Speaker A
it's easily the most contentious piece of real estate in the world and there's no hope none of ever talking about it without pissing somebody if not everybody off maybe that's why it's taken me so long to come here
Anthony Bourdain explores Jerusalem and the West Bank, examining contested food origins, divided neighborhoods, and the separation wall with Palestinian and Israeli voices.
Key Takeaways
- Food, religion, and land in Jerusalem are inseparable from competing national and religious claims.
- Daily life in Jerusalem and the West Bank is shaped by walls, checkpoints, settlements, and contested ownership of space.
- Cuisine can be both a shared cultural heritage and a site of appropriation and political dispute.
- Violence, security measures, and occupation have deep effects on the economic and emotional lives of both Israelis and Palestinians.
- Bourdain's approach emphasizes personal encounter and conversation over definitive political verdicts.
What the video covers
- Bourdain opens by framing Jerusalem as the most contentious real estate in the world, where even the names of ordinary foods and places are disputed.
- He tours the Old City, including Damascus Gate and the Via Dolorosa, and explains the division of the city into Muslim, Jewish, Christian, and Armenian quarters.
- Chef Yotam Ottolenghi discusses the history of East Jerusalem, which was under Jordanian control until Israel took it in the 1967 Six-Day War.
- The episode explores the dispute over falafel's origins, noting its deep roots in Palestinian, Lebanese, and Syrian cooking as well as Yemeni Jewish influences.
- Israeli Jews buying homes in the Muslim Quarter is presented as a controversial breach of the expected separation of communities.
- Bourdain examines the Israeli separation wall, which stretches over 450 miles, and its contested effect on suicide bombings and Palestinian life.
- The episode documents 'price tag' vandalism by settlers against Palestinian villages and interviews settlement leaders and residents of Ma'ale Adumim and Ariel.
- Palestinian residents describe economic degradation, lack of green spaces, and the impact of political violence and prisoner issues on daily life.
- Bourdain discusses movement restrictions, with Israel controlling who enters and leaves the territories, and shares meals and cooking with Palestinian and Israeli families.
- Throughout, Bourdain reflects on his own ambivalent Jewish identity and his unwillingness to take sides, while acknowledging the strong emotions the topic provokes.
Chapters
- 00:00Introduction: Jerusalem's Contested Terrain
- 04:00The Old City and Its Quarters
- 06:10Falafel and the Dispute Over Food Origins
- 08:20The Separation Wall
- 10:40Settlements and Price Tag Violence
- 17:20Life in the Palestinian Territories
- 26:00Shared Meals and Cooking Traditions
- 38:00Closing Reflections on Gaza and Division
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
Speaker A
a place where even the names of ordinary things are ferociously disputed where does falafel come from who makes the best hummus is it a fence or a wall by the end of this hour i'll be seen by many as a
Speaker A
terrorist sympathizer a zionist tool a self-hating jew an apologist for american imperialism an orientalist socialist fascist cia agent and worse so here goes nothing [Music] rain on my shoulders [Applause] [Music] oh [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] i was raised without religion one side
Speaker A
of the family long ago catholic i think the other side jewish i've never been in a synagogue i don't believe in a higher power but that doesn't make me any less jewish i don't think these guys sandbagging me at the wailing
Speaker A
wall they don't seem to think so either but only half [Music] thank you gentlemen i've never felt so much like i'm masquerading as something i'm not i'm instinctively hostile to any kind of devotion uh certainty is my enemy you know i'm all
Speaker A
about doubt questioning oneself in the nature of reality constantly when they grabbed hold of me and in a totally non-judgmental way essentially you know god's happy to have you you know here you go oh man you know my treachery is complete
Speaker A
just because i was raised outside the faith with no particular attachment or loyalty to israel doesn't mean that plenty of people on this earth don't hate me in principle i know that but the state of israel i never really knew what to think first
Speaker A
look around it's like everybody says it's pretty it's awesome it's urban sophisticated hip like southern california only nicer then you see the young draftees in the streets and you start to get the idea this is jerusalem i'm taking you
Speaker A
through damascus gate which is one of the gates of the old city and these uh walls are pretty ancient people say that the deepest go back to king david and then as history progressed they built up the wall so that the
Speaker A
the top bed is the is the is the newest bit and by newest you mean i mean up about to the ottoman time which the turks left here about you know 150 years ago and the brits came and they conquered us
Speaker A
i wasn't here born here now cooking in london yotam otalangi is the widely known respected chef and co-author of the book jerusalem basically this city was divided into two until 1967 when there was the famous six day war
