Identity group four

My name is Nechama, and I am an Israeli, native English speaker,  Jewish-religious girl. 

My parents were born in New York, America, and so were my two oldest siblings. 

They moved to Israel when both of my siblings were young, and then in Israel, my brother was born.  A few years later I was born too. 

I was born to a Jewish religious family and as of today I still define myself as a Jewish religious girl. I enjoy Shabbos and other lovely Jewish costumes. Since I was young I’ve learned Bible stories and Jewish history. 

I have cousins, aunts, and uncles that live in America. We try to visit each other often and keep in touch from distance as well. We spend vacations sometimes together, visit on holidays and other special occasions. 

I also have a large family in Israel that includes parents, siblings, nieces, nephews, cousins, aunts, and uncles. We are very close with each other and also sometimes spend our weekends, holidays, special occasions and just ordinary spare time together. 

Although I am sometimes told by Israelis that I am not “fully Israeli”, or by Americans that I am not “actually American”, I feel that I am a little bit of both. 

I grew up on both American and Israeli nursery rhymes. 

Grew up on Barney and Elmo, like I grew up on ‘Parpar Nehmad’ or ‘HaMuminim’. 

I eat both American and Israeli foods daily.

I am told that I have “American manners” and “Israeli vibes”.

I speak both Hebrew and English pretty fluently, and when I speak them I have the suiting accent for each of them. 

Call it “not enough”, or call it “a little of both”- both these pieces make the whole of where I come from and part of who I am.

My name is Jihad I’m an Arabic Muslim male, I’m just going to write what is on my mind, one of the hardest tasks is to talk about my self or my identity, anyway, I live in Nazareth with my family for now. I define myself as an Arabic male, I’m not religious but, in my family, there are a lot of religious people if I need anything about the religion I just ask them. 

Identity can be also about your character, what you think, what you believe, and how you make decisions, so when I think about my identity I feel confused because until now I can’t find the answer for myself who am I belonging to ?. For now, I think I’m an Arabic male living in a Jewish country with my family. We have a good connection in my family not just between my brothers, sisters, and parents I mean the whole family, every occasion we spend it together even on holidays we have a special thing together, we gather at our grandparent’s house waiting for everyone to come then we eat the breakfast so we can go and check on our aunties. 

Sometimes when I go out shopping or work some people get confused when I talk Arabic because I don’t look like an Arab, they tell me that I’m either Jewish or Russian male, it doesn’t bother me at all but I like to be seen or look like an Arab.

I speak three languages Arabic, English, and Hebrew I speak all of them fluently and I hope to acquire more languages such as Spanish.

In the end, I hope that I talked a little bit about my identity because just like how I said I didn’t figure out my identity yet.

Nejmeh Zidan 

I am Nejmeh Zidan from Kfar Manda village. 

I think that childhood is the period when children build their own identity within the context of their families and communities. My childhood was one that revolved around my siblings; they were the ones I grew up with and shared memories that I continue to cherish to this day. I grew up hearing stories from my grandma and my mom telling me about our little adventures that we took on every day. 

My childhood is filled with vivid memories of watching my brother working on projects and reading me his school books that had vocabulary words that you will only find in the library section. 

I realize that my childhood memories have shaped my identity in a way that if it did not happen I would not be as responsible and mature as I am today.

Siwar Eyeadeh

I had an experience while I was in an education in the Faculty of Engineering  Which is considered mixed and includes many religions and races and others, but dealing with racism and bad treatment by some of the lecturers only because we are Arabs and distinguish between students and the speech that was directed at us and that was one of the reasons that I decided to completely change my educational path for it and change my thinking completely towards some people of religions  Last, but not all people are alike.

My name is Mariela. I am an Argentinian-Israeli Jewish woman. I was born in Buenos Aires, in a Jewish family that survived the war and emigrated to Argentina. The holocaust signed the way I grew up: A tiny family, with a traumatic past. We are a  mix of a traditional and secular Jewish family. I developed inside the Jewish community: learned in a Jewish secular school, visited the temple, and joined a “tnuat noar”. The community was my second home, my world. Then, at 18 years old, I followed my dream and made Alia. 

My Argentinian culture is part of me, I have an Argentinian husband and Argentinian friends to share our costumes, our music, and our thoughts as “olim vatikim”.

But the Jewish culture, the story of my family, and my journey here, in Israel, are an essential part of my identity.

my name is Tarek Muhra im 24 years old , im a muslim male.

My mother tongue is Arabicarabic and I speak a hebrew and english as second languages.

i grew up in mughar village which is in the north of Israel. I really like sports and the english language. i enjoy listening to music and watching movies.

I’m the oldest of two siblings. I think that my personality revolved around my parents, especially my father. He taught me everything I know in life.

I have a lot of goals in terms of my life and trying to pursue them all and I hope to achieve them soon. i have a lot of friends from different religions and backgrounds and I get along with all of them. i wish that we could overcome the idea of discrimination and racism in our society because its an important matter that need to be dealt with as soon as possible.