For Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, the land promised to their common ancestor Abraham is called "Canaan." Its center is the holy city of Jerusalem. Every time I visited Jerusalem, there was a restaurant that I always stopped by and enjoyed the delicious local dish "hummus."
The restaurant is located in a narrow stone alley in a mostly Muslim neighborhood in Jerusalem's walled Old City. There's always a spicy smell coming from the kitchen in the back. I often stopped by when I was feeling a little hungry for the hummus, which was made by kneading together warmly boiled chickpeas and white sesame paste and serving it in a disk shape.
There is also controversy between Palestinians and Jews over hummus. The question is which is the original and which is delicious. The restaurant I went to had Palestinian-style hummus sprinkled with cumin and paprika. But the Israeli-style hummus sandwich with falafel, fried like a croquette, sandwiched between flat-fried pita bread is also delicious.
However, I noticed this while visiting there. Occasionally, people who appeared to be Jewish would come in and eat hummus. And even Palestinians were munching on falafel sandwiches. When it comes to food, people choose dishes that they think are delicious. Human sense of taste have no ethnic or religious boundaries. This is how I came up with the idea for the short story "Carat Scale" (included in The Jet Black Pyramid collection).
Euro News, which was broadcast at the end of October last year, introduced a restaurant called "Canaan" in Berlin. What is unique about this restaurant is that the two owners and chefs are Palestinian and Israeli. Even if humans have different identities, we become one when we sit around the table. With this belief in mind, the restaurant continued to operate for nine years, but it closed when fighting between Hamas and the Israeli army began.
This was because they feared attacks from both anti-Arab and anti-Jewish groups. However, according to the news, the two owner-chefs decided to reopen after learning that other Middle Eastern restaurants in Berlin were also closing. They commented, "We need to show and be something different."
In the past five months, 30,000 people have died in Gaza, a Palestinian territory, and 1 million people have become refugees. It was also reported that 1/4 of the population was on the verge of starvation. The situation is bordering on genocide. No matter how many times such foolishness is repeated, the brutality of the nation and politics will not change. Rather, it seems that what must change is the behavior of individuals who become independent from political and social bias.