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World News Hits Home



With all the disturbing daily news on the home front, and the general American inattention to world news, you might have missed that the oppressive regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria has fallen. In general there has been more up-to-date news available on Bluesky than on traditional U.S. news media.

Here’s a piece from the Guardian to bring you up to date.

Interestingly enough, one of the first references I saw on Facebook acknowledging these momentous events was from a restaurant. 

Koshary Corner, formerly of the Common Kitchen in Clarksville, posted the following to the Howard County Eats Facebook page.

Holding Syria, its people and our beloved Syriana Cafe & Gallery in the light today. 

We’ve been touched by the love and support of this beautiful community before. You guys carried us through tough times but nothing like what the world is like today. 

Kindly asking you to show Syriana and their staff all the kindness, patience and gentleness you can offer. They’re showing up to work and serve with wrenched hearts over the fate of their families and their country. Your love and kindness can definitely make things easier for them. 

Peace and love to ALL

Not too long after came this response from Syriana Café and Gallery:

Thank you very much for the heartwarming message. Our beloved Syria and our suffering region deserves time to heal from the long years of pain. Thanks for all our friends who supported us in these rough times. We pray that love and peace spread in the whole world.

Their words resonate in a way that feels like both an invitation and a prayer.

Your love and kindness can definitely make things easier for them. 

We pray that love and peace spread in the whole world.

Many of us whose ancestors came to this country long ago may not know the specifics of our family’s origin story in the US. The idea of fleeing persecution, the threat of war, or dehumanizing generational poverty may be a far away thought, like something relegated to a textbook page. I think sometimes we lose our empathy for those who are experiencing these things in the here and now. 

That why the message from Iman Moussa of Koshary is so meaningful. Her words are infused with the deep knowing of the immigrant experience. We may watch other people examine their immigrant pasts on “Finding Your Roots”. Ms. Moussa is living her immigrant experience right now, building a successful business and working to create a supportive community in her new country.

So in a moment of profound upheaval - - tentatively joyous but fraught with uncertainty - - one restauranteur reaches out to another and makes those words public in order to include the whole community in her verbal embrance.

It is an invitation and a prayer. If prayer is, as some say, love in action then - - we have been invited. 

Kindly asking you to show Syriana and their staff all the kindness, patience and gentleness you can offer. They’re showing up to work and serve with wrenched hearts over the fate of their families and their country. Your love and kindness can definitely make things easier for them. 

Back in 2021 I wrote about Syriana in “Sharing Stories”.

As I read the BBC piece about a married couple from Syria who have made a home in the United States and joyfully share their culture, I thought about how important it is to learn other people’s stories. Learning other people’s stories can prompt one to engage and enter in to relationships with those one might have avoided or ignored. Enjoying the hospitality at Syriana or engaging in conversation with the merchants at the Common Kitchen are ways we can step over the boundaries that separate us. We begin to become neighbors. 

“Who is my neighbor?” Thank goodness we have Iman Moussa to remind us.

Village Green/Town² Comments


*****


Koshary Corner: R House, 301 West 29th Street, Baltimore, MD 21211

Syriana Café and Gallery: 8180 Main Street Ellicott City, Maryland 21043





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