Together again, at last. From left, Suzanne, Farah, Haitham (grandson), Lamese, Aboudi, Shiyam, Haitham (grandfather), Leila, and Wesam.
The long road from New Haven to the old industrial city of Erie, Pennsylvania, passes through Danbury, Binghamton, Damascus, Homs, Tripoli, Beirut, Chicago, and finally to the shore of the Great Lake that Erie is named after.
At least that’s the route we took in our minds when we undertook a ten-hour drive to, at last, meet the whole family of Haitham Dalati and Shiyam Daghestani, for whom, under the auspices of IRIS, we had helped ease their transition from the Syrian civil war to life in New Haven.
They spent time here in New Haven in 2019 before they decided to move to Erie, a more economical city where a community of similar refugees had sprouted.
After nearly four long years of the family’s separation as a result of then-President Trump’s Muslim travel ban (though it was not officially called that in order, in large part, to get it through the Supreme Court), we’d already celebrated one miracle: The news from Erie that on Thanksgiving 2020, despite overwhelming odds, they were together again, sobbing joyfully in each other’s arms.
How, precisely, this happened is still not clear to us, as Trump was still in office. I knew only that Suzanne and I had asked every person in public office we knew, and many we didn’t, for help. We believed that if, collectively, we couldn’t significantly address the Jewish aspiration of tikkun olam, the repair of the world, a tall order, we could at least repair the world of one family at a time.
Even so, we had not yet met the six new refugees. We couldn’t let the story end without seeing for ourselves how these intrepid immigrants fit into their new place.
The family roster: Farah, who is Haitham and Shiyam’s daughter, her husband, Wesam, a baker, their four children, Leila, then 17, Haitham, 16, Lamese, 13, and Aboudi, 8. How were they adjusting to America, their Promised Land back in their darkest hours?
We had worried about the change of culture for all. The six members of the family left behind in exile in Lebanon had faced hard times there.
The country had been overwhelmed by corruption, violence, a fierce environmental explosion, bigotry against refugees from Syria in large part due to religious differences but also the collapse of the Lebanese economy that kept Farah and the others frightened, not only for their safety but ability to provide for their basic needs.
We were concerned that for the children, in particular, the legacy of all that would negatively affect their psyche and prospects in America. We remembered of course the intensity and courage that little Aboudi showed when he wanted to speak directly to Donald Trump to convince him that his family was not a terrorist group.
The ride, obviously, was long and taxing for drivers of our stage of life. Three hours is usually my limit. But we thought of what our Syrian friends had gone through — including having their two houses destroyed, escaping through the woods and across borders, finding sanctuary in Tripoli, then the terrible separation caused by a perverse figure in the White House — and we dismissed any ache or pain or impatience to get to the old manufacturing city.
When the drive ended, Haitham and Shiyam were waiting for us, and we all shed some tears. She had some Syrian pastry ready, something Haitham had to wait in line to get and only available on certain days.
“We are so glad to see you,” Haitham said.
“Good, good,” Shiyam said, wiping her eyes.
They looked very much the same to us, though there was more color in Shiyam’s face, and the emotion expressed was of a different measure, a prodigious sense of relief. So often we had entered their home knowing that sadness would come to the fore. Not this time.
They showed us the rooms of their tidy two-story apartment, probably the same amount of space as their former home back in Westville but somehow seeming smaller. “Enough for us,” Haitham said. “We are happy here.”
Haitham told us that their daughter, Farah, and her husband, Wesam, and their four children — all of whom we had seen only in photographs — had moved less than a quarter mile away in the same complex.
This was Haitham’s doing; for all of the hardships, he has found his footing in Erie as a man who still can get things done. So he found a spacious corner apartment, had it repainted and otherwise refurbished.
When we made the short drive through the complex to Farah’s apartment, our headlights shone on her building. The backdoor opened and, as Farah welcomed us, she wrapped her arms around Suzanne and the two of them had a moment.
The rest of the family, with the exception of young Haitham, named after his grandfather, who was off playing the high school soccer team, was lined up in the kitchen to greet us. The oldest daughter, Leila, in perfect English and with great ease and comfort, said, “It is so wonderful to meet you. Thank you so much for everything.”
Wesam stood quietly by, smiling but not talking, appearing to be unsure about his language skills in America. The other children spoke fine English to us, though little Aboudi, at eight years old, seemed more reticent than the little boy who wanted the White House phone number. But he also was shy, and didn’t want us to see that he wasn’t as fluent in the new language as his siblings.
We could see right away what a beautiful apartment it was, with an old-world feel, refinished wooden floors, some of them covered by lovely area rugs.
After our tour of their house all we sat in the spacious living room, a feast of candies, cookies and fruits placed before us on the coffee table. The children were all attentive, not one staring at a screen.
Suzanne and I felt it was important to ask how they were finding their places in America, and anything else they wanted to tell us. Leila was the first to speak up. She was preparing to choose a college to attend.
“What will you study?” I asked.
“I hope, after undergraduate studies, to go to medical school.”
“Will you pursue a specialty?”
“Pathology,” she said. And I thought at least three things simultaneously.
How was it that a child like her, charming and bright and having by then studied less than a year in American schools, put herself in a position to reach so high?
What was her experience here, considering that she arrived here from two shattered countries in the Middle East?
And, more pointedly and perhaps unfairly, why would a person with such an open and engaging personality want to sit over a microscope all day and not have interaction with patients?
On that last point, she was clear. “I believe I will meet a lot of patients in my work, and help them.”
The answers to the other points astonished me. The children, with the exception of Aboudi, felt confident in school, and were considered to be among the top students.
“I’m thrilled to hear it,” I said. “But how is that in your second language, and having grown up in very troubled societies, that you can learn so much in such a short time?”
Leila took up the prompt. “The things we’re studying here, in Erie schools, are things we learned three years ago in Lebanon.”
It is foolish, of course, to imply anecdotal evidence from one family and make sweeping conclusions. Still, I’m tempted to ask how is it that a country that doesn’t really exist in terms of order, justice and competence — in a great sense in a battle with itself — seems to surpass by leaps and bounds America’s educational system? Should I really be surprised?
We have read lately that the United States does not rank as high in the world as we presumed in terms of education, and comparative test scores in math and science. And while all such statistics are suspect, haven’t so many of us found it hard to believe that Americans can be so gullible, so ignorant about basic information.
Moreover, such ignorance of late has been celebrated. Finally, a government for lazy minds. Finally, freedom to be ignorant and still be a part of a political power base.
In Erie the next night, the night after young Haitham had scored two goals for the Erie High soccer team, we learned of his erudition, his mastery of English, and in similar fashion of his sister, Leila, his refined manners.
But the moment that stuck with us most then and afterwards was when Farah, who is less confident in her English than her children, took out her cellphone and called up something she had written in our language, not trusting herself to be able to remember what to say in the moment, considering the emotion of it.
She read, “We would all like to thank you, Suzanne and Lary, for what you did for us to help us come to this country, and to take care of my parents.”
I didn’t get to the end of her sentence before I felt tears coming down on my cheeks. I didn’t think of it at the time, but on the drive home, I understood that the horror of the story of the family, the help it needed, the playing out of the story, the final moments of joy, were all a part of what city life like that in New Haven demands of us.
We are not meant to hide away in a barn house in the woods, as I had, for all of our days. We are meant to try to do what we can to help each other, to repair the world, to support the locals like IRIS who help, to likely fail at this effort, but, on the rarest of occasions, to be able to shout, “Hallelujah!”