Speaker A
yep and the whole of the bit that we're traveling in now walking in is east jerusalem it's the palestinian part and that was up until 67 was belong to jordan so now it's under israeli control very controversial because
Speaker A
for the jews for the israelis the city has been unified but obviously for the palestinians they're on your occupation as far as they're concerned we just have to go through a typical falafel place yeah because it's so much
Speaker A
part of the culture here and again contentious because you know jews or israelis made falafel their own and everybody in the world thinks falafel is you know israeli food but in actual fact it's a as much of palestinian food and
Speaker A
even more so because you know they've it's been done for generations here and here you get falafel that's just been fried you don't get it any other way and when i go to a place like that and i see he's
Speaker A
got a few bolts left in the bowl from the previous customer i don't take that i want him to fry them specially for me that makes all the difference in the world it's a whole different animal isn't it
Speaker A
so is there a historically provable answer to who invented who made it first the one thing that is very clear that is in this part of the world palestine lebanon syria it's been cooked for many many many generations on the other
Speaker A
hand you get like jews from yemen coming here in the 50s so they could say hey my great uncle was in syria at the time and it is him i remember distinctly so there is actually no answer to it but
Speaker A
the question of food appropriation or who owns the food is massive here they can go on arguing about it forever the old city is divided into four quarters there is a muslim quarter there is a jewish quarter there is a christian quarter and there's
Speaker A
an armenian quarter each one functions independently but the people that live in the certain area are all from that religion right so here you see these israeli flags over this house so basically jews have bought this house although it's in the
Speaker A
muslim quarter and that's very controversial because that breaks the separation that people would normally expect in this city now we're walking in the steps of jesus christ right as i so often do so this is via dolorosa which is the
Speaker A
last trip jesus did before he was crucified so people feel very emotional they come here and they feel like oh my god i am walking in the steps of muhammad david or or jesus it's like jesus was here i
Speaker A
i feel like i should be more something a little bit more pious a little bit well it's too late for me oh great you get your own crown of thorns yeah in answer to the question what would jesus wear oh no no no that's sister
Speaker A
israel is bordered by egypt jordan syria and lebanon in 1967 after the six day war israel took control of the gaza strip the sinai peninsula the west bank the golan heights and a next east jerusalem in 2003 israel began construction on a wall
Speaker A
along the green line representing the israeli-palestinian border the wall now stretches 450 miles when completed it will span 700 miles 85 of it in palestinian territory on one hand there's no doubt that the number of suicide bombings fell
Speaker A
drastically on the other there's this [Music] we cross from jerusalem into the west bank also called judea and samaria also called palestine since 1967 half a million settlers have moved here all in contravention of international law many in contravention of israeli law
Speaker A
though in effect it seems to make little difference they're here and in ever larger numbers this is gnome one of our drivers from tel aviv who i asked about the graffiti on this house near the settlements so what is price tagging if something
Speaker A
happens in the settlement or some attack towards jews kids from the settlements would come and have a price tag for every activity so they'll come to a palestinian village like this they will destroy cars they will write on walls like this it
Speaker A
says against arabs state of israel is alive and death to the arabs intimidating i mean you put with two targets on my house i'm moving this is ellie a settlement with a population of over 3 000 relatively isolated from the rest of
Speaker A
israel amiyah cohen is the chief executive of the ali settlement and its former head of security here you see from up above most of our town you see the palestinian villages all around i mean it's an unusual situation
Speaker A
a lot of your neighbors would very much like you to not be here i know most of them and most of them they're happy that we're here because we actually we gave them prosperity for the past 45 years
Speaker A
and wherever the pa the plo came they lost it i'm guessing a lot of people would disagree with that statement we work with high-tech security radars and cameras so from the high ground you can see anybody uh walking at night you could see from
Speaker A
pretty far out definitely could you identify them after the fact it depends but we have our protocols that we work with and we had our successes we drive to ma'alevana another settlement a few miles away hot sun bleached suburban feeling
Speaker A
