Duluth Palestinian restauranteur reflects on year marked by violence in Gaza

CATHY WURZER: While October 7 marked the horrific attack on Israel, it also marked the start of a wider war. Since that day more than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Minnesota is home to many Palestinian families who've watched the war unfold from afar, and that includes Lyla Abukhodair. She lives in Duluth and in the last year opened up a Palestinian restaurant called Falastin in what was the former New London Cafe space on Superior Street. The last year has been filled with highs and lows as a Palestinian business owner, and we're pleased that Lyla can join us right now. Thanks for taking the time. We appreciate it.

LYLA ABUKHODAIR: Hi, Cathy. Thanks so much for having me.

CATHY WURZER: Thank you for taking the time. Obviously, last year's been so difficult for the Palestinian community. But you opened a restaurant in this past year. Oh my goodness. Tell me about that.

LYLA ABUKHODAIR: Yeah. We opened up Falastin on May 10 of this year, and it's been a journey. [LAUGHS] It's definitely been a journey.

CATHY WURZER: I can't even imagine the journey that it has been. Tell me a little bit about what's happened in this year. If I remember correctly, I think, sadly, your business was vandalized?

LYLA ABUKHODAIR: Yeah, Falastin was created to create a space for the Palestinian story, and we believe there that it is so important to keep sharing our story through over 76 years of genocide, actually. To me, I have a hard time with just the past year narrative, because Palestinians have been displaced for much longer than that. And that's a huge part of what we're trying to do there.

I honestly, with the graffiti, I thought it was going to happen sooner. [LAUGHS] It's hard to be openly Palestinian here and in Palestine and around America. There's a ton of Islamophobia, so much racism against Arabs, and I was surprised it didn't happen sooner. And I don't mean that in a positive note. It was scary and it was hard. But I think it's important for our communities to see what it's like when you are openly Palestinian, when you are openly who you are.

CATHY WURZER: And we should say, didn't you grow up on the Range?

LYLA ABUKHODAIR: I actually grew up in Duluth.

CATHY WURZER: OK. And so you're used to-- Northeastern Minnesota is your home. You've got family in the West Bank.

LYLA ABUKHODAIR: Yeah, I do, in Sheikh Jarrah and Shuafat.

CATHY WURZER: And what's the last year been like for them-- and for you, keeping track of what's going on-- but what's it been like for them on the West Bank?

LYLA ABUKHODAIR: I was actually visiting them last year in April, and it was my first time there, and almost my whole family was there, my partner, their partners. And looking through my dad's eyes, it's difficult to see him going back there years after years and seeing the changes happening there.

My great aunt in Sheikh Jarrah, she has this beautiful home that's-- I mean, it's quite small, and it's surrounded by settlements that look a little bit like suburban Minnesota, actually. And her home is very old, and she faces struggle with losing that every day. She's 85 years old, and she needs a permit to fix her stairs to get into her home, and she hasn't gotten that. It's a segregated community there and it's very hard for the Palestinians' everyday life, including my family.

CATHY WURZER: Did you, by the way-- are you getting support, the needed support in Duluth for what you're doing, and for who you are?

LYLA ABUKHODAIR: Yeah, the community is very supportive of what we're doing, sharing-- very good allies, sharing their support every day and not trying to fabricate our story, not trying to silence everything that Palestinians have been through. They're there, they want to hear it, and they're not just there for the food. They see that our food is a part of a whole struggle, a whole diaspora. I don't feel like they try to erase that, too. They honor that. You can't eat this food without hearing and knowing about what Palestinians have been through. The food has survived this ethnic cleansing for so long, and I feel like our community is supporting that.

CATHY WURZER: I'm wondering too, as you and I are talking, Lyla, when you were younger, and since you grew up in the Duluth area, do you remember 9/11? What was that like for you at that time, too?

LYLA ABUKHODAIR: [LAUGHS] You know, I'm not trying to laugh. I just-- it is a little bit of a funny story because I remember after 9/11, we had FBI people, FBI agents come to my home. Just because of my last name, Abukhodair, and it's an Arab name traced back to Palestine and Shuafat, where my family's from. And my parents served them tea, and I just think that that's such a beautiful representation of our culture and how we share food and how we are a peaceful people.

CATHY WURZER: Have you become, then, since you were young-- you sound like you're proud. You're not afraid of who you are.

LYLA ABUKHODAIR: [LAUGHS] No. I mean, I see it as a huge privilege to be doing what I'm doing when in Palestine, you can't wave your flag. They don't let you do that, they don't let you speak like this, and here I am with this. I feel like I need to share it. I need to be who I am because I'm carrying these stories that will be erased, that are being systematically erased, and I think it's so important to keep sharing that.

It's actually funny because when I was visiting my great aunt in Sheikh Jarrah, she doesn't speak English so well, and I don't speak Arabic well at all. And she just grabs my hands, and she looks at me and looks at me in my eyes and says-- she just kept saying, Palestine, Palestine, Palestine, with so much weight to it.

I could feel what she's been through, through the Nakba, and then watching her family all be displaced in 1967, which is when my dad was a refugee. And so I am really proud of who I am. And I'm really proud of what we're doing here and I'm proud of the community support, because it's what being Palestinian is, is resilience.

CATHY WURZER: Boy. Lyla, there's so much tension and mistrust and so much hurt and suffering between all sides in this war. I'm wondering, what are your hopes? What do you want to see happen?

LYLA ABUKHODAIR: I want the truth to be spoken about Palestinian and what's going on. I mean, in Gaza there has to be way more people who have been murdered from that, and on our news outlets, we're not hearing that. And that's why I'm also proud of our space, because we're a source for people to come to and talk about those things and hear these first-hand stories of people like my friend, whose family-- she lost 16 of her family members with one F-16 bomb earlier, in early October. And they were only able to bury one of them, fragments of that person, everyone else under the rubble. And so I hope that this genocide will end and that there can be a free Palestine, because people deserve to have their homes.

CATHY WURZER: Well, Lyla, I wish I had more time with you, and I'm really grateful that you took the time to talk with us. Thank you.

LYLA ABUKHODAIR: Thanks, Cathy.

CATHY WURZER: Lyla Abukhodair is the owner of Falastin, a Palestinian restaurant in Duluth. We have more coverage online at mprnews.org today with more Palestinian and Jewish voices.