In a lot of ways, an attack on Nabala Cafe always felt inevitable — and we didn’t even have a Palestinian flag hanging in the window when we first opened in July. So many sellers of Palestinian flags also sell Israeli flags, so it didn’t feel right to give them money. But, as an act of community solidarity, a community member donated a flag after our first week and we hung it up proudly in our front window — as visible as possible.

I named the shop Nabala Cafe as a tribute to my ancestral home in Palestine, Bayt Nabala, a village that was destroyed during the Nakba in 1948. Three thousand villagers (called ​“Nabalis”) mostly fled east towards Ramallah. As Israel occupied more and more Palestinian land over time, Nabalis continued to be displaced. Some stayed in Palestine or across the eastern border in Jordan, but we’ve all been forced to find homes in different parts of the world.

Chicago is home to the largest population of Palestinians in the U.S., and we have a strong community of hundreds of Nabalis living in the area. The concept of Nabala Cafe started here, building on the deep community solidarity and roots of Nabalis that have remained strong over decades, all centering our home of Bayt Nabala.

Building Community Solidarity as a Source of Safety

For years I felt dejected and disconnected from the world, spending my time and energy in corporate sales. Each day I was pushing consumer data to companies who would leverage it for financial gain while irreparably damaging the communities and environments they exploited. During that time, the most rewarding aspects of my life were a long way from the office. They were in Uptown, where I’d spend much of my free time building community solidarity through connecting with community members and providing food, water, and resources to unhoused neighbors.

But this was never enough. There was always more to do to build community solidarity — more time needed to build relationships, more space needed to share skills and develop a well-rounded community, and more energy needed to develop sustainable mutual aid networks and broader social movements.

Read the full article about community solidarity by Eyad Zeid at Prism Reports.