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My grandmother was Palestinian, but not the kind you think.

JL;DR SUMMARY Forest Rain's essay explores the historical use of the term 'Palestinian,' reflecting on his grandmother's identity as a Jewish woman from the British Mandate of Palestine. A way out west there was a fella, fella I want to tell you about, fella by the name of Jeff Lebowski. At least, that was the handle his lovin' parents gave him, but he never had much use for it himself. This Lebowski, he called himself the Dude. Now, Dude, that's a name no one would self-apply where I come from. But then, there was a lot about the Dude that didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. And a lot about where he lived, likewise. But then again, maybe that's why I found the place s'durned innarestin'.

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Tags

IdentityJewish HistoryZionismPalestineFreedomLanguageNarrativeBritish MandateTerminology

Places mentioned

Jaffa, Tel Aviv District, Israel
"My mother was born in Jaffa."
New York, United States
"My grandparents danced in the streets of New York celebrating their joy over the end of the British Mandate and the official establishment of the State of Israel."
Palestine, Texas, United States
"When Palestine, Texas, was named, its founders were not thinking about an Arab nation."
Palestine, Illinois, United States
"Neither were the people of Palestine, Illinois."

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This item was indexed and curated by Cairo, JL;DR's web crawler.
Cairo Item ID 58675
Cairo Source ID 36
Retrieved 2025-08-06 05:30:49 UTC
Curated 2025-08-06 08:31:54 UTC