Finding Her Palestinian Identity Through Generations of Silence | Leyla King

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What does it mean to hold the stories of your ancestors and what happens when the world demands that you share them? In this episode, I talk with Episcopal priest and author, Leila King, about discovering her Palestinian identity, documenting generations of family history and finding purpose in the face of unimaginable grief. It's raw, thoughtful, and more timely than ever. And I've just been carrying them ever since. And then when October 7th, 2023 happened,

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and the ongoing genocide of my people started taking place. It felt really like it was time for me to share those stories with the world. So I have a book coming out called Daughters of Palestine, a memoir on five generations. I'm really excited for it coming out and it feels like a surreal moment because the thing that finally gave birth to this moment is this horrific ongoing experience of my people's.

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I'm Maciel Huli, and this is the Life Shift, candid conversations about the pivotal moments that have changed lives forever.

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Hello, my friends. Welcome to the LifeShift podcast. I am here with Layla. Hello. Hi. Thank you for joining me from your closet. Yes, I'm super excited to be here. Before we get into your LifeShift story, maybe you can just tell us who you are in 2025, like how you identify in the world and show up. Yes, I'm an Episcopal priest. was, I was going to say that was my first vocation, but that's not actually true. I think as we can dig into this story,

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My identity is actually rooted in my family story, which is also very much intertwined with my own faith journey. So I'm Palestinian American. I am first generation Palestinian American. My mom is also Palestinian. She and my dad met. My dad was a reporter for the Stars and Stripes military newspaper originally, and then moved around a bit, but he was reporting on the civil war in Beirut.

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where my mom grew up and lived at that time and they were introduced to each other by Peter Jennings. So that's my little brush with Not many people can say that one. I know, right? And then they were married in Beirut and then they came back to the States. My dad brought my mom back. that's sort of my origin story. I've always been Episcopalian since I was born. My family had been Anglicans for generations upon generations.

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My sort of moment that I want to talk about is about realizing where my identity lie as a Palestinian. It was not something I sort of recognized about myself. But over the years, since then, since that moment, which have been many, years, there has been a sort of path of discovery and full identification with my heritage. again, I cannot actually separate my faith from my family and my upbringing and my

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Palestinian identity. those two things are very much intertwined and sort of discovering that. And I spent the summer after my senior year of college interviewing my grandmother on one of those mini cassette tape players well before any of these like high tech options were available. And I just heard her stories. She was very much a listener. She listened to the stories and the

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talk that her elders gave. So she held onto all the stories of generations before her too. And so I was able to record her stories, listen to them, and I've just been carrying them ever since. then when October 7th, 2023 happened and the ongoing genocide of my people started taking place, it

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felt really like it was time for me to share those stories with the world. So I have a book coming out called Daughters of Palestine, a memoir on five generations. I'm really excited for it coming out. And it feels like a surreal moment because the thing that finally gave birth to this moment is this horrific ongoing experience of my people. yeah, so that's where I am. That's who I am right now. Yeah.

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Peter Jennings all the way. That's right. Well, before that, obviously, your grandmother. And I mean, think that's so beautiful to be able to to have that recording to so many of us like don't think of doing that or where we take our heritage for granted or we take our elders for granted. There's so many things that we can make excuses as to why we don't do that. So I think that's so beautiful that one that you.

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Did you have to force it or was it kind of a mutual like, let's do this? No, it was very much organic, I would say, as the best things are. it was a while coming. I finally realized what a gift I had in my family when I was a freshman or sophomore in high school. So it took a while for me to figure out that this is what I really needed to do was to sit down with her and record those stories. So that was in.

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2002 and she died in 2016. So it's been a real gift over the past year and 18 months now as I went back and was able to listen to her voice and write down her stories to publish this book. It's just been such a wonderful reconnection with her. Again, my Christian faith, just because she's not part of this world, doesn't mean that she's gone from me. And it was a really wonderful way to...

