U.S.
Conflict Kitchen
Through a tiny, bright takeout window in Pittsburgh’s Schenley Plaza, lunch patrons can once again order steaming containers of maftoul—couscous with chicken and chickpeas cooked in a fragrant, garlic broth—and platters of rummaniya, an eggplant, lentil and pomegranate stew with marinated olives and mixed pickles.
Conflict Kitchen, a four-year-old eatery born as an art project, has become a cultural and culinary hit in Pittsburgh for both its food and its conceit. For a few months at a time and on a rotating basis, the takeout window features the cuisine of countries with which the United States is either directly or indirectly in conflict, and hosts additional discussions, performances and events around its theme.
Its most recent menu, highlighting Palestinian cuisine, politics and culture, has plunged Conflict Kitchen into an impassioned debate about freedom of expression, censorship and Israeli-Palestinian tensions, culminating in the restaurant closing for two days early last week as its owners confronted death threats.
The eatery reopened last Wednesday, even as law enforcement officials continued to investigate the threats that came in the form of letters to the police department and the restaurant.
The proprietors of the eatery -- Jon Rubin, an assistant professor of art at Carnegie Mellon University, and Dawn Weleski -- knew they were courting controversy by venturing into the combusible territory of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But provoking discussion on controversial matters has always been part of the purpose of their project.
Conflict Kitchen, they said, has always been intended not only to encourage the appreciation of misunderstood cultures, but also to provoke diners and passersby to challenge their own assumptions about far-flung corners of the world and the United States’ policies towards those nations. Because the United States has long been a staunch backer of Israel in its decades-long conflict with Palestinians, Weleski and Rubin felt Palestinian cuisine and culture was a natural fit for Conflict Kitchen.
“A lot of Americans and a lot of Pittsburghers don’t examine the narrative given to us, so we wanted to use food, which is immediate and visceral story telling device, to start that conversation,” Rubin said. “A lunch joint brings in a lot more people than a political rally or an academic forum.”
Rubin and Weleski do extensive research before presenting a new cuisine, traveling to the countries in question to cook with families that live there, gathering recipes for the menu, and interviewing residents about their lives. Past menu themes have included Cuba, Venezuela, Afghanistan, Iran and North Korea. Rubin, as well as Conflict Kitchen's culinary director, Robert Sayre, traveled throughout the West Bank and the Israeli city of Nazareth, cooking with Palestinian families in their homes and hearing about their daily lives and concerns.
“We wanted to do what we have always done, and represent a voice that people may not usually hear—that’s our task on hand and there’s no reason to shy away from that,” Weleski said. "Just because it is a topic internationally and in American life that people feel really uncomfortable talking about and there are lots of emotions around it doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be spoken about."
But shortly after Conflict Kitchen debuted its Palestinian storefront, menu and programming in early October, the restaurant was accused of being anti-Israel. Critics accused Conflict Kitchen of presenting a one-sided view that unfairly pilloried Israelis. They further charged that diverging opinions and perspectives were unwelcome at Conflict Kitchen events.
Some have taken issue with the pamphlets and wrappers that Conflict Kitchen distributes with its food that features a compilation of anonymous interviews conducted by members of the Conflict Kitchen staff with residents of the West Bank, as well as Palestinian expats in Pittsburgh, about various aspects of life under occupation, touching on topics as varied as ownership of olive trees to modes of resistance.
“My husband was killed twenty years ago. He is a martyr. He was wanted by the Israeli army, and they killed him. Even now there is collective punishment for my whole family,” reads one interview published on a food wrapper.
“You’re punishing the Gazans who have been under your siege for eight years already," reads another interview, referring to Israel's tactics for dealing with the embattled coastal strip that was the focus of a 50-day shooting war last summer. "You’re attacking, arresting and killing guilty and innocent people alike. You have 1.8 million people in an area half the size of New York City, but without proper housing, water or infrastructure, and no way to make a living. They are banned from dealing with anyone outside Gaza. You’re pushing them to the absolute extreme. So what do you expect? Palestinians are not going to just let you in and drop their arms. No, they’re going to kill and they are going to die.”
Gregg Roman, director of the Community Relations Council at the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh, said he had no problem with Palestinians having a forum to air their views through Conflict Kitchen, but found the willful exclusion of Israeli counterpoints unfair. Roman noted that the Federation had reached out to Conflict Kitchen’s organizers months ago to offer Israeli perspectives but was dismissed.
“I think it’s a wonderful idea—I fully support the idea of citizens, societies and countries that may have a bone to pick with the U.S. having this platform,” Roman said. “It’s the accompanying literature and programming that aims to delegitimize Israel and dehumanizes Israelis, and the censorship that Conflict Kitchen is exhibiting right now by not being willing to host a Israeli perspective that is the problem.”
Roman added that speakers at Conflict Kitchen events had called Israel an apartheid state, expressed support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel, and labeled the Israelis racist.
“This isn’t a debate about Palestinian versus Israelis. This is about organizations who promote peace by presenting all points of view and organizations that are against peace and are unilateral in their expressions about certain narratives,” Roman said. “Their point is ‘We are deliberately excluding alternative Israeli points of view because it would ruin our art form.’ ”
The furor last month led to the Heinz Endowment, which had contributed $50,000 grant to the project, to disavow its past support, with Heinz Endowments president Grant Oliphant writing that his philanthropic organization “does not agree with or support either the anti-Israel sentiments quoted on Conflict Kitchen’s food wrappers or the program’s refusal to incorporate Israeli or Jewish voices in its material.”
Weleski and Rubin said that the point of the project is not to offer balanced assessments of controversial topics, but to give voice to marginalized and often-unheard populations.
“Our goal in all of the work we’ve done is to present the stories and the daily life of countries that the U.S. is in conflict with,” Weleski said. “It is fairly clear that the United States is not in conflict with Israel. We felt it was important to present the food and the culture of Palestinians, not one that’s dominant in the United States or locally.”
Rubin also noted that Conflict Kitchen events are open to anyone in the public and that members of the Israeli and Jewish communities in Pittsburgh have attended, engaging in civilized debate with other participants.
Laila El-Haddad, a Palestinian activist and author of a cookbook titled The Gaza Kitchen, who spoke at a Conflict Kitchen event, said that always being made to supplement the statement of Palestinian viewpoints with Israeli ones robbed Palestinians of their identity.
“Palestine remains one of those last hot button issues where it’s considered OK to censor voices,” she said. “I think people who want to silence Palestinian voices find this project threatening because this is a display that encourages unmediated Palestinian voices to really tell their own stories and histories.”
Hadeel Salameh, a 21-year-old senior at the University of Pittsburgh and president of its chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, agreed with the view that the elevation of Palestinian voices bothers Conflict Kitchen’s detractors.
“It’s the Palestinian voice that’s the focus and not the Israeli focus and that’s what bothers them,” she said. “Palestinians have their own culture and we have our own cuisine and we have our own views separate from Israel.”
Error
Sorry, your comment was not saved due to a technical problem. Please try again later or using a different browser.