behind its ring of electronic surveillance sensors and security everything they feel they need a school public transportation and a petting zoo amicai luria has lived here for 23 years he's a winemaker and amateur cook oh pretty wow you're not kidding around
Speaker A
the salmon is marinated with pomegranate juice that i on the season i squeeze pomegranates and i freeze the juice so i'll have it all year round where were you before here i was born in pennsylvania so your parents brought you over at age
Speaker A
four yeah parents in their 20s with kids living in the relative comfort of familiarity of pennsylvania heading off to what must have at least in part of their minds but seemed uncertain yes it was very difficult for them
Speaker A
almost all jews say next year in yerushalayim it's part of prayers that we say all the time if i don't understand it correctly you know you haven't looked the bible it's all right there it all happened here that's sort of a
Speaker A
non-negotiable position you see prophecies coming true i mean things coming to life again you know mountains that nobody wanted to live on nobody dared to for thousands of years nobody wanted this place you know and then finally we come here and uh
Speaker A
everything is flourishing again it's it makes you feel good you know it's you've been here since uh 90. you look you look over the look over the edge there there's our village right um yeah there is one that you can see
Speaker A
from here at any point during that time you ever go to anybody's house sit down and eat not there but in other villages ever sat down at a muslim table muslim table your host and everybody else coffee but not there no because i don't
Speaker A
as a religious jew i eat only uh kosher so they respect that so they don't offer me so i got to ask you about something that troubled me coming up the first house before you come up the drive
Speaker A
to this village the graffiti on the front yes the targets spray painted on yes who done it villains bad people kids i don't know apparently kids when you educate kids kids are not able to understand complicated things they see the world in black and white
Speaker A
when you get older you're able to see the gray and when someone hits you i understand why kids will do doing given what you told me earlier identifying the perpetrators within the within the realm of possibility young people
Speaker A
why not paint it over good question i don't know maybe we should you're right elsewhere in the west bank just outside of ramallah two members of a group of women who call themselves the speed sisters the first all-female palestinian racing
Speaker A
team hi hi i'm tony hi hi good to meet you [Applause] when i'm riding a car i'm the happiest girl ever racing it's in my blood here in palestine it's very small there's no roads so when i drive i speed
Speaker A
i feel free did you find that people underestimated you at first at the beginning they could maybe make fun of us but when we got good scores we win out of respect yeah well the card doesn't know if you're a
Speaker A
woman or a man a lot of girls want to join us the speed sisters but some of their families are very reserved they don't like their daughters to be between men racing you know palestine is a very reserved society so
Speaker A
are things getting better staying the same or worse you never know what's going to happen in palestine one day it's good and the other day it's just you never know it's a crazy country the local police would prefer them off
Speaker A
the streets for obvious reasons but the track here such as it is has its drawbacks it's basically a parking lot across from the ofer detention center what do they think about this next door they ever give you problems
Speaker A
this is an israeli jail it's called alpha one time we were here with speed sisters and there was problems because of the prisoners so i just stopped my car over there and i was walking i wanted to see what's
Speaker A
going on and the israeli soldiers they came running at me and they started shooting at me and i got i got shot in the back it was a tear gas the canister hit you yeah so my speed sisters they took me to the
Speaker A
hospital i i fainted [Music] have you thought of challenging the israelis to put up a team i can't race because my car is palestinian what if they come over here they're not allowed to enter the west bank and we're not allowed to go to
Speaker A
jerusalem so how can we can raise together okay silly question it's right there for all to see and it feels like something out of a science fiction film this is the wall from the other side from inside this place for instance the
Speaker A
aida refugee camp in the district of bethlehem it doesn't feel like anything other than what it is a prison [Music] abed abu sure is the founder of the al-rawad children's theater center so we are at the north entrance of
Speaker A
bethlehem and heading to ida refugee camp so this has been here since 1950. yes it started with tents people were under the tents for about seven years and later on the un saw that it was not temporary as it was supposed to be so
Speaker A
they started building what they call shelters [Music] first impressions of the camp there's a remarkable number of kids now it's about 6 000 people and the two-thirds are under 18 years old so it's a very young population unfortunately with the continuous