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sort of tune in to that ongoing relationship and ongoing love that still exists. And you have it now and other people can hear it, like your family can hear it. know, like I think that's so beautiful. You know, my grandmother talked about herself as being a retainer, not the kind you put in your mouth, but like the one that like someone who retains these stories and carries them with her and

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I feel like it is a real privilege to be that person in the family who gets to retain them next and will one day hand them on to the next generation. And that's just what a privilege that is. I think that's beautiful. And congratulations to

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your book's upcoming release. know it's a lot of work and I know it's a challenging approach and I it's important though to share your story and to share your family's story and all the elements that come along with it. So kudos to you for putting in the work. Cause I think a lot of people might want to do something like that, but then get scared away from it. I really learned in this experience. Cause I, again, I recorded those stories in 2002. I mean, we're talking

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decades, plural, ago now. And it was always sort of in the back of my mind and in my heart that I wanted to write them. There's this phrase that we use in the church about a kairos moment, a sort of moment that is in God's time and sort of outside of our own time. you can't force those moments. You can't make them happen. They're a gift. They're something of a miracle. And I think that's what

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happened here. Sometimes the stars all align and the moment is right and it's ordained that this is the moment for this thing, this project, whatever it is. And that's how I felt like this came together for me. Yeah. What is the publication date? July 8th. Awesome. It's coming up. Yeah. Well, maybe you can take us back as far back as you need to. I mean, we went to Peter Jennings, so it's probably a little after that, but

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Maybe you can kind of paint the picture of what your life was like leading up to this, this pivotal moment that really helped you take in that idea. I grew up outside of Houston. And then it was the suburb called spring. It's sort of Houston is just like exploded and grown. So it's not part of it's not a suburb anymore. It's just part of Houston. But I've got an older sister, it's just two of us. And as I said, my mom's Palestinian grew up in

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Beirut and Damascus and married my dad who was half Irish, half Croatian, know, basic white dude from Chicago, lovely man, could not learn a language to save his life, try as he might. So my mom very much didn't want her and her daughters to be able to speak a language that my father couldn't understand and that would

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he would be excluded from. So even though I grew up around a large number of my extended family, I didn't grow up speaking Arabic. I didn't even understand it. I was familiar with the sounds of the language. But my mom's mom, so my grandmother, who I was quite close to, she was one of nine siblings, eight girls and a boy. All Palestinian, most of the children of that family were born in Haifa.

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in Palestine where my grandmother spent most of her youth until she was married. Seven of the siblings all lived within about a 15, 20 minute radius of my house in Houston. They had all immigrated by the time I was born. So there were six girls and the boy, my great uncle, my grandmother, five great aunts and my great uncle all lived within about a 15, 20 minute radius of our house and we're all

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Christian for generations upon generations, but because they were mostly women in the family, women in that culture marry, they take on the denomination or the religious tradition of their husband. So even though my family has been Anglican for generations, a lot of my grandmother's sisters married men of different Christian traditions. So on Sunday mornings, we would go to the Episcopal Church with my great uncle and his family.

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and one of my great aunts and her family and my grandparents. And then we would have a branch of the family that would go to like the Baptist Church and a branch of the family that were Catholics. We would all go to our separate services. And then afterwards, every Sunday after church, we would all gather at one of the great aunts houses for what we call coffee, but was really like this massive feast of Arabic food and American food and American coffee and desserts and all that sort of stuff.

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And that was just the staple of my childhood. I had no idea that other people my age were not going to great aunt's houses with like two or three dozen cousins and great aunts and great uncles on a weekly basis. Like it never occurred to me that everyone was not having that same experience. I was not.

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Um, it never occurred to me that other people maybe had parents that only spoke one language. Like it, it never occurred. Like I just assumed, you know, as children, guess, do, I just assumed that this was everyone's experience. And I never heard the word Palestinian or Palestine. I think the whole time I was growing up, really, I knew that my mom spoke Arabic and that my extended family spoke Arabic.

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I had heard the word Arabs, you know, that was a term that we sort of talked about, but I didn't know anything about Palestine. And then when I was maybe a freshman or sophomore in high school, in our social studies class, we did a unit on the Holocaust. And we learned about the Holocaust. the end of that unit, we watched, we screened a film about Anne Frank. And at the end of that film about Anne Frank,

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The last scene of the film was Anne Frank's father, because of course Anne Frank and most of her family died in the concentration camps or were killed to be more precise, were killed in concentration camps. Anne Frank's father was the only one who survived and he is released from the concentration camp and he has sort of rebuilt some sort of life post Holocaust.

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And the last scene of this film is of him in front of like a store window that's selling a bunch of televisions and all the televisions are all tuned to a news channel that is a news bulletin about the creation of the state of Israel. And in the film, this moment, this creation of Israel as a homeland for the Jews is

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the kind of redemption of the Holocaust experience is how the film presented it. again, like I had grown up, I'm like 14, 15 years old at this point. I'd grown up around, I mean, I am Palestinian, but I had no knowledge of that history. I didn't know anything about it. And so I just took at face value, you I was like totally.

