Jewish Boys for Muslim Girls

We all have fantasies, I guess. It’s part of what makes us human, is it not? As a pious Muslim sister who wears the hijab, I am certainly no different. My name is Raya Mamadou and I was born and raised in Adel Bagrou, a small town on the southeastern arm of the Islamic Republic of Mauritania. My father Saleem Mamadou is a member of the Afro-Mauritanian nobility and my mother Azizah Abdelkader is a schoolteacher originally from the town of Azraq, Kingdom of Jordan. I’ve been told time and again that I’m a fairly unique mix, and I typically shrug at that. I am who and what I am, I guess.

I stand five feet eleven inches tall while barefoot, and in spite of my best attempts at dieting and rigorous exercise, my body remains curvy. I’m not a well-rounded gal, ladies and gentlemen. I’m frigging chubby, alright? It’s not easy being a curvy young woman of color who wears the hijab and dresses conservatively in a world built for pale, skinny chicks who go around half-naked most of the time. I am dark-haired, dark-eyed and brown-skinned in a land filled with people who are anything but. Not that I’m complaining or anything. My parents sent me to study in the City of Ottawa, Ontario, since the situation in Mauritania was getting a little crazy thanks to political assassinations and protests. Since I’ve always wanted to experience life outside of Mauritania, I happily agreed with my parents decision.

Prior to coming to Ontario, I graduated from Benedict Academy, an English-language, secular school located in the Capital of Mauritania. The instructors there are from places like France, Italy and England, and they taught us various European languages. Thus I was fluent in English, Spanish and French before I ever set foot in North America. Studying at an English-language, secular school while living in a predominantly Muslim country is nothing like being a Muslim student at a predominantly secular university in a Judeo-Christian nation like Canada. It’s like two completely different worlds, that’s for sure. Nevertheless, I’ve never been the type to back down from a challenge, so I endeavored to do my best. Thus I enrolled at Carleton University, to study accounting.

As you can imagine, I experienced a completely different world when I began my studies at Carleton University. I was surprised to see so many girls wearing hijab in the campus hallways, though. I made friends with a lot of people, most of them from other faiths. Does that surprise you? It shouldn’t. wherever you go, people form cliques. I come from a Shiite Muslim family and most of the Muslim students at my new university were Sunnis. If you know anything about Islam then you probably realize that hanging around Sunnis might prove hazardous to a Shiite person’s health, even in supposedly liberal and multicultural Canada.

Whenever I explain this to my Christian and Jewish friends, whose different denominations tend to remain peaceful even when they strongly disagree, they don’t truly understand what I mean. Let me clarify things a bit. I remember the mostly Sunni government of Mauritania persecuting the Shiite minority. There were days when my father and mother would take me and hide, or we would move from place to place. Terrible times when we feared our neighbors, people we’d known for a long time. Religiosity gone amok due to sectarian extremism, what can I say? I pray this madness never comes to Canada. I like it here, and I honestly don’t want my fellow Muslims to fuck it up. Pardon my French.

Life can be strange, to say the least. I made friends with a most unusual fella, considering how different we were. Like I said, I was in a strange new place, meeting all kinds of people. University is all about expanding your horizons, is it not? If you don’t step out of your comfort zone and meet new people, then you’ve wasted your time and money. That’s how I felt about my meeting Elijah Bernstein. The tall young, wavy-haired, caramel-colored young man ran into me at a most inopportune time. If had my way, we would have met under different circumstances but fate is a funny thing.

Everyone has those moments when they’d rather be alone. No, I’m not referring to those movie-of-the-week moments when you need to sit down somewhere to collect your spirits. What am I talking about? I was in the university library, and I guess the sandwiches and fries I had at Oliver’s Pub didn’t agree with my stomach. Translation? I needed to fart. Badly. I went to the ladies room and it was full. Shit. What’s a gal to do under those circumstances? I went to a quiet corner on the third floor, looked around and saw nobody in the immediate vicinity, so I leaned against the wall, squeezed my cheeks and…BOOM.

Out of me it came. I farted. I slipped one out. Toots galore. Guess who happens to be walking by? A tall, light-skinned guy in a leopard-print T-shirt. Hello, he said, just as I finally ‘detonated’. I stared at him, stunned. Seriously, dude had bad timing. Oh, he said, sniffing the air. I groaned, and excused myself, then asked the interloper what he wanted. I thought you worked here and I was looking for a book on William Tell, he said, grinning nervously. Grunting in frustration, I looked him up and down.

