Witness

No Longer Achmad

A young Bedouin torn between becoming part of Jewish society and loyalty to Arab traditions.

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Achmad Hamdoon, a young Arab Bedouin from the Hamdoon tribe, was raised in the family tin hut, a few metres away from the locked gate of Kibbutz Lotem in West Galilee, Northern Israel.

Having longed for the kibbutz life most of his life and having, as a child, insinuated himself into it, he finally take a momentous decision and moves to Lotem, changing his name to the typically Israeli name Meidan Sade.

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His clan is outraged and sees him as a traitor. Meidan, now no longer Achmad, becomes “the first Hamdoon” to carry ammunition while guarding the kibbutz, completes his high school degree, and finds a new Jewish “cultural” mother.

The price however is high. Meidan finds that, as a Bedouin, he cannot access the better opportunities he had hoped to get in Israeli society.

And he is lonely, unable to find a Jewish girl who will accept him as he is, nor a Bedouin girl who will not frown on his extreme crossing of ways.

No Longer Achmad is a unique expose of the young Bedouin’s identity crisis, torn as he is between his longing to be part of modern Jewish society, and loyalty to historical Arab traditions.

No Longer Achmad can be seen from Sunday, October 31, at the following times GMT: Sunday: 1400; Monday: 0600 and 1900; Tuesday: 0300.