Speaker A
degradation of political and economic situation we are in a situation where we have no playgrounds or green spaces anymore children play in the streets beneath walls covered in images of barters plain hijackers political prisoners 6 000 people of that number 66 percent
Speaker A
are under the age of 18. yes i don't care where that is in the world that's pretty much a recipe for unruly behavior i think would be the best well especially yes especially when you don't have any possibilities to evacuate the anger and
Speaker A
the stress in a creative way so after i finished my studies i came back here and i started using theater as one of the most amazing powerful civilized and non-violent means to express yourself to tell your story to be truthful and this is for me
Speaker A
the remedy to build the peace within and hopefully help them to think that they can grow up and change the world and create miracles without need to carry a gun and shoot everybody else or explode themselves or burn themselves but to
Speaker A
stay alive abed takes me to the camp's martyrs quarter to be fed by islam abu ahura she runs a women's collective offering palestinian cooking classes helping her provide for six children one of whom is disabled in america kids grow up with pop stars
Speaker A
sports players yes never a politician i mean it's unthinkable for a child to look up to a politician or to look up to a military figure sports or entertainment yeah here kids four or five years old every day they're looking for somebody
Speaker A
who you know brought down a plate yeah um i'm not questioning why that is i don't know do you think it's helpful well i guess we have a history we are people who are under occupation people honor their heroes and their
Speaker A
heroes are those who resist the occupation whether they resisted that who are destroyed or non-armed and to tell you the truth sometimes i have been in fight with some political parties when they put images of people who were killed in
Speaker A
their horner houses ahmed's sister in the 29th of october 2001 she was killed in her kitchen by a sniper from the intercontinental hotel but when these political parties take this woman and want to make a montage of photos
Speaker A
with her carrying a gun to say this is the hero who liberated the palestine sorry this is not true this woman was killed in her house can you go today and ask the palestinians who is the great hero you ask these kids who
Speaker A
will they recognize they will recognize a young man from gaza who is an arab idol named muhammad aslaf a singer who sings he becomes more famous than abu mazen and arafat and and everybody else this is another image of palestine
Speaker A
[Music] [Applause] [Music] you could almost believe for a minute or two that some kind of peace some kind of reconciliation meeting of the minds sanity is possible after you visit mazda it's a restaurant in what looks like an
Speaker A
idyllic village in the judean hills about 20 minutes from jerusalem it feels like an alternate universe for a number of reasons [Music] muslim from a nearby village they're partners co-owners of majda and also married they're unsurprisingly friends of yotan
Speaker A
together they grow and raise much of what's used in their kitchen their food reflects both their different backgrounds and their commonalities we're gonna spoil you now yeah here we go so you grew up in this town yes in this
Speaker A
city where did you grow up near the beach not not the neighborhood [Laughter] [Music] but we met in the neighborhood in kibbutzki kibbutz and we work together in hotel how did that go down with the families wonderful enough how wonderful now good
Speaker A
yes in the beginning that someone started the tvts with a lot of questions those answers and slowly understand that we love each other and they can do nothing so they continue and they support us [Music] this is your special fried egg sunny
Speaker A
setup farm eggs with peppers from your garden tomato that looks awesome beyond words [Music] it is incredibly beautiful here i don't know why i didn't expect that uh you know a lot of people come and say it's like provence it's like italian is
Speaker A
a noise you like our crab i do roasted tomatoes okra onion and mint and that's all it is and what they do a lot here is just char the hell out of it so it's like it really is it's really smoky just from
Speaker A
being in the pan for all very high heat [Music] so generally he's being who lives in this area although mostly arab ethnically arab in this particular town [Music] zucchini that's been grilled and then we use the fried yogurt so that's the sauce
Speaker A
so it's like that intense kind of guilty flavor very typical for palestinian cooking oh man it's good i just had this incredibly delicious meal completely oblivious to the fact that it's entirely vegetarian if any of the vegetarian residents in
Speaker A
new york served food that tasted anywhere near this i would be i would actually go there yeah maybe i'd consider it and this fresh zucchini with meals and the apricots the little sweet apricots we had all of this food is really intensely
Speaker A