Do I smell? I asked him, dead-pan. No worries ma’am you’re still beautiful, he smiled sheepishly. Awkward, I thought, then smiled. I’m Elijah, the young man said, extending his hand. Now, observant Muslim women aren’t supposed to touch males they’re unrelated to but for some reason, I shook his hand. Funny circumstances but good to meet you Elijah I am Raya, I said. Thus I met Elijah Bernstein, the guy destined to be my best friend, and more. Like me, he was a first-year international student at Carleton. Guess where he comes from? Elijah was born in Tel Aviv, Israel, to Ephraim Bernstein, an Israeli Jewish father and an African Christian mother, Elisabeth Kagame. Wow, talk about distinct ethnicity!

After giving Elijah directions to the reference desk, I walked back to my seat, laughing so hard that I got funny looks from the chunky Asian dude sitting in the cubicle next to mine. Seriously, as far as first meetings go, this one was so bad it had to be considered epic. I ran into Elijah in the university center a few days later, and he remembered my name. We both laughed about our awkward first meeting, then he invited me to this new club he was forming, the Black Nerd Alliance. For those of us minorities who are into science, comic books and other stuff, Elijah said meekly as I laughed about his club name.

I smiled and read the pamphlet Elijah gave me, and promised him I’d come to the first meeting. I’m glad I did, for it turned out to be totally awesome. Growing up, I’ve always been different. Not a lot of girls choose accounting as a major, even today, it’s kind of a male-dominated field. I’ve always been the gal with the ‘male’ interests. I used to play rugby with my male cousins, and while my more conservative relatives thought I was radical for doing so, my parents encouraged me. I joined the all-girls rugby club at Benedict Academy, and I played so well that I became its captain. At the Black Nerd Alliance, I met a lot of like-minded girls, and made some friends.

Friends like Sasha Thompson, a six-foot-tall, dark-skinned sister from Kingston, Jamaica. A newcomer to Canada, she’s taking up criminology at Carleton. Sasha came to the club with her boyfriend Lance Vincent, a tall, red-haired white dude. Yes, there are white students in the Black Nerd Alliance. Next to Elijah, the person I liked most in the club was Gianna Rogers, a young biracial woman from Atlanta, Georgia. Gianna grew up down south with an Irish-American mother and African-American father, and she’s feisty and absolutely cool. Gianna is studying civil engineering and wants to run her own company someday. Good for her, it’s good to have ambition.

Gianna and I became pals, and I liked that, being friends with an American. Growing up in Mauritania, I didn’t hear too many good things about Americans. To much of the Muslim world, they’re seen as the puppets of the Zionist regime in Israel, and the bane of the Muslim world. I mean, U.S. troops are fighting so-called insurgents and rebels in so many Muslim countries it’s not even funny. When will they leave us the fuck alone? Before I came to Canada and met Gianna, I thought all Americans were imperialistic pricks. After meeting Gianna, I realized how wrong I’d been. This All-American gal turned out to be a real sweetheart and she was like the sister I never had but always wanted. We hung out together, chilled in each other’s dorms on campus and shared everything.

Gianna had been in Ottawa a bit longer than me and knew the town like the back of her hand. With her as my guide, I began to see the beauty of Ottawa. The place is fascinating, especially to a small-town gal like me. My hometown of Adel Bagrou only has a few thousand people. To me, Ottawa seemed really huge. We went to museums, restaurants and movie theaters, and I liked all those fun outings with Gianna. Yeah, Gianna was cool. Most importantly, she was the only person I could talk to about Elijah. You have to understand that for girls from my particular background, dating is an entirely new concept. Back in Mauritania and most Muslim countries, we don’t really believe in that. We have arranged marriages, between perfect strangers. Alliances based on clan affiliation, political ideology and similarity of mindsets rather than a union of souls.

