Ladies of the Dance by May Mansoor Munn6/20/2023 ![]() ![]() ![]() His lifelong quest became to transcend his humble Palestinian origins through his American/European ties. ![]() "She was buying bolts of material for her shop," my mother said, admiration in her voice, "as astute a business woman as any of them."Īfter World War I, when control of Palestine changed from Ottoman to British hands, we - our father's daughters - came to believe that "East is East, and West is Best." And, although Aunt Khadra did not give it much thought, for my dad, survival in a Western-dominated world meant emulating Western ways. My mother once discovered her in the outdoor marketplace in Askalan, north of Beersheba, bargaining with the men. She sold cloth to both westernized Palestinian women, as well as to those who wore the thobe - an embroidered, ankle-length dress. Yet, when I was very young, Aunt Khadra owned a fabric shop in the older part of Ramallah. My dad considered his sister Khadra, a fallaha - a country woman, uneducated in Western ways. She married Shatara, a widower with children, but never had children of her own. While my dad attended schools in Ramallah (in Palestine), and later in Beirut, France, Germany, and England - learning five languages along the way - Aunt Khadra spoke only her native fallahi Arabic, and her early "schooling" centered around her daily life. ![]() Although she was my dad's older sister, their lives were a study in incongruity. ![]()
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