversation fit into your journey? What would you like to add? Contact me directly by email, podcast@pendlehill.org, or share your thoughts on Instagram, Facebook, or X. Look for @pendlehillseed on these social media platforms. 

Once a month, you and I can also connect through Pendle Hill’s online worship time. For login details, I attend this virtual Quaker meeting on the last Friday of the month, which begins at 8:30 am Eastern Time. Visit pendlehill.org/explore/worship. That’s pendlehill.org/explore/worship. 

Our podcast is a project of Pendle Hill, a Quaker center open to all for Spirit-led learning, retreat, and community. We’re located in Wallingford, Pennsylvania, on the traditional territory of the Lenni Lenape people. We host retreats, workshops and lectures all year round. For a complete list of these upcoming education opportunities, visit pendlehill.org/learn. This mini-episode of The Seed was produced by Peterson Toscano, who also co-hosts the Quakers Today podcast. Lucas Meyer Lee, a Quaker Voluntary Service fellow, provided other production assistance. Our theme music is the I Rise Project by Reverend Rhetta Morgan and Bennett Kuhn, produced by Astronautical Records. 

Our music today comes from Epidemic Sound. This includes the beautiful track at the end of my talk with Riyam. The song is Ara by the Sada Trio. This group of musicians has roots in three parts of the Middle East. One of the members, Ahmad Al Khatib, was born in 1974 in a Palestinian refugee camp in Jordan. Learn more about Ahmad and the Sada Trio at AhmadAlKhatibMusic.com. The Seed podcast is made possible by the generous support of the Thomas H and Mary Williams Shoemaker fund. Thank you. If you find these conversations meaningful, consider supporting our work financially. To do so, visit pendlehill.org/donate. These seeds could not be planted without you. Let’s co-create a world filled with cooperation, reciprocity, and love. That’s podcast@pendlehill. A loud motorcycle. Motorcycle@pendlehill.org.

Peterson Toscano: Many thanks to Dwight Dunston, Dr. Riyam Kafri AbuLaban, and the team at Pendle Hill. Please subscribe to The Seed. They have a back catalog of excellent episodes, including one with Rabbi Mordechai Liebling from Rabbis for Ceasefire. It is a powerful and moving conversation. You will find a link in our show notes over at quakerstoday.org

If you want to read short stories that touch on themes and topics popular with Quakers, check out the November 2024 issues of Friends Journal. The fiction issue includes the short story “Bread of Life” by Vicki Winslow. Last year, we featured Vicki and her short story “Sabbatical.” After meeting Vicki and reading her work, I was inspired to write a Quaker-themed short story and Friends Journal accepted it! The story is about a Quaker meeting in rural Pennsylvania. During an extremely dry summer in a Quaker meeting where numbers are dwindling, and the worship is tired, the members suddenly experience fresh air. A group of young people from a nearby eco-commune rents the meeting space for weekly ecstatic dance parties. This is the catalyst for conflict, revelations, and an unexpected outpouring of the Spirit. My short story is called “Penn’s Spring.” You can read it along with Vicki Winslow’s story “Bread of Life” and other short stories on FriendsJournal.org. You’ll find a link in the show notes.

Before we wrap up, I have a question for you to reflect on: “What novel, film, or television series changed your relationship with the world?” Fiction can shift how we see ourselves, others, and the larger world. We’d love to hear what stories have had this impact on you. Leave a voicemail with your answer at 317-QUAKERS or respond via our social media on Instagram, X, or TikTok.

On December 17, 2024, Miche McCall will be back, and together, we will host the premiere of Season Four of Quakers Today. We will discuss spiritual optimism and pessimism.
Thank you for listening to this special episode of Quakers Today. You can follow us on TikTok, Instagram, and X, and visit our website for more show notes and resources at QuakersToday.org.

Thank you, Friends. I look forward to being with you again real soon.