Nour*, Egyptian Arab

We are talking the morning after Iran's attack on Israel. How was your night?

— I ruptured my knee two weeks ago, so I can’t even run to the bomb shelter. I live in the south of the country, about 20 minutes from Gaza. So, there were loud and aggressive sounds of airplanes all night, and I could hear the war, even though I didn’t watch the news. So it was very stressful. But I understand that this feeling is shared by all people who live in Israel at the moment. We all fear for our lives.

Can you tell me a little bit about yourself and about what brought you to Israel?

— I come from a religious Muslim family in Egypt. I was religious for the first 18–19 years of my life. I used to wear hijab from the age of 11 to 21.

Wow, it's so hard to believe it! You have a pierced mouth and shaved head.

— I know, but actually, my family has a good connection with me. I feel privileged because you don’t expect Muslim Arab families to accept a woman in their family behaving the way that I do. But my mom's strategy was always to allow us to be ourselves and love us as we are. I think that gives me the power to be the person that I am. I'm very, very grateful for that.

So what happened at 21 that made you abandon your religious family traditions?

— A huge part of it was the Egyptian revolution that happened when I was 18 years old in 2011. It was the year that I started my first degree in physics in Egypt. So, I participated in student activities, and I protested a lot. My house is very patriarchal and very gendered. And we had a violent father, the complete opposite of my mom. But I don't like to listen to people's opinions. I like to research stuff. So, at 19, I started researching Islam. I was very religious and actually believed in Islam. But I thought there were so many things in it that didn't fit and didn't feel right. It was against me, against who I am as a person and really oppressed me as a woman. It took me a few years till I realized that organized religion was not for me, and I took off my hijab. I believed as a woman, I deserved better treatment and equality.

I came back without a hijab. My family threatened to kill me. But I escaped through the window and ran away.

After I finished my first degree, I went on to a university in India as part of a program. After the internship, I came back from India without a hijab. My family threatened to kill me. I know my mom would never kill me, they said this because this pressure is inflicted socially. They locked me in the house. I was not allowed to leave the house without a hijab. But I escaped through the window and ran away. I made them choose: it's either you deal with having a daughter who doesn't wear hijab, or you deal with a daughter who runs away— which is even the worst social pressure.

Sorry to ask this, but if they would have killed you, what would have happened to them from a legal point of view?

— When I was 13, my friend was murdered by her family, and nothing happened to them. As far as I know, she had a boyfriend, and she didn’t even date him; she was talking to him on the phone. The family was extremely against that. They said that she jumped out the window. If a family kills their daughter “to protect her honor," they can say she died of something else, and the police won’t do anything about it. I had another friend who was 18 and also "jumped out the window."

My father would tell me: "You're a woman, a property of the family; you're like this chair. If I kill you, no one would tell me anything." And this is the reality of the legal system in Egypt.

How did you end up living in Israel?

— I came to Hebrew University in 2016 to do my master's in physics. I was the first Egyptian student on the university's science campus.

How did this idea come to you?

— When I was 21, I had a French friend who was Jewish. I met him at a physics conference in Egypt. We would talk a lot about his family history, and he told me about the Holocaust. I was in absolute shock. It was the first time I heard about the Holocaust. Mind you, after my first degree in physics, I was considered an educated person, but I was never introduced to that part of history.

So, I started learning about it and read Night, the testimony of the Holocaust survivor, Elie Wiesel. At the time, I was going through many personal changes. I left Islam, and at the same time, my father died of cancer. I read this book, actually, two days after my dad died. In the book, Elie talks about going to the camp with his father and his father dying there. And the pain I was feeling from losing my dad echoed the pain that Elie was talking about in the book. From there, I was pushed to learn more about Israel and the Jewish people.

Besides other things, I found out that the Sixth of October War, which in Egypt is a national holiday celebrating the Egyptian army's victory — wasn’t actually a victory at all! Every year, there’s a parade in the street, a military celebration of the Sixth of October War.

I learned that Israel won simply by switching the language on Wikipedia to another language other than Arabic. And in Arabic it only says that Egypt won. I was so offended! I felt lied to. I really took it heavily. So, I decided to come to Israel to educate myself because I could not trust anything I was taught!

I knew it wouldn't make me less Arab. I'm still proud of being an Arab. My own kind of Arab.

Jewish person made a poll on the students' website: “Let's take a vote to kick the Arab out of class.” More than 50% of the class voted me out.

How were you accepted in Israeli society?