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taken in by the story of the film, right? And I just took at face value the implication of that last scene. And I was quite moved by it, in fact. And after school, I was sitting with my older sister, whom I am quite light skinned, quite fair skinned. My older sister is much more dark skinned. She looks, just by, you know, first glance, she looks much more Arab, quote unquote Arab than I do. So she must have had a very different experience of

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life growing up than I did. But for whatever reason, she clearly knew her history, whereas I didn't. Because after school that day, we were waiting together. We sat together on this bench for my mom to come pick us up. And I was telling her about this film that I had watched in my social studies class. And I was like, you know, and it was so horrible what they experienced. But in the end, they got their own homeland. Isn't that great?

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And my sister turned to me like absolutely horrified and she sort of raised her finger at me and she was like, don't you dare say that to mom when she comes to pick us up. And I was like, what, why not? Like, why not? I had no idea. And I sort of, I mean, I don't have very many memories from my childhood that's.

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one of the few that sticks out, which is one of the reasons why I thought of it. When you asked me this question about a moment in my life, I can't exactly remember what Zaina said after that, but I imagine that she must have been like, okay, let me give you the briefest of history lessons. And she explained to me that the creation of Israel was what made my grandparents have to flee for their lives in April of 1948.

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And I just, had, before that moment, I had no idea. I just had no idea whatsoever. And I started getting really curious and I started realizing that not everyone saw three dozen cousins on a regular basis every week, you know, not everyone had a family that spoke Arabic fluently. Not everyone had this immigrant story to reflect upon.

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And so I just started just looking and asking all the questions and trying to find out more and more and more about this wealth of history and family story and heritage that I had never known before. yeah. I mean, that's really complicated too, right? I think because you're as a 14 year old, you're thinking...

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the story is being told to you, you're feeling a certain way about it. Do stories like that came before that? Do they start conflicting in your mind? Is this like a, is everything that was told to me in school true? Like, what are they doing to me? Does that come up at all? Or is it more like, I just don't have the full picture? think looking back now and knowing what I know both about my own family's

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history, but also about the Palestinian narrative, the way in which the narrative about Israel has been manipulated and co-opted. Looking now with the wisdom of all these years and all this knowledge, now I see that this is what... It's a Zionist narrative that we are all fed.

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and that we all grow up on. so of course my social studies, I mean, I don't even know if my high school social studies teacher knew about Palestinians, right? Like I just think so few of us know that history and know that story. it didn't like, it didn't in any way make me question all the other stories. Maybe it should have, I don't know. But it didn't at the time at any rate make me question any other story. What it did was just open up this whole world.

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of identity really that I hadn't known existed before. Yeah, I think I asked that because I think if I was to come home and realize that something was being fed to me in a certain way, I'd be like, well, what else are they feeding me? But maybe that's just my personality of like, what's happening? I'm just not, I'm just a little bit naive at my core and I'm willing to believe people, which is

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Part of the reason why I responded to that narrative in the way I did, I think at heart, I like to think, maybe again, naively, that most people are not waking up in the morning and thinking like, how can we delude people in some way or shape or form, right? So I still take, I like to sort of receive the world around me with some grace.

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still and know that, you know, that our scripture, my scripture says that we are to be clever as serpents and as innocent as doves, you know, like there's this, there's a both and there that I try to, I try to hold on to. I know you said, your sister said, don't you dare say that to mom. Did you start asking your mother questions or was

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Because it's not, mean, maybe this wasn't talked about or maybe it was and you just weren't listening. What did you find there? I think for the rest of the family, to a large extent, it was a given. Like, I don't go around talking about the fact that, I don't know. I mean, things that are so intrinsic to who we are, we don't usually go around talking about them unless there's a particular reason to.

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I mean, when I was growing up, I didn't talk about the fact that I was a girl all that much until a boy challenged me or something. Unless there was a reason to sort of identify yourself in a particular way. And I think that's what we see with Palestinians in general, the idea of Palestine. Palestine has been on the map for thousands of years, but the concept of Palestinian identity

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is something that has been shaped to a large extent by the creation of Israel, right? So I think in my family, it's not that they weren't proud of their Palestinian identity. was just like, this is who we are, we're not, like, there no reason to talk about it until I started asking questions. when I went to college, I started taking Arabic so I could

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get to know that part of my identity. And by the time I graduated, I was interested enough to call my grandmother up and be like, hey, can we do this this summer? And she was all for it. And it was just such a gift. While you were being curious, was your family open to that? Oh, yeah. 100%. Wonders, and I don't know this, because like you said, your dad, basic white guy.

