From Baghdad to Brooklyn: Growing Up in a Jewish-Arabic Family in Mid-Century America

Going for Coffee

My mother often sent me shopping to 18th Avenue (not a far distance, but for a kid it was unfamiliar territory), the district of Middle Eastern groceries, whose shopkeepers were Christian or Muslim. Their shelves were fully stocked with the pita we called “Syrian bread” and canned dolmas; the floors were crowded with sacks of bur…