delicious are you hopeful of course i have my children i need to see them i respect her religion she respects my religion my family and together we can build something for our kids our future country that's what we think
Speaker A
and that's what we give the message for our customers part of the attraction of this restaurant the fact that it actually manages to do what not so many chefs try to do here and that is sort of mix
Speaker A
your jewish ethnicity or background with arab food getting in and out of gaza from israel is truly one of the most surreal travel experiences you could have on earth over 1.5 million people live in gaza most of them considered refugees meaning
Speaker A
they're not from the place they are compelled to live now in most cases they are either prohibited from or unable to leave israel decides who comes and goes what gets in and what stays out apart from journalists aid workers
Speaker A
emergency responders very few people are allowed to cross into gaza in 2005 the israeli defense forces left the gaza strip and all israeli settlers were removed now inside gaza hamas is in charge considered a terrorist organization by both the united states and israel they
Speaker A
got elected in two thousand six this is leila haddad a native gazan journalist and author of the gaza kitchen [Music] the catches are not as big as they used to be and that's primarily because the fishermen can't go beyond
Speaker A
three to six nautical miles you could continue fishing with what happens oh they'll shoot at the fishermen uh they'll spray cold water at them they'll destroy their boats they'll cut their fishing nets uh they'll detain them so it's obviously really risky business
Speaker A
nine nautical miles that's where that deep sea channel is where you're gonna get the really good catches so gaza is the last palestinian area with access to the coast that's really important to remember you know you have the west bank just an
Speaker A
hour away but many of the palestinians there have never seen the sea have never been to the sea [Music] the sultan family owned a small farm in the barisala area of the eastern gaza strip omsultan and her husband are unusual
Speaker A
in that they cook together this is not typical in this part of the world or in this culture they use their own fresh-killed chickens to make the gazan classic a traditional palestinian dish comprised of layers of fried eggplant
Speaker A
tomato potatoes caramelized onions and chicken sauteed then simmered in a broth with nutmeg cinnamon cardamom and rice it's a big family children grandchildren all living under the same roof and it can get chaotic so let's talk about food and eat food
Speaker A
because it's just sitting here but yeah yeah sure what do we have here okay so this is called luba or traditional name with lamb in this case chicken we're not allowing no the others to eat he's saying how can you be eating and
Speaker A
you're letting everybody [Music] for me being from gaza being a child of diaspora i always thought food was a really interesting way to be able to tell the palestinian story being able to discover this lost history this palestinian past
Speaker A
plus the food is really damn good right and it was i think also important to be able to provide palestinians an image of themselves if they recognize a very humane image because all they're seeing in the media whether here or there whether on arabic
Speaker A
channels or abroad you know is these kind of very caricatured images of uh you know gunmen and you know whaling women and this kind of grim you know cinderblock landscape uh you're not entering into the private homes and what does a
Speaker A
kitchen look like or what does a you know a family you see here yeah do you like what she's asking it's absolutely delicious really really good she wants you to open a restaurant for her keep cooking like this it's really
Speaker A
delicious gaza has three distinctive culinary heritages those who hail from villages that were either depopulated or destroyed in 1948 and they constitute about 75 percent of the population of gaza and they kind of bring with them their own distinct cuisine
Speaker A
that's very different from uh the cuisine of the city gaza city which tends to use much more heat much more chili peppers from the cuisine of the coast which is rich with seafood of course and a very sophisticated very urban cuisine
Speaker A
curious what everybody here thinks will there be anything in your lifetime i guess the first question would be in your lifetime will you be able to uh [Music] she says you know she hopes she can she also hopes you can go to jerusalem as
Speaker A
well so she's optimistic he said you're not allowing us to and then he said then he correct self-corrected and said the israelis are allowing us go go this is the normal tone of voice he's not upset by the way this is how we talk
Speaker A
what do you say what's he saying give me a permit if they allow of course i'll go leila's got something to show me a watermelon salad thing she discovered on a recent trip here that's really peaked her interest
Speaker A
so off we go i figure this will take a minute we arrive at what looks like a pretty serious gathering this is a dewan and we're soon joined by um sultan's husband it's an area where kind of the elders
Speaker A
