In a place called Little Palestine, people are afraid. And forgotten.
The atmosphere has been somber at the Palestine Hair Salon lately. The TVs behind the barber chairs show a stream of war images repeating across the mirrored walls: children crying in Gaza, men clawing at the rubble, the wounded being carried on planks through the streets of Rafa.
Raed Odeh is the owner and top hairdresser of the shop, one of eight barbershops along Palestine Way in South Paterson, the center of one of the largest communities of Palestinians outside the Middle East. Mr. Odeh greets every customer, takes calls, cuts hair and watches the news while giving orders to his staff.
Mr. Odeh is also deputy mayor of Paterson.
When asked for his thoughts on the war in Gaza and its impact on Palestinians in New Jersey, a dozen men in the barbershop stopped talking and used the mirrors to gauge Mr. Odeh’s reaction. He fell silent. He prefers not to discuss these matters in the presence of his customers.
Finally, Mr. Odeh put down his razor, took off his smock and walked outside. In a small park with a wooden sign that read, “Welcome to Little Palestine: Paterson to Jerusalem, 5,962 miles,” he felt freer to talk.
“This is a massacre,” said Mr. Odeh, 51. “I am very concerned. I wonder if Gaza will still exist next month.”
After weeks of fear and anger, the brief ceasefire in Gaza brought some relief, although even before it collapsed, Paterson residents doubted whether it would last.
In dozens of interviews over the past month, many Palestinians in this part of New Jersey have expressed sadness and fear for their relatives in Gaza. Feeling overwhelmed by the television coverage, they were glued to their phones, desperately checking social media and messaging apps for news from the war.
Mohammed Abuassi, 29, a real estate investor, said he sends messages via WhatsApp to his cousins in Gaza every day. If anyone answers, he knows his cousin is still alive. Nine of his relatives were killed by a single Israeli airstrike early in the war, he said.
Hamas militants attacked southern Israel on October 7, taking about 240 hostages and killing about 1,200 people, Israeli authorities said. Israel responded with ground and air strikes that Gaza health authorities say killed more than 15,000 people in Gaza.
The conflict has also hardened long-held feelings of alienation from American institutions for many Palestinians in New Jersey, as they witness and participate in the largest pro-Palestinian demonstrations in American history.
“The protests give me hope,” said Diab Mustafa, president of the Palestinian American Community Center in Clifton, a suburb of Paterson. “But I don’t like the reactions to the protests. You should be able to march for Palestinian rights without being called anti-Semitic or a terrorist sympathizer.”
Since shortly after the start of the war, anti-Semitic incidents have increased across the country. Many Palestinians in Paterson also reported a shocking increase in Islamophobic rhetoric. According to a spokesperson for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the group almost received 1,300 reports of anti-Muslim and anti-Arab prejudice and violence in the United States in the month after October 7 – an increase of 216 percent compared to the same period last year.
“We feel abandoned and betrayed,” said New Jersey spokeswoman Dina Sayedahmed. chapter. “People group Palestinians and Muslims as if suddenly we are all the enemy.”
The incidents in the report include a man who invited people to help him ‘hunt Palestinians’; the stabbing of a 6-year-old boy in Chicago; And death threats against Muslim parents outside a school in Fair Lawn, NJ, a few blocks from Paterson. More recently, three Palestinian students were shot in an unprovoked attack in Burlington, Virginia, last month.
“The shooting in Vermont was terrifying,” said Rania Mustafa, 31, executive director of the Palestinian American Community Center. “But it was inevitable because of all the anti-Palestinian and anti-Islamic rhetoric in the media and by politicians.”
In less difficult times, the televisions in Palestine Hair Salon play non-stop football matches. But since the war began, TVs have been tuned to Al Jazeera.
“I think you’ll find that most people here don’t trust the Western media,” Mr. Odeh said.
At the heart of this distrust is anger and humiliation over what Palestinians in New Jersey universally describe as 75 years of Israeli occupation since World War II. Nakba, or “catastrophe” in Arabic, when 700,000 Palestinians fled or were driven from their homes during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. The world’s attention has been focused on Gaza since October 7: for the Palestinians in South Paterson, it confirms the suspicion that their lives only matter if an Israeli dies.