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totally basic white person here. There are some families that have immigrated to the United States and assimilate. And they don't, you know, like, and then they're like, we don't, let's not do that. We don't want to be othered in any kind of way. So that's, guess, where that question comes from. But it sounds like your family was like, we just don't talk about it because this is just what we are. I mean, I think it's, again, I think it's a sort of both and. OK. Middle Easterners, not just Arabs, but.

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Middle Easterners in general tend to be in this sort of liminal space of whiteness. Again, a lot of this is like scholarship and language and rhetoric that is very recent, right? We haven't been paying this much attention to these issues of identity and race and ethnicity until very recently, at least in the States, right? So it's a little bit unfair to look back on, you know, 30 years ago with this.

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with this language, but for lack of a better way of doing it. I do think that Middle Easterners, Armenians, Arabs, Iranians, all of us have a interesting relationship with whiteness. Arabs have been sometimes considered white and are sometimes not considered white, right? And I think we see that playing out now.

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really clearly as we get more and more folks who are being abducted from the streets for supporting Palestine or as we understand where people are being oppressed and what people are on the margins of our society, right? There is more and more need to identify with the marginalized when you are feeling marginalized. And so I think that

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plays into some of this. Back then, 30 years ago, whenever it was, I don't think my family felt quite as victimized and marginalized in this country. America was their refuge. was their escape away from that kind of oppression and victimization. It was their promised land. Now all that has changed.

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But back then you were able to have these questions answered fully. was no, we're hiding, like, it doesn't sound like anything. You just thought everyone lived like you did. So apparently you were living out loud. Yes, exactly. And we were, you know, because there were so many of us. mean, again, remember this. My grandmother was one of nine siblings and they all had children and their children all had children. Right. So there were a lot of us. Like we made up our own little community. You were the suburb.

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Yeah, so I just think, you know, there wasn't really any tension around that. We were a mix of, you know, half of us all married white people. So it was just a lovely little salad of diversity that we just inhabited without any real paying attention to where the fault lines are, are there fault lines or anything like that. And again, I...

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pass as very white, whereas my sister didn't. I mean, my sister in the summers in the Texas sun would get really, really, really dark. And she, I imagine, understood where some fault lines were, even just subconsciously, in a way that I didn't, and I didn't have to. But that trigger in high school really pushed you to better understand that.

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that other part of you, right? That you didn't quite identify publicly. Yes. I'm saying the wrong words, but I think you know what I mean, it's really hard to have these conversations because we don't have language for what whiteness is and what non-whiteness is and what of color means and what that looks like. And when I started identifying as a woman of color, I had some Black friends. I had some Hispanic friends.

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who were like you of color, you know, right? And I had some family members, some fellow Palestinians or Arabs who were like, no, no, no, we're not, we're white, we're not people of color. And so, you know, that's something that we're still, I think as a community, as Middle Easterners navigating, I think it's becoming very clear in this country that Middle Easterners are people of color, abundantly clear at this point, but yeah.

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There is something to be said about the way that you grew up though of thinking that everyone was like your family because that's where the beauty lies, right? Because everyone is like your family, you know, like maybe not be as big, but the feeling of belonging and part of something is what we should all be longing for. yes, absolutely. Absolutely. there were I'm just so, so grateful for that experience, especially now realizing that

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Most people don't, like a lot of people in the States don't, a lot of white people in the States don't have that experience, right? And I'm just really, really grateful for it. I have never in my life worried about not having a place to belong because I was brought up in a church community and I was brought up in a family community. And both of those places are places of safety and belonging that I've always felt really, really positive about.

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I had a beautiful conversation with, I don't know if you've met or talked to Martha S. Jones. She just released a book called The Trouble of Color, and she grew up in the 50s. She had a black father and a white mother, but she was very light-skinned. And she got to college, and she was in a black studies class, and someone was like, who do you think you are? Because they thought she was white or not dark enough.

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And the whole chasing that identity and really trying to realize that the color line is not... It actually has nothing to do with color at all. And so it's fascinating to hear your perspective on it as well. And it makes me think of a question related to when you started to identify as a woman of color. Did life and things in your life show up differently?

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change your perspective of how people might be treating you or the people around you or does it enrich it? That's a great question. And I would say. Yes, and both. would say both. So I should I should say it's not like I had that experience when I was 14 years old and I was like, OK, now I'm a woman of color. Right. Like that.

