Linda Sarsour has announced the upcoming release of a version of her memoir for young readers:
The adult version contains quite a bit of anti-Israel propaganda, as a Google Books search shows:
So I am guessing the Junior edition will be much of the same, but perhaps dressed up in more “kid-friendly” language.
An excerpt from this version can be seen here. It includes transparent attempts to ingratiate herself further with the African American community:
My dad stood next to me as a skinny African American boy, who couldn’t have been more than twelve, entered the store and walked past us, his hair cropped so close to his head that it was hardly more than a shadow. The boy walked to the coolers in the back where the sodas and twenty-five-cent juices were. Then he selected a juice as well as a twenty-five-cent Hostess lemon cake from a display rack. The kid looked around, trying to make sure the store shelves blocked him from our view, and then he tucked the juice box and cake into the pockets of his jacket. He didn’t realize that Yaba could see him in a large circular mirror that offered a fun-house view of the four long aisles of the store. The boy then walked to the front of the store, pushed the glass door open, and left.
Yaba followed him outside. “Jerome,” he said, “please give me what’s in your pockets.” The boy spun around, looking stricken. I don’t think he’d realized that Yaba knew his name. “I—I—I don’t have anything in my p-p-pockets,” he stammered.
“Don’t lie to me, son,” Yaba responded calmly. “I saw you put that quarter juice and quarter cake in your pocket. Now give them to me.”
Jerome placed the items he’d stolen into my father’s hand.
“Why did you steal these things?” Yaba asked, sounding disappointed, almost hurt. “I know your mother. She didn’t raise you to do something reckless like this. What do you think she would say if I told her what you did?”
“She’s at work,” Jerome mumbled, his voice so soft that I barely caught the words. “I didn’t have any money.”
“Stay right here,” Yaba told him. “You don’t move.”
Then he came inside, placed the quarter juice and little cake into a brown paper bag, and folded the top down. He went back outside and handed the bag to Jerome, stooping down so that he was at eye level.
“The next time you are hungry and don’t have any money, you don’t steal what you want,” Yaba told him. “You come in here and you ask me, and I will give it to you. Do you understand?”
Jerome nodded vigorously, his eyes filling with tears. Yaba patted him on the shoulder and stood watching as he turned and ran off down the block, clutching the bag. Then my father walked back into his store and said nothing more.
Years later it would occur to me that Yaba could have called the police on Jerome, but that would have resulted in Jerome’s having a police record. Yaba truly cared about his customers, and they cared about him. My many hours in the store taught me that my life, well-being, and experiences were deeply tied to my community.
Sarsour could totally have not mentioned the kid’s ethnicity. But then, what would be the point?
Similarly, Sarsour mentions her father’s Orthodox Jewish customers:
My father taught me to dutifully write their parents’ names in the marbled composition notebooks where he recorded the credit he extended to his regular customers. Their parents would pay their debts when payday came or less meager times arrived. Sometimes our Orthodox Jewish customers would need to buy something after sundown on the Sabbath, when their religion didn’t allow them to handle money. Other times people’s money would just run short and they’d need my dad to float them. Yaba never worried about when the ledgers would be squared. He appreciated his customers.
I am not questioning whether this happened, but I am pretty sure Sarsour mentions this to instill in readers how she cannot possibly be antisemitic. The fact, though, is that the vast majority of those Orthodox Jewish customers are for sure Zionists, so she essentially now hates their guts.
I know I may be sounding uncharitable, but Sarsour is extremely calculated in what she says and does. I have the receipts.
