The Narrative Arc of Salma Al-Madi’s Story Is Palestine, Not Israel

Right: My late aunt Salma al Madi (1926–2020) of Ijzim, Haifa. Left: Cover photo (Golda Meir, born Golda Mabovitch) on the Facebook page of מוזיאון הנשים בישראל The Israeli Women Museum.

It’s not Israel but Palestine that is the locus of my late aunt Salma’s (also spelled Selma; Arabic: سلمى الماضي) body and soul, of “the real I myself,” as Walt Whitman has it.

So, it was a shock to me to learn that a page called “ מוזיאון הנשים בישראל The Israeli Women Museum” on Facebook shared an announcement of her death in Haifa at the age of…