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It was a journey. Yeah, it was a it was a journey. It was a journey that I think was in tandem with a journey that we in Western culture and American culture are taking to as we sort of begins as we try and understand these issues of race and ethnicity. Right. I had a very similar experience, which hopefully is not too long of a story for this podcast, to the woman you were just talking about, because when right after I graduated college, my first job was at a

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It was at Phillips Academy and over teaching English and for like a fellowship as a teaching fellow. So I, when I went to interview for the job, funnily enough, I had some great interviews. was like, you know, one of those things they fly you out or whatever. And it was like two days and I had great interviews across the board. I was really excited about it. And the one terrible interview I had that day was with the

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There was a man who was like the dean of, it was like a very early form of DEI, like the DEI department. I don't know what they called it, if he was like the dean of diversity or what, I don't know what he was. But he was this dean at the school at some point in time, a black man. And he was the only time I came into his office and it was the only time during the whole interview that someone sat like on the other side of the desk from me. Like he sat in his chair on the desk and I sat.

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you know, on the other side of the desk. I introduced myself and he said the first thing that came out of his mouth was, what's one thing you would never want to do to a student in your class? And I was like, oh gosh, this is clearly a question that has one right answer. And I don't know what that right answer is, but yeah. So I don't know what I said. think like, I was like, I would never want to hit a student. Like I didn't know what, I didn't know what I made up some answer and whatever answer I made up.

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was clearly the wrong one because he said to me, no, you would never want to assume that just because a student is black, he's dumb or something like that. I mean, it was something like totally outrageous. And I was like, yeah, of course I would never want to do that. And then he went on to tell me about all the great diversity programs that he offered. And he spoke for like five minutes. And then he said, you know, and we have a, we celebrate African-American month.

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and Latino American week. There was some, it's something else day, you know, so we celebrate all of our diversity. said, oh, well, that's great. Remember I'm just coming off the summer spent with my grandmother. And I said, that's, that's great. What do you do for your Arab American students? And he said, Arab American. I said, yeah, you're Arab American student. He said, well, well, we, give our Muslim students their holidays off. And I was like, well, that's great, but I'm Christian. So I'm not.

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I'm less interested in that. I'm more interested in what you do for your Arab students." And he was like, oh, oh. And he almost shoved me out the door of his, like that interview was over. It was done. So I was like, OK, that didn't go so well. But to give him credit, when I got the job and I got on campus, he sent me an email and said, you know, I remember you and I remember that you're Arab. And so I wanted to invite you to our dinner.

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our opening welcoming dinner for our faculty of color. And it was the first time in my life that I had heard that phrase of color. I had not been exposed to it before. I thought, faculty of color, like I was looking at my hand, I remember like looking at my hands being like, I'm not of color. Like I am clearly pale white girl, right? Like I'm not of color. But I thought, you know, I felt bad. I felt really,

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glad that he had invited me and I thought I'm gonna go. So I went, I didn't know anyone and because I'm built like this, I showed up like early or like just right on time, know, nobody else is gonna show up this early. But I showed up, I ring the doorbell, was someone's house and the dean and the host were there and they opened the door for me, they welcomed me in, they ushered me into this room where like the buffet was set up. There was one other woman in that room, black woman didn't

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Had never met her. I think we sort of smiled at each other. I picked up a glass of wine or something, sort of hanging out, feeling really awkward, not sure what's going on. And a few minutes later, the doorbell rings again. The hosts go out to welcome the guest. I am standing there when the new guest walks in the door and I'm like turning faced to the new guest. And I swear to goodness, that guest, a man, takes one look at me and goes,

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What are you doing here? And I thought, Oh good Lord. just thought, please let the floor open up and let me like be swallowed into it because I clearly don't belong. And like a split second later, the woman who was already there before me, who was standing behind me and I didn't really realize that goes, Oh, I got back from my sabbatical early. so I decided to go to the guy.

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clearly talking to her, but I was so self-conscious of not being of color that I just, I mean, I think I just put my wine glass down and ran. just ran from the room. I'm so embarrassed. So anyways, that's just, that's a very long story to say that it has been an evolution to understand myself as a woman of color and to realize that claiming that

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as part of my identity is fraught. It's fraught for me, but it's also fraught for my black and brown siblings. I mean, it's fraught for my cousins. And my sister, who are very much more Arab-looking than I am, right? Like, what does that mean? And how do we do it? And I'm constantly faced, I mean, less so now because I'm sort of much more in the public eye, especially with this book coming out.

