Tfadalu ala alasha: a program in which Arabs cook, and we all learn
The Arabic version of the reality show Come Dine With Me provides a great opportunity for Arab viewers to get to know the differences and disagreements in the pressure cooker called the Palestinian minority in Israel, and for Jews it gives them a chance to take apart the stereotypes about the “non-Jewish” community in an entertaining and non-threatening way
By Samah Salaime • Translated by Keren Rubinstein
British reality show Come Dine with Me first aired in 2005. Honestly, I wasn’t familiar with it until searching the net for extracts from the Hebrew version, Bo’u le’echol iti (Come dine with me), first aired in 2012. In keeping with tradition, Arabs arrived to the party significantly late — they were invited by the broadcasting corporation to dine in their own Arabic-language only 12 years later. [Palestinian citizens had participated in the Hebrew program through the years.] And we can already conclude that although Arab cuisine is labour intensive, it pays off: the final product is simply tasty.
The program Tfadalu ala alasha (you’re invited for dinner) screened this week, and I sat down to watch almost every episode. With 20 episodes, 20 participants, it is divided into four groups according to location (Haifa/western Galilee, the Triangle, centre, and north) — five participants from each area. In every episode each participant hosts the others for a three-course dinner, at the end of which guests rate the host’s food and the overall experience from zero to ten. At the end of the calorie-rich week of hosting and the arguing, the winner is announced, and granted a culinary trip to a European destination.
Tfadalu ala alasha provides a wonderful opportunity for Arab viewers across their homeland to get a closer look at the differences, debates and hot topics in the pressure cooker known as the Palestinian minority in Israel. It is also a golden opportunity for Jews to gain insight into the inner world of nearly 1.5 million Palestinians with whom they share space. Who knows, maybe this will help break down stereotypes about the “non-Jewish” community in the country in an endearing, entertaining, non-threatening way.
And anyway, this is a positively surprising, well produced show. Clearly it was meticulously and professionally produced. The casting, filming locations, the filming itself as well as the editing succeed in creating half an hour of enjoyable, funny, exciting, and intriguing programming, even for an “expert on Arab affairs” such as myself. What makes this program unique is the courageous discussion of complex and difficult intra-Arab issues that usually remain highly private. Among others issues, the show deals with divorce, being single, parenthood, the status of women, religion and religiosity (delicately approached), racism in Israeli society, as well as the most dangerous and silenced topic in the Arab world: homosexuality.
One such excellent decision on behalf of the (Jewish) director and senior editors was to cast an openly gay participant who ticks all the traditional boxes for an average Arab family. The participant, Sharif, is a handsome, young, successful doctor, smart and funny, brilliant, sensitive, and thrilling. Did we mention he’s a doctor? He reveals before us the difficult and complex world of young Arabs who dare not come out of the closet, and the suffering they endure when they do try to present themselves to the world in an authentic and brave way.
The director, Zeev Gordsky, took the role with trepidation despite his significant experience directing reality shows and food and cooking shows. After all, and with all due respect, he’s not Arab. Isn’t that a bit rude? I asked him. “Clearly I can see why it might seem rude to a bystander, and maybe it is a bit rude”, he replied. “Frankly I was quite ambivalent, and decided I would take on the role if the program had two senior editors. I will bring the technical knowledge and experience in reality shows, but I will be accompanied by other people from the Arab community who will be with me to manage the content.
“I don’t know of another show that has two main editors. This not only makes the production more costly, it also created a fair amount of trouble. But I understood that the only way for me to do this project was to ‘not be afraid not to know’, and credit to the production company for understanding exactly what I was talking about, and which agreed and decided to go for it. I hope that the result at least justifies the chutzpah”.
It seems the director’s humility and awareness of his own limitations and cultural gaps all led him to gather a big and diverse production crew, Arab and Jewish, that combines professional knowledge with quality content. The co-editor, Abir Bahit, speaks enthusiastically about the show and describes a fascinating learning experience during which she had the opportunity to visit Arab towns and villages and get a peek at the daily lives of people in Arab society whom she would not have met off the set.
“We had over 150 auditions”, she says. “I was present in all of them, and it was very hard to choose the participants. We tried to have a variety, to examine stories from different aspects of Arab citizens’ lives, such as the single woman who was unable to have children without marriage and sinks into her teddy bears, elephants, and nieces; the young conservative religious man from Tayibe who’s also a TikTok star and is addicted to his mother and to facials; the Christian divorced nurse; the criminal lawyer who loves the offenders he represents and empathises with them, drinking whisky and preaching to an Islamist about Shari’a edicts; the Bedouin from the north; the atheist; and other characters that contrast one another around the dining table”.
And still, you didn’t dare go all the way and talk about the two most burning issues in Arab society and outside it today. Specifically, do you want to tell us that Arabs don’t talk about the war in Gaza? You filmed the whole season during the war, right?
Bahit: “We didn’t stop them from doing anything. There was no such directive. In fact, they asked not to talk about ‘religion and war’ as early as the auditions. Most of the participants avoided touching these painful blisters”.
According to her, she felt a duty to safeguard the participants. “The atmosphere outside was horrible. People were being arrested for a Facebook post. I’m not prepared to endanger someone who trusted us and let us into their home,” she says. “Myself and our amazing Arab- Jewish team were there for hours. At the Jerusalemite participant Maia’s place, for instance, very difficult and painful things were said, and we left everything to do with the realities of life, the expulsions, and the settlers. We tried to bring out the truth while being sensitive and cautious. But notice how the Palestinian identity was very evident around the table, and not just on the plate”.
