“Like many second-generation Israelis, Yehouda Shenhav\u2019s Arabic mother tongue slipped away from him. The reason why one of Israel\u2019s most esteemed academics \u2013 of Iraqi origin \u2013\u00a0 speaks Arabic and translates Arabic literature may have some sort of subconscious root in his background, but his fluency mainly arose from conversations with the late Palestinian polymath Salman Natour.<\/p>\n
The two used to converse in Arabic over the phone during Natour\u2019s morning commute from his residence in the Druze town of Daliyat al-Karmel to the Carmel Center building in Wadi Nisnas, Haifa \u2014 a worn, historic building that was once used as the British Consulate during the Ottoman period, and which is now the office of several Palestinian NGOs.<\/p>\n
Shenhav tells me that the routine had an almost ritualistic quality. He knew, for example, exactly when the signal would cut out: by Al Jalame prison, where Natour himself was once incarcerated for helping other Druze in the occupied Golan Heights.<\/p>\n