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In recent years, my Palestinian identity, which is so much a part of who I am, is also something that I have to choose to share with people or not. Like, unless you know what you're looking for in the features of my face, there's nothing about me that, like, screams, this woman is Arab. So it's this constant, like, choice I have to make about when and how and whether to share that part of my identity with people, which is its own...

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really interesting sort of thing to negotiate in life. That seems fascinating and so like not great. Like it feels so like in a way like why do we have to identify in this way? But yet we do because we need to stand up for certain things and we need to feel. It's such a I mean a complex issue and something that I can imagine is really challenging at times.

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Yeah, I mean, it's challenging and it's a gift. I mean, I think because I look so white, people feel really comfortable saying really bigoted and ignorant things. But then there's a responsibility for you. Right, exactly. Exactly. Which, again, is what we're talking about right now is white privilege, right? Like that is a privilege that comes with its own responsibility that I take very seriously because I do have cousins.

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that are understood to be something very different. Yeah. Community is so important. And to represent your community in whatever that looks like, whether that's your family or the people around you or the people you choose to have around you. Right. And whatever other thing that someone makes you feel. That's right. I think we have responsibility to take care of those around us. Although, man, that must be really disheartening as well when you find someone in your life that

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suddenly unveils something or is it an opportunity for you to? I mean, again, I think a lot of my vocation as a priest comes into this because I do see it as an opportunity. Yeah, you're a better Because I'm a, you know, if someone's saying that to me, presumably we're in some kind of relationship, like I have relationship with this person. And for me, relationship and storytelling are the only ways.

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that we transform hearts and minds. Like I could sit here and give you all my reasons for why I think Zionism is evil, but I'm not going to convince you. What I can do is I can tell you what happened to my grandparents in the months after they were married, right? I can tell you my experiences of being discriminated against because of my identity. can share those things with you if I'm in a relationship with you, right?

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And because you know me and because you know I'm not some random person, right, with some agenda. I don't have an agenda, right? We're just friends. We're just whatever. Then there's hope for transformation. Yeah, because you're not coming at with like your bulleted list of like, let me tell you why you're wrong. Exactly. It's not necessarily that. It's let me tell you the truth, my truth, or my family's truth or the people around me.

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that's up to you other person to kind of make your mind up. I am Palestinian and I didn't even know the story of Palestine until I was 14 years old. So it was through the compassion that was the antithesis of what exactly other people would have. Exactly. So I think, you know, pitched you random white people have no have have like no chance of knowing that story. Right. Right. They just they don't have a chance of knowing that story.

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Which is a lot of why I wrote the book, right? Is just to give people a chance to hear that story in a way that maybe they never have before. Well, I mean, it just goes back to the first couple of things we said when we started recording. It's like the power of story and the importance of story. Yes. And I don't know, you've probably seen this in your writing and having the conversation with your grandmother. I'm sure telling your story gave you a whole other element of

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pride or identity or shame or whatever, all the pieces that come along with it. Yeah, mean, storytelling is so powerful. Again, you know, this is my whole other vocation, but like this is why Jesus uses parables in the scriptures. It is very rare. He has the Sermon on the Mount, but it is very rare other than that, that he goes around instructing people with bullet points, as you say, right? I mean, it's...

39:56

It's storytelling because it captures our attention. It keeps our attention. It gets around our defenses. Like we have defenses built into us from a very young age. And most of the time sort of theoretical arguments are just going to hit that wall of defense and it's going to go nowhere. But tell me a story and I'm much more likely.

40:24

to come alongside of you and be able to hear it. How did telling your story or your family's story change you in that same way? Gosh, that's a great question.

40:40

My grandmother's stories are very female centered. It's called Daughters of Palestine, right? And it follows the generations through the female line from my great, great grandmother to my daughter, really. And like I said, I heard these stories back in 2002.

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But it was in telling the story that I finally felt.

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I finally felt sort of fully alive. I finally felt like this is part of what I was ordained to do, right? That this was fulfilling something that was written long ago. And that has been hugely impactful. It's also meant that I have...

41:36

To be totally honest with you, when we're recording this right now, these are some really dark days for my people. mean, is just like the only word I can use is genocide. I think it's going to happen. I think genocide is going to be completed within the year. And that is almost debilitating thought. It almost completely keeps me from living my life.