— I had a horrible time with both Arabs and Jewish people. On my first day at Hebrew University, some Jewish person made a poll on the students' website: “Let's take a vote to kick the Arab out of class.” Because when I came to do my degree, it was the first year Hebrew University decided to teach in English. So people who didn’t want to learn English would say: “How dare you change the language of Hebrew University from Hebrew to English for an Arab.” More than 50% of the class voted me out. However, the Dean of the Chemistry Department removed the person who had started the poll from the class. He said, these were the rules and everyone would learn in English either way.

Palestinian people were also quite violent towards me and called me names and said: “As an Arab, you shouldn’t normalize other Arabs coming to Israel and studying here. You shouldn't be here.” In the University they would give me the wrong dates, translate the wrong stuff for me, and tell me to go away.

There were, of course, some people who accepted me, the liberal leftist hippies of Israel that I love. But an average Jewish student would always keep a certain distance from me.

Why have you decided to stay, despite this hostile atmosphere?

— Now, I know it was not the right choice, but I met someone, and we decided to get married. I’m now living in the kibbutz of his hometown, which is his family's house. They accepted me for who I am; they are my family now, and I’m very, very grateful to them!

Do you have kids?

— No, I don't want to ever have kids. I do not believe that every female should want to have children. Maybe in 10 years, I will change my mind, but now I do not want to bring a child into this world, and I think there are already enough children who need care and love.

I've been stuck right in the middle of anti-semitism and racism towards Arabs. Egypt refuses to renew my passport. Meanwhile, Israel keeps saying: we have never seen Egyptians come here, why don't you go back?

Did you get Israeli citizenship?

— No, I don’t even have a residency. I found myself in a very complex situation. In the last five years, I've been stuck right in the middle of anti-semitism and racism towards Arabs. Egypt refuses to renew my passport and doesn't consider me an Egyptian citizen anymore. They even fired my mom from her job because I got married to an Israeli. I'm blacklisted, and if I go back to Egypt, I'll go to jail. Meanwhile, Israel's Ministry of Interior is repeatedly saying: we have never seen Egyptians come here, why don't you go back?

After I finished studying at Hebrew University, I stayed without a permit to work and study for three years. I had three different lawyers who couldn’t help me, but I found one who managed to apply for asylum seeker status (by then, I already didn’t have a valid passport). I got a six-month work visa, which the Ministry changed to a three-month visa after the war started on October 7th

When you got your work permit, what kind of work did you do?

— I applied for a position as a Physics and English teacher in a middle school. I'd only been working for a few weeks when this war broke out on October 7th. A few weeks later, the parents had a meeting and decided they didn't want an Arab to teach their children. They fired me, and until now the school hasn’thad a Physics or English teacher to take my place.

I tried to apply for so many different jobs after the war, and I just got no replies. Usually, I don't take things personally and don't care about what people think, but this time, it's not just people's opinion. It is actually affecting my life, putting me in debt because of racism. And even my activism in Arabic society was affected!

What do you do as an activist?

— I was a founding member of the only sexual educational platform in the world for Arabic women and queer people. It's led by women volunteers. Most of us are immigrants and refugees. It started as a Facebook page, but it became bigger. In 2021, we were nominated for the position of sexual health influencer in the UK, and in 2022, we won The Influencer of the Year award from the UN Bureau in France.

We teach sexual health, pleasure, and rights; we try to educate people about consent, and we develop a new language, because most words about sex in Arabic are negative, especially about the queer community. So, we try to make talk about sex more positive and inclusive.

After this war broke out, three or four friends from my feminist Arab community reached out to make sure I was alive, and then there was complete silence. Soon after, I received an email in a quite impersonal and formal way informing me that they would like me to step aside. I received this email the same day I was in the Ministry of Interior, where they told me they couldn't renew my visa. It was very painful.

I do understand the pain of both sides, but I feel there is no space for people like me in this world. At least now.

People want simple answers and want to take sides, but the reality that we live in is more complex. There are humans in the middle, and they have feelings, so we should care about them and not care about politicians who keep failing us. They just keep failing us, but people keep following their ideologies of hate and fear, and it just hurts me.

I used to believe that Israel was a more tolerant or less violent entity than the Arab society that I grew up in, but I was wrong. This war and the consequences I faced changed a lot of my beliefs.

What do you think about the concept of nationality after all of the experiences you’ve had?

— I think it creates more differences and separation between people. The same way that I think about gender. We are taught how to be a woman or how to be a man and keep the two sides separated. Nationality does the same.

Maybe it was helpful at some point in history to organize the structure of nations, but it shouldn’t be part of our future as human beings.

I belong with the people I love who actually accept me as who I am. It's not about nationality, religion, or gender.

* Name changed for confidentiality.

Text Asya Chachko
Illustration Victor Melamed

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