University of Pennsylvania

This is the fifty-eighth of Arab America’s series on American pathbreakers of Arab descent. The series includes personalities from entertainment, business, sports, science, academia, journalism, and politics, among other areas. Our fifty-eighth pathbreaker is Reem Kassis, a Palestinian American born in Jerusalem to a Muslim mother and Christian father. While initially a businesswoman, Reems became a writer and cookbook author. John Mason, a contributing writer, describes how her work focuses on the intersection of food with culture, history, and politics. Reem’s latest writing focuses on the place of Palestinian cuisine in the context of the Arab-Israeli conflict and, more specifically, the Gaza war.