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and being who I am and caring for my children and doing my work. And the two things that sustain me that keep me going are my faith in a God of hope and my grandmother's stories. I mean, those two things, which are actually sort of the same thing in a weird way, but those two things are what keep me going is that I have to keep going because I have to keep telling this story over and over again.

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and I have to live in it. And she survived it. She survived it the first time around. And that survival is itself a testament to the strengths of my people and the hope for a different ending. And by putting those stories out there, I think you also give hope to others that you'll never encounter. And in The Big Hope is that people that are not

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with your background, read it, and also find hope and understanding and a bigger picture of the story maybe they'd never been told. Yeah, I mean, that was my, that was really my intention is my grandmother is so much, mean, so much the speaker of this book, and she's really speaking through me in a lot of ways in this book. Again, I think people don't know.

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the stories of Palestinians. It's just not a story we get in this country. people only think of, you know, we think of Palestinians in this country within a very narrow, limited viewpoint. And my hope is that my grandmother's stories in this memoir will help to break that open and people will just have a chance of recognizing the humanity of Palestinians because you have at least

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the stories of these five women and what we have been through and what our hopes and dreams are. Right. Yeah. Again, it's this exposure to things that maybe are not in our purview. They're not in our everyday. It's kind of like looking back at the young Leila, like this is what everyone is experiencing, right? And so in our own bubbles.

44:23

This is what everyone is experiencing until we get to hear stories like that. Yes, exactly. That's exactly right. And it's so important and I'm sad that the inflection point for you to start putting this together has been so drastic and terrifying and all the words that don't do it justice. But at the same time, now you're able to put it out, which is also

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is a blessing in itself. Yeah. And I think, you know, my grandmother's stories are stories of survival. They really and truly are of perseverance and faith and hope and survival in some really hard places. And I think we go back to those stories in those hard places now.

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to gain, to hold on to those things, that perseverance, that survival, that hope, that faith. And I hope that along with being an insight, a window into the experience of one family, at least of Palestinians, that it will serve that purpose for anyone in any context who is experiencing that kind of hardship and that kind of suffering that we can

45:48

we can recognize the ability, the capacity for human beings to hold onto joy and hope and faith even in these really, really awful, terrible places and times. mean, it's, I'm sure there are people in circumstances that are not the exact same, but feel dire, desperate, scary, and hearing stories of resilience through

46:17

the unimaginable can hopefully give them some kind of hope or allow them, like you said, to have a little bit of joy or absorb that. think sometimes when we're in those dire moments or feeling like there's no possibility, I think we fear the joy. We fear the hope because we don't want to be let down by it. Yeah, I think that's true. Hope is a

46:46

is a scary thing. Hope is a risky thing. I think we know that. And it is necessary. It is necessary for our survival, I think. So I've got three kiddos and I've got two sons and a daughter. My daughter's the middle one. She's 10, 10 and 1 years old now. And she's the one I read to at night. And she really loves reading these novels that are fiction stories. So we've done The Hobbit.

47:16

We just finished Red Wall, I don't know if you know about mice and then Abby, lovely. But she gets so into these stories as I did when I was her age because they are, mean, my grandmother's stories are not fiction, but they're doing the same thing. I mean, this is why our holy scriptures are, again, told in stories for the most part because they are.

47:45

even when they're fiction, even when they're myth, even if they're not actual factual truth, they tell us something true about ourselves and about humanity, about our relationship to the divine, however you want to construe that, right? However that makes sense and meaning in your own life. And we need those stories so badly, we have to keep going back to them in order to get through the dark times, which is...

48:14

where we are right now. mean, this is for many of us, maybe not everyone, maybe not everyone in your audience, but for a lot of people in our audience, I would expect that these are hard, hard times and we have to have our stories if we're gonna make it through. Yeah, and we need to see that other people have made it through and I think people maybe gravitate towards fiction because it's a little easier to absorb.

48:43

It may be very dire in that fiction story, but it's fiction, right? Like we can put the fiction bubble around it and feel comfortable seeing it. You know, I can't help but think of that 14 year old version of you. Do you think of her? What would you say to her before she watched that Anne Frank documentary? Like she's walking into class. She hasn't even seen it yet. How about this journey that you went on to like really intertwine everything that was always there.

49:13

You just didn't know. Gosh, that's a good question, too. I feel a lot of love for her and grace. I really regret that I didn't know my identity for, you know, a decade and a half that it took that long, because I think if I had known it sooner, I could have I could have lived it sooner. And it's been it's been such a gift to me to have this identity and to acknowledge it. So I'm.

