Week 11 Discussion Response

(One of the World Record-winning plates of Hummus in Jerusalem that we talked about in class... I want to eat it)

When watching the videos and reading the articles this week knowing that we were going to discuss cultural appropriation, I immediately kept my eyes peeled for signs of it. At first glance, I didn't quite understand how we were tying food to cultural appropriation; food is food. Even after finishing the assignment, I was still somewhat confused, as I thought it only made sense for Israelis, living in the Middle East, to eat Middle Eastern food, especially since many Israelis are originally from Arab countries. So in my reading response, I quickly brushed over the topic and didn't delve into it very deeply because I didn't think it was necessary. After our conversations in class this week, I see that I was wrong, but not 100%.

It isn't appropriate to call something cultural appropriation when (a) it isn't negative AND (b) it isn't being taken from somewhere else (emphasis on the and because one of these conditions isn't sufficient on its own). Since many Israelis are from Arab countries and have lived there for generations, and some being Arab themselves, they are not taking anything away from Arab cuisine. They are not claiming that it is their own and ignoring where it came from. It is only logical that they would continue to eat the food that they have eaten for generations, even when they move to a new political state and change their nationality. It also makes sense that when someone moves to Israel that they would eat the cuisine offered to them by those who run restaurants, many of whom are making this Middle Eastern food that has been eaten in that region for centuries. They are simply assimilating into the culture that they see, and Middle Eastern food has become very much a part of Israeli culture. Thus, I would not call this facet of our conversation cultural appropriation.

Here is where I see cultural appropriation entering the conversation: when Israelis eat this food and claim that it is Israeli and only Israeli, uninfluenced by Arabs. This is (a) very negative in nature and (b) being taken away from Arabs and coveted by Israelis, even though these people who are Israeli have been been raised on this food for generations. This type of distinction seems unnecessary, as who wants to create a problem out of food? However, as we're seeing in class, this is a problem.

The problem that I see is not people enjoying the same food and just wanting it to be theirs, but people having a political conflict and taking every facet of life and creating a problem from it to create a further separation as opposed to using the similarity to bridge the divide. Does this make the problem cultural appropriation, or an entirely different type of problem? I'm not sure how to answer that, but it could be a mix between the two. I think the most important aspect of the conversation, however, is that people who share something wonderful (and delicious) in common are using that wonderful thing to further divide each other. While Israelis are to blame for the cultural appropriation side of the problem, both sides share the blame in perpetuating an unnecessary fight over food.