Big, Little and Tiny Sef <3

Stories.

It took a while for Asher to let Youssef and Nathan help me. I could tell he wasn't happy when I sat with them during movie nights either, but he kept his cool for the most part. School was a little different, because it's their job to help me there. Asher started coming to school a lot more now and he's going to do great because he's learning everything.

"Oi, watch." Asher spoke to...one of them? I don't know. They both walked over though.
"He can't have ham, idiot still follows all that bullshit. Cheese, or jam is his favourite. Nutella too but he goes hyper, so not a lot."

"Bullshit? You don't believe in it?" Youssef asked.

"No. If anything, I'd be Muslim, but I'm not because Momma hated all of that."

Momma ran away when she was fifteen and found my dad, who was eleven years her senior. He was nice to her though, and that's all that mattered to her. He didn't force her to cover up or to follow his every order. Her dad did, and her mother was too scared to say anything. Momma tried to make her own ideas about being Muslim, but had seemingly fell out of love by the time she passed away. Asher sees it as black and white, she didn't follow the Qu'ran, so she wasn't really a Muslim. I'm technically half Jewish, Jewish, if you will. I still wouldn't be allowed ham if I was Muslim so I don't know why Asher kicks up such a fuss.

Momma had Noah when she was seventeen, Asher at twenty and me at twenty two. She was only thirty one when she died. Fuck cancer, man.

Youssef didn't question it. Nathan did though.

"Why is Yusuf Jewish then? If his mum's not, I thought it's matrilineal?"

"It is, but Dad told Momma that Judaism saved her, and it would save us too so he told the hospital we were all to get bar mitzvahed when the time came, and we did. Noah denounced it the second he could, so did I. I honestly think Yusuf still follows because he has no choice until he's thirteen."

"I have a choice, and all I do is pray a bit and eat kosher." I scowled.

"You'll denounce it all the second you can. I know you will. You'll learn of the atrocities they commit in the name of your religion. The lies itself are enough to make Satan sick."

I was quiet. I already knew. Everything they've done, the Zionists pretending to follow the Torah. I hate it, but I have to be proud. Dad always said I had to be proud for the six million who couldn't, and the countless more that survived. I always thought this, since I was young, but surviving a genocide surely doesn't give you permission to commit one.

"You were all born in Israel, yeah?" Nathan asked.

"An illegal occupation, yes. In a hospital far better than the ones the Palestinians have to treat wounds brainwashed people like my dad cause."

Dad was in the military, for...them, he's practically one of them and they let her in because he promised she'd convert. I don't think she ever did, or she didn't tell anyone if she did.

"Free Palestine then, hm?" Youssef smiled.

"From the river to the sea. Dad isn't even Israeli, he's from Hungary. Well, his dad is. I don't know about his mum. Probably a similar European country."

We quickly got back on the topic of sandwiches, and Asher was glad. He doesn't like talking about stuff like that. He won't tell anyone why though. Probably the whole unfair god thing, Momma was a good woman and she didn't even live to enjoy her thirties. I remember her funeral, and she made sure every one would be happy and celebrate her life. She had a box that she painted for people to put stories about her in and we read them all out at her wake. Asher helped me write mine, because I used to have super bad handwriting, and it's not much better now. I read a story, it was from Zara. She said that she really really loved Momma, because she didn't hold grudges or anything. She'd look after Amir and Dina sometimes too. I read another one too, off Momma's best friend. Everyone told me I was brave, but I didn't feel brave. I felt angry.