49:41

I'm sorry that it took as long as it did. And I think, you know, what inspired that moment with my sister was this real depth of compassion and empathy that I had for Anne Frank's father, right? Which is a good and holy thing. And I think that's what I am trying to do with my work as a

50:10

as a Palestinian, as a human being, right, is to engender that kind of compassion and empathy. In my ideal world, in my vision of what the kingdom, God's kingdom looks like, it is a world filled with empathetic people, with people who are interested in everyone around them.

50:36

and that we just get to spend our whole eternity sharing stories with one another. that, I would love that. I would be so happy in that world. I could do that for eternity and be quite happy doing it. No, I mean, I think back at that 14-year-old version of you and like, that was like compassion, that was true compassion for another human, right? Like, sure, you didn't get the full story from...

51:03

the perspectives that were needed, but you were still caring about this really terrible situation that happened to an individual and their family. And again, it goes to show how important it is that we listen for all sides of a story because you never know what the other side of that story is, especially in right now, I think of how polarized we are in this country.

51:32

I just wish that people would be more open to being curious about whose are the voices that we're not hearing, both at large in society, but also in my own little bubble, right? I mean, I live in Austin. It's the South, it's Texas, so we have some conservatives here, but it's mostly a pretty, I mean, I'm a white looking wealthy woman, right?

52:00

It's a certain kind of bubble here. And it's really important to me that I am seeking out ways to find people and listen to people who aren't part of that homogenous-ness. So I think if I've learned anything from that experience when I was 14 and from my life since then is to listen for the voices that you're not hearing.

52:30

and to wonder about the people and the voices that aren't being heard. Yeah, wonder and curiosity are so important. It doesn't mean that you're seeking to change a mind or any, it's just to listen and to be curious. And just because someone is living their life in a way that you would not, does not necessarily mean that it's wrong either way, right? It's like...

52:55

it's a better understanding of how someone is and why they choose the things that they do and how can we exist together in a empathetic and approachable way even if we don't agree on everything, which we're not, we're Right, exactly, exactly. We're not agree on that. I love this, thank you for having this conversation. I think so many people will relate to your story, will wanna read your book, will wanna connect with you. So if they want to get in your, maybe not your bubble, but maybe your orbit,

53:23

If they want to get in that space and find you, what's the best way to do that? the best way is probably through my website. It's thankfulpriest.com. So T-H-A-N-K-F-U-L-P-R-I-E-S-T.com. Spelling B. Yeah, I would love it. People don't know how to spell priest sometimes. Oh, fair, fair. OK. Well, that's something they should learn. We will put that link in the show notes so people can find that episode description. so they'll be able to find out, like, preorder your book.

53:52

Yeah, definitely. All the information is there. If they have a story or they feel like part of your story resonated with them, are you open to them reaching out? Yeah, there's a contact button on my website. So by all means, please. I mean, this is I live for this. I live for people reaching out and wanting to share their stories. I would I would love that. I encourage anyone listening. I also encourage you if there's someone in your life that might need to hear.

54:19

Laila's story. Like, I feel like that would be wonderful if you share this episode with them, point them towards her website and connect with her. Because I think that's another thing that we can do is help other people find voices that they maybe didn't know about or need to hear. Yeah. You know, we can't stay in our own bubble. We can help other people bring them into different bubbles. And yes, yes, a big bubble. I don't know why we're talking about bubbles so much. But thank you for coming on this journey in this way and having the conversation in the way that I do.

54:48

Thanks, Matt. It's been really fun. I've really appreciated it. Well, I appreciate you. I will accept the fun comment. Sometimes these conversations are really hard. And I think we talked about really hard but important things. But we did it in a way that I wish other people would do, in a way of curiosity and asking the questions, even if the answer is no or yes and or whatever it may be. I think we're so afraid of not being right that sometimes we don't ask the questions. Yeah. We have things being hard, you know, I think.

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I mean, I hard things are usually, I found, the hardest things in my life are often the holiest. And so I'm never scared of hard things. I like hard things. Good. Well, hopefully people will be influenced by that bravery that you have to do that. So thank you for this. And please reach out to Leila if you have any questions or you want to check out our book. comes out in July. Congratulations on your publication. know that's very exciting for you.

55:47

And with that, I'm going to say goodbye and I'll be back next week for a brand new episode of the LifeShift Podcast. Thanks again, Leila. Thanks.

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For more information, please visit www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com