“Look, what happened on October 7 is terrible,” said Salaheddin Mustafa, outreach coordinator for the Islamic Center of Passaic County in Paterson, the largest mosque for Palestinians in New Jersey. “But to start the conversation on October 7, as if the violence started then, is just very frustrating. The occupation is violent. It is treacherous by nature. It does not allow for human rights. That is the start of the conversation.”
Paterson was founded in 1792 by Alexander Hamilton as the first industrial city in North America. Although the factories faltered after World War II, Paterson has endured as a diverse city of 156,000 residents, where 62 percent of residents are Hispanic and 40 percent of children live in poverty. The first Palestinians arrived in South Paterson in the late 1960s, renting apartments from Syrian and Lebanese families, said André Sayegh, Paterson’s first Arab-American mayor, who grew up in the neighborhood.
Today, about 20,000 Palestinians live in a neighborhood where the border between Paterson and Clifton is blurred.
“It felt like we were living in an island bubble,” said Ms. Mustafa, who grew up in Paterson and now lives in Clifton.
The small triangular park is in the geographic center of South Paterson, located on a five-block stretch of Main Street that was renamed Palestine Way last year, following a resolution proposed by Alaa Abdelaziz, the city’s first Palestinian-American council member.
Mr. Odeh’s barbershop is in the middle of Palestine Way, surrounded by bakeries, shops selling ornate furniture and jewelry, and Al-Basha, a Palestinian restaurant that draws diners from all over New Jersey.
As the Palestinian commercial district grew, so did the community’s political power. Mosques in Paterson hosted campaign events for both Democratic and Republican senators and governors. Palestinian leaders claim that Bill Pascrell Jr., the Democratic congressman from Paterson, owes his seat in part to their organizing work during his landslide primary fight for re-election in 2012, Salaheddin Mustafa said.
But since October 7, when Mr. Pascrell joined New Jersey’s senators and governor — all Democrats — in voicing their support for Israel and refusing to call for an unconditional ceasefire, South Paterson has officials effectively banned from their mosques and public spaces.
Mr Mustafa said the politicians’ aides had been texting for weeks asking them to meet and mend the relationship. He refused.
“As soon as you call for a ceasefire, we will talk,” Mr Mustafa said. “At Pascrell it is very personal. He is persona non grata. Were done.”
In an interview, Mr. Pascrell acknowledged that many of his Palestinian voters are angry with him. He pointed out his support for President Biden’s decision to send $100 million in humanitarian aid to the West Bankand for efforts to provide civilians in Gaza with food, water, medical supplies and safe passage.
“Like all Americans, I want a permanent end to these hostilities and lasting security for both Palestinians and Israelis,” Mr. Pascrell said.
Some Palestinians in New Jersey have felt rejected by their political leaders and say they are more determined than ever to build their community on their own. Ms. Mustafa, of the Palestinian American Community Center, has taken on a hectic schedule.
On Tuesday, she hosted an Instagram livestream to raise money for Palestinian students from New Jersey. On Wednesday, she led a class for students on grassroots organizing, drove to Teaneck High School to support a student strike and finally organized a fundraiser for the community center. On Friday, she held a news conference with children to protest Mr. Pascrell and gave a lecture at the Islamic Center of Passaic County.
Tuesday evening, relaxing on the couch of her large, formal home in Clifton, she anxiously scanned her phone. Before the war, she paid a woman in Gaza to tutor her children in Arabic via Zoom. Mrs Mustafa has sent the woman a text message every day since the start of the war. The teacher has not responded since October 29.
“Now I can’t reach her,” said Mrs. Mustafa. “Does this mean she can’t charge her phone? Is she dead? Don’t know.”
At 7:15 p.m., Ms. Mustafa managed to put her phone down. Yousef, 2, and his 5-year-old sister Dina snuggled next to her on the couch. She read them a picture book called “Sitti’s Key,” in which a Palestinian woman gives her granddaughter the key to her former home in Haifa, now part of Israel, a sign of their family history and how they came to live in the United States . .
When the book was finished, Ms. Mustafa’s husband, Ibrahim Issa, a 32-year-old architect, escorted the children upstairs to bed. Ms. Mustafa returned to her phone and texted friends about a support group she is starting next week for Palestinians in New Jersey to deal with their grief over the war.
“Whatever happens, there is still a humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza right now,” Ms Mustafa said, looking up from the screen. “The ceasefire means we can take one deep breath. Just one. Then we all have to go back to work.”
Sabir Hasko reporting contributed.