From the Bookshelves: When We Were Arabs by Massoud Hayoun

When We Were Arabs is "an absorbing family history that spans continents and epochs" and the personal history of the author, Massoud Hayoun, who is a member of the Arab diaspora with Egyptian, Moroccan, Tunisian, and Jewish roots. 

An excerpt of the NPR book review:

"Hayoun uses his grandparents' stories to illuminate the fading history of a once thriving Arab Jewish community. In the process, he delivers a scathing indictment of colonialism. He considers his Arabness "cultural," "African," and "Jewish," but "retaliatory" as well.

"I am Arab because it is what [we] have been told not to be, for generations, to stop us from living in portentous solidarity with other Arabs," he writes.

 MHC