gather to you know resolve community problems to you know kind of advise all these guys are originally from beer il-sabi now part of israel so they're bound together by traditions and a way of life very different from here
Speaker A
where they've been relocated and lived since 1948. does he think he'll be able to go to his ancestral homeland in his lifetime his children's lifetime what's his guess yeah we will retake whether this enemy back me please kill him
Speaker A
and we understand that he hope and of me my son my daughter [Music] so what they're making now is called fatigue and azure is basically baby watermelon under ripe watermelon and this is kind of a specialty of southern gaza generally but also sinai
Speaker A
uh it's usually something that's made exclusively by men as i was told here so they begin you can see over there they're fire roasting the baby watermelons they cover them with aluminum foil in addition they put them through a wire
Speaker A
kind of like a sort of rustic skewer and then they add they just throw them in there and then the idea is they they take the pulp out so that's what's going on yeah and then what they do while that's
Speaker A
fire roasting is they need an unleavened dough over there with whole wheat barley plenty of really rich extra virgin olive oil and then they throw that into the pit as well or they dig a pit in the sand over
Speaker A
there and that's fire baked right in the coals yep and then they mix that all together so it's interesting because right now we're about what 35 minutes away from gaza city uh ask anyone in gaza city if they've heard of this
Speaker A
station no so even in the area as small as gaza you see this really wide variation they're going to clean it up many if not most of these guys are not too sympathetic to my country or my ethnicity i'm
Speaker A
guessing but there's that hospitality thing anywhere you go in the muslim world it seems no matter what you feed your guests you do your best to make them feel at home you're supposed to eat [Music] you shouldn't have another meal for
Speaker A
three days where does this come from this is a dish that's native to southern gaza uh the sinai the uh sort of the desert bedouin areas all the food i've had so far in gaza has been very different than anything else
Speaker A
i've had in the arab world different flavor spectrum yeah totally it's kind of this its own little gastronomical bubble you know i find that the food has more flavor i get a better sensory experience even children they like to eat with theirs
Speaker A
saying god gave us hands to eat with nut spoons [Music] one can be forgiven for thinking when you see how similar they are the two peoples both of whom cook with pride eat with passion love their kids love the land in which
Speaker A
they live or the land they dream of returning to who lives so close who are locked in such an intimate if deadly embrace might somehow someday figure out how to live with each other but that would be very mushy thinking
Speaker A
indeed those things in the end probably don't count for much at all the time galkowitz runs a restaurant just seven miles from the gaza strip you and your family have paid the worst imaginable price yes my daughter was killed by a mortar
Speaker A
sent by hamas in some israeli towns and villages within close proximity of the gaza strip bus stops double as bomb shelters and air raid sirens warn of incoming missiles fired from less than a mile away rockets and mortar shells have been
Speaker A
known to fall from the sky in these parts and no one understands the consequences more than this man you were not a fervent ideological zionist no you're not an orthodox jew no and yet here you are at the spear point right at the dip
Speaker A
there's your restaurant this is a shelter there's a shelter here you are after the death of my daughter i just start to talk to whom to people who want to listen i know that my daughter was killed for
Speaker A
no reason and i know that people in the other side have been killed for no reason children's old people are having a soldier in gaza i saw very poor people i know there is interest in keeping these poor people you can go
Speaker A
far far but the the bottom line is let's stop with the suffering you know i went to the settler community and i nice people and i said to you you know they were nice and you said you said what did you say you said
Speaker A
they're all nice they are all nice i know nice very nice palestinian people they're all nice but if you scratch if you push you have to talk but they all want to put the they'll all say throw them in the seat
Speaker A
most of the people they don't talk they are very upset they are fed up and the same goes from the other side to us you have to find the right people on both village also on the down also on the up and make they talk and i
Speaker A
am sure that is possible the opportunities to do that here are very very very limited it seems i agree and i mean when does it even have to speak metaphorically because there is an actual wall that is a wall or a fence depending on
Speaker A
who you're talking to fence or wall oh oh oh no it's a big wall it's ugly it's really ugly you can see it is not far away from here [Music] [Music] [Music] you
Topics:Anthony BourdainParts UnknownJerusalemWest BankIsraelPalestinefalafelseparation wallOld Citysettlements
