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The Tenacity of Chef Reem Assil
The Palestinian- and Syrian-American chef opens up about the intense racist backlash she faced when her Oakland bakery opened.
A new restaurant, death threats, early labor, and a James Beard nod.
That was Chef Reem Assil's past year. How was yours?
In May 2017, the Palestinian- and Syrian-American chef opened Reem’s, a neon-filled Arab bakery in Oakland’s diverse Fruitvale neighborhood. As a former community and labor organizer, Assil wanted a bakery that would serve as an intersectional community space. Those first few weeks, as she made mana’eesh dough, an Arab flatbread she’s known for, the bakery was bombarded with death threats over a mural of Rasmea Odeh that hung inside. Odeh, a Palestinian activist, was tortured into confessing to a bombing that killed two Jewish college students in Jerusalem in the 1960s. For Assil, Odeh is a symbol of resistance and an inspiration.
What started as outrage over the mural turned into more than a year of animosity and racism directed at Assil. The controversy has been covered before (New York Times, Food & Wine, Eaterand even Breitbart), but one question remains: How the hell did a woman of color survive an intense racist backlash while running a successful bakery and continuing to kick ass?
The Tenacity of Chef Reem Assil
The Palestinian- and Syrian-American chef opens up about the intense racist backlash she faced when her Oakland bakery opened.
A new restaurant, death threats, early labor, and a James Beard nod.
That was Chef Reem Assil's past year. How was yours?
In May 2017, the Palestinian- and Syrian-American chef opened Reem’s, a neon-filled Arab bakery in Oakland’s diverse Fruitvale neighborhood. As a former community and labor organizer, Assil wanted a bakery that would serve as an intersectional community space. Those first few weeks, as she made mana’eesh dough, an Arab flatbread she’s known for, the bakery was bombarded with death threats over a mural of Rasmea Odeh that hung inside. Odeh, a Palestinian activist, was tortured into confessing to a bombing that killed two Jewish college students in Jerusalem in the 1960s. For Assil, Odeh is a symbol of resistance and an inspiration.
What started as outrage over the mural turned into more than a year of animosity and racism directed at Assil. The controversy has been covered before (New York Times, Food & Wine, Eaterand even Breitbart), but one question remains: How the hell did a woman of color survive an intense racist backlash while running a successful bakery and continuing to kick ass?
The Tenacity of Chef Reem Assil