Nerdy as he is, Elijah does have his appeal. For starters, he’s six-foot-three, good-looking, and actually charming when you get to know him. We’ve gone out a few times, him and I. Elijah took me to the Museum of Civilizations in Gatineau, Quebec, followed by movies and dinner in this charming, rustic little French restaurant. We had a lot of fun, and we sat together, arm in arm, on the number eight bus returning to Ottawa from Portage station in Gatineau. I felt like I was on cloud nine the entire time. I didn’t tell Elijah this but our first date together was my first date ever. I was nineteen years old, and I was feeling elated at the thought of finally having someone in my life.

As you can imagine, this was a time of both excitement and confusion for me. Remember what I said about Muslim women and dating. It’s considered haram, we’re not supposed to do it. In some strict Muslim nations, I would have been put to death for shaming my family by having unchaperoned meetings with Elijah. Also, he’s not even Muslim, he’s Jewish, of all things! Believe me when I say that most Muslim parents would not be okay with their daughters having anything to do with an Israeli Jewish guy. And yet, when I’m with Elijah, I feel so happy and free. He makes me feel safe, like I can tell him anything.

One Friday night, Elijah and I sat in a deserted laboratory in the Loeb building and had a frank talk. Our feelings for each other were growing, and I can honestly say that my heart leaps every time I see him. Even though we come from different worlds, Elijah and I have a lot in common. For starters, we’re both from the Arab world, albeit wildly different regions. He’s from Israel and I’m from Mauritania. We both know what it’s like to be different in our respective nations.

In Mauritania, there’s a lot of racism against dark-skinned people. Thanks to my Jordanian mother, I escaped much of this discrimination due to my light brown skin, curly black hair and hazel eyes. I look like a darker-skinned Arab woman like they have in Saudi Arabia or Morocco rather than an African woman. I’ve seen what the lighter-skinned inhabitants of Mauritania do to the darker-skinned ones. Slavery still exists in that country, in some form. That’s something the Mauritanian government likes to keep under wraps. I shudder to think of what would have happened to me had I been born a darker-skinned woman. Even if I were born into a family with money, I would have endured prejudice at the hands of a people who prized lighter skin tones and non-African features, especially when it comes to their women’s standard of beauty.

I wept as I told Elijah about the things I grew up hearing both Afro-Mauritanians and Arabs say about the ‘pure blacks’ who made up a significant portion of Mauritania. To my utter amazement, Elijah put his arms around me and told me everything would be alright. Then he told me about his family and his early days in Tel Aviv, Israel. Elijah had a haunted look on that handsome mug of his as he recalled days when he would hear Israeli Jews launching slurs at the Ethiopian Jewish newcomers. That was the day I learned about racism, Elijah said wistfully. I gave his hand a gentle squeeze and urged him to continue.

Elijah went on, telling me about how his white father and black mother kept their love strong in spite of the bigotry they encountered. Both Israeli Jews and Arabs have strong dislikes for people of color, and the current ruler of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu was trying his best to deport scores of African immigrants and refugees from Israel. Elijah’s parents warned him to always carry his identification papers while on the streets of Tel Aviv, lest he be accosted by the Israeli police and thrown into a detention center for soon-to-be-deported Africans due to his skin color. Israel never felt like home, Elijah said with a sad little shrug.

I looked at Elijah, and the sadness I saw in those eyes of his cut me right through the heart. You belong with me, I heard myself say. Elijah looked at me, confusion and surprise in his face. Smiling, I leaned closer to him and took his face in my hands. Then I kissed him. I threw my arms around Elijah like I’d seen men do to women in the movies ( and on Rideau street in downtown Ottawa at night ) and kissed him full and deep. At first Elijah was a bit hesitant, but he pulled me closer and kissed me back. Passionately. We sat there, grinning like idiots and looking into each other’s eyes after sharing our first kiss. Yup, I kissed him first. How’s that for those of you who doubt the assertiveness of Muslim girls like myself?

I don’t know for how long Elijah and I would have stayed there, making goo-goo eyes at each other if campus police hadn’t come by to notify us that the lab was closing. Grinning, we walked out of there, hand in hand. As we walked through the tunnels and made our way to the bus station, not caring who saw us, I felt proud of Elijah and of myself. We were at the threshold of something new. What an odd pair we make. A Jewish guy from Israel and a Muslim gal from Mauritania, wildly in love and happy as can be. I know that tough times and decisions await us, but I don’t want to think about that right now. I just want to enjoy being young, happy and in love. Masha’Allah, may this feeling last forever. Ameen.