One can understand avoiding politics, but the issue of criminality and the personal safety of Arab citizens — there is not one Arab family that doesn’t talk about this subject and how it impacts all our lives.
Bahit: “True, we didn’t deal with this directly and chose other topics this time, but it was mentioned here and there, in jest, of course. The participant Naghm from Ramle, for instance, laughs about living next to the prison where there’s always guards and cop cars, and says it’s the safest place in town. The viewers understand what she’s talking about. There’s no need for another heated discussion about the police and Ben-Gvir and the crime families”.
Given the sheer number of possible topics that could and should be discussed, the editors chose to focus on carefully certain social issues without being too daring. And so for instance there are no vegans in the show, no Bedouins from the south (and there was even a racist joke about Bedouins that slipped out), or people living northward of Kafr Yasif (because of the war apparently). And it’s interesting how the participants from the centre are all unpartnered (divorced, single, and a gay), in contrast with the Triangle group that exemplifies different relationships in a community that sanctifies family life and children. But one can expect the producers to challenge themselves more next season, inshallah.
I felt I represented my town with honour
After a whole week of this delight, I had to speak to the participants, and turned to Ala’a al Kurdi from Tayibe, a young very religious man, owner of a business for cleaning heavy vehicles. He shaves his head he’s bearded and groomed. His life is structured around his mother, the Qur’an, religious teachings and Tik Tok; he’s a fierce and decisive man. Everything for him is black and white, his self-confidence is through the roof, and he has criticism for the whole world around him.
Al Kurdi says that they contracted him for the show because of his popular TikTok channel. We had a long conversation that ran into the evening. I expected him not to like the production he saw this week, where he’s presented as a conservative religious Arab man who hides his wife, and whose dream is for her to wear a burqa, while at the same time never neglecting his facial treatments. Again, I was surprised. Al Kurdi loved the show and had nothing but praise for it. “I felt that I represented my town with honour”, he says. “The generosity, courtesy, and hospitality I demonstrated did good for the people of the Triangle. I know not everyone is like me, but that’s television, it’s a different level of publicity to social media, and it came out well”.
Al Kurdi admits that he wouldn’t have ordinarily encountered the other participants, certainly not his competitors in the team, the lawyer from Tira with whom he had heated arguments about religious conservatism and teachings. “That Nidal, I wouldn’t let him into my home again. I didn’t connect with him”, he says.
Maybe that’s the show’s concept, for you to meet people close to you physically but inherently different from you. For us northerners, for example, Tira and Tayibe is the same thing, but turns out it’s not. At the same time, you’re not the favourites among Jewish viewers. Have you noticed what’s been written about you in the network’s website?
Al Kurdi: “I don’t really care what the comments are saying. I’ve already been told difficult things, that I’m Da’esh and Hamas etc. That’s unavoidable. The important thing is that my truth is out. I’m a diligent man, a hard worker, organised, earning a respectable living, love my mother, wife, and children, and am very proud of being a Muslim Arab citizen in this country. Anyone who doesn’t like it, deal with it. I’m not going anywhere. And anyone who can respect that, welcome my friend, we will welcome you like a king”.
Even though the two men from the Triangle didn’t really get along, they both agreed that the status of women in the Arab community is excellent, there’s equal rights and everything’s great. They finished eating, went out to the veranda to smoke, and the women cleared the table and washed the dishes. And they still resile at the word “chauvinists” and don’t understand why the woman who was a dentist kept repeating the term “patriarchal society”.
Incidentally, if Arabs invite you to dinner, don’t expect to get three courses as on the show. We still spread the table with everything and eat a bit of everything, without a restaurant-style Western order. Coffee or tea and dessert will come at the end, but the coffee aroma is part of the atmosphere. I would recommend the next season be based on a free (Arab) hosting style.
Tfadalu ala alasha wouldn’t have been so funny and intriguing without the brilliant, comically satirical narration and script of Razi Najar. Although quite a few jokes got lost in translation, Najar did a great job with the text, along with the juicy narration of Henry Andreus, although at times there were a few punches below the belt, maybe as a way to garner more tolerance and accept criticism.
Najar was burnt in the past as content writer for the political satire about the Arab community, Alshusmo (What’s his name), where he left no stone in Arab and Israeli politics unturned. The show was not renewed after the war, and one of the actors, Maisa Abd Elhadi, was even arrested for her activity online as part of the police’s silencing operation.
I didn’t expect you to return to the national broadcaster. How did that happen?
Najar: “With all my harsh criticism of the national broadcaster, especially the news division, I think my complaints about the importance of Arabic broadcasts in shaping and affecting public opinion are old fashioned; they’re from the stone age. What I have to say, I’ve said in Arabic media and also within the network. I can address every claim of treachery and purism and supposedly serving the Zionist propaganda machine. I am a taxpaying citizen, and I have a right to create, write, and consume quality television in Arabic without apologising for it. And as a scriptwriter I deserve to grow and acquire experience that will promote our innovation, in the absence of any alternative independent platform”.
Najar admits that the materials he received from the show surprised him and made him ponder (as did I, to be honest) whether we really know Arab society from within. Even if we’ve undertaken studies and read statistics and essays, have we really heard all the diverse voices in our society.
“The series Tfadalu al alasha made me doubt that”, he says. “Maybe us Arabs also need to understand that we’re not all experts on the Arab community simply because we’re Arabs”.
Translated by Keren Rubinstein, Middle East News Service
שיחה מקומית @mekomit Hebrew original published Dec 30, 2024
