What Beth Abu-Haydar misses most about Lebanon, her homeland, is the light. "It is different than it is here," she says. "The sun is very bright and warm, but not stifling. You feel it and see it. It colors the environment - everything is a shade of yellow."
In contrast to Beth's memories, pictures of Lebanon now show black, smoky clouds billowing up into a fiery red sky.
Beth is heartbroken by the news from her homeland. "I'm really sad for the suffering on all sides," she says. After the Lebanese Civil War of 1975-1990, "Lebanon was rebuilding in a healthy way," she despairs, "but now the country's fragile democracy is shattered.
"If the U.S. is truly committed to promoting democracy in the world," she continues, "we shouldn't pick and choose which ones to support. If the U.S. had supported Lebanon, we wouldn't be here today."
She elaborates on her political views, but ultimately, she is "beyond politics. The humanitarian thing is what matters to me," she says. Her life's work demonstrates that claim.
Beth was born in 1956 in Beirut, the middle of three children (she has an older and younger brother). "Abu" means "father," and "haydar" means "lion." "Supposedly one of my nomadic ancestors slew a lion," she says.
Her father, Najib, was a physician specializing in endocrinology, the study of glands and hormones. In the 1970s he served as Lebanon's Minister of Education.
The family spent summers in the village of Hammana, about 25 min-utes inland from Beirut. Its population tripled to about 3,000 in the summer, and Najib was its mayor for many years.
In winter, when the mountains of Lebanon are laden with snow, the family skied. Beth was on the Leba-nese national ski team, which was scheduled to compete in the 1976 Olympics in Innsbruck, Austria. Unfortunately, the team had to withdraw from the Olympics because the civil war prevented them from getting out of the country. But Beth is still an avid skier.
She attended a French school all the way from kindergarten through grade 13. "That's the way we do it there," she says. She grew up speaking French (because Lebanon was a French col-ony at one time), English (because her mother, Nancy, is American) and Arabic. She explains that there is a common written language throughout the Arab world called "classical" Arabic, but there are many spoken dialects, not all of them mutually understandable.
When Beth was 10 years old, her family lived for nine months in Jerusalem, where her father took a sabbatical. They were there during the Six-Day War of 1967, when Israel captured the Gaza Strip and Sinai Peninsula from Egypt, the West Bank from Jordan and the Golan Heights from Syria. Witnessing death and destruction, says Beth, "was my awakening to the complexities of the conflict in the Middle East."
The family fled to Amman, Jordan, in their bombed-out car. "The roof was gone," says Beth, "but the car was still drivable." They drove across the border in their crude convertible, left it in Amman and flew back to Beirut.
Back in Leb-anon, Beth's parents became active in humanitarian issues. They raised money for refugees and worked for the Red Cross and various United Nations agencies. "It shaped my future," says Beth.
BETH ATTENDED THE American University of Beirut but left during her junior year, in early 1977, due to the escalating civil war. Because she was at an American university, opportunities opened up for her in the United States.
She finished her undergraduate education at Union College in Schenectady, N.Y., graduating in 1978 with a bachelor's degree in public health. A year later, at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, she earned a master's degree in the same field, with a focus on nutrition, maternal and child health and health education.
While in Michigan, Beth became a U.S. citizen. "It's a powerful feeling," she says. "I feel proud and lucky to be here, very free.
"But I'm conflicted," she continues. "Americans are kind and caring, and the diversity in the U.S. is wonderful, but it is also divisive."
Also while in Michigan, she met Steve Benirschke. Years before either she or Steve was born, their fathers roomed together at Harvard Medical School, in a dormitory reserved for foreign students (Steve's father came from Germany). They kept in touch over the years, but Beth and Steve had never met.
Steve was completing his medical residency at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, 170 miles away. At his father's suggestion, Steve dutifully took Beth to a football game between the Detroit Lions and the San Diego Chargers. At the time, Steve's brother played with the Chargers.
After earning her master's, Beth was recruited by the American University of Beirut to join their faculty. As well as teaching, she became involved in crisis intervention because the civil war still raged. She participated in sanitation drives and garbage-reduction projects, administered polio vaccines and worked on the prevention of other diseases such as cholera and diphtheria. Her efforts intensified in 1982, when Israel invaded Lebanon and laid siege to Beirut, causing severe food and electrical shortages.
Eventually the World Health Organization granted Beth a fellowship to study for her Ph.D. at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. On Valentine's Day 1983, the phone rang and Beth heard a voice from the past: Steve's. For a variety of reasons, Beth discontinued her Ph.D. studies and married Steve in August 1984.
At their wedding, their fathers read a bogus document they had drafted back in their Harvard days, arranging the marriage of their future offspring. The joke was double-layered because in the Middle East arranged marriages are common.
THE FIRST SIX MONTHS of their marriage, Beth and Steve lived in the small town of Chur, Switzerland, where Steve began a fellowship in a trauma hospital. He was then transferred to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, where he completed the fellowship. They have lived here ever since. Steve set up practice as an orthopedic surgeon, and the couple settled on Queen Anne in 1986.
They now have three children: Leila (18), Kurt (16) and Kiki (10). Leila just graduated from The Northwest School and will attend the University of Southern California beginning in January. She had planned to spend time in Lebanon this fall, but is uncertain now because of the war. Kurt will enter 11th grade at Garfield High School this fall; Kiki, fifth grade at John Hay Elementary School.
Beth's children are solidly American. Again, she is conflicted about that. "The U.S. is isolated from the rest of the world," she says. "I worry that my children won't be able to navigate other cultures."
For the decade before Kiki's birth, Beth worked for an organization called Programs for Appropriate Technologies in Health (PATH), as a program officer in maternal and child health. "I did fieldwork overseas," says Beth, "in places throughout the Middle East and Africa."
Since 1996, Beth has continued her humanitarian work in other ways. She is involved with the World Affairs Council, which brings high-profile speakers from around the world to Seattle. Funded by a grant from Seattle's Department of Neighborhoods, she and two other women wrote a sample needs assessment of Arab-Americans, conducting 130 interviews in the process. Also with others, she will chronicle the stories of Arab-Americans for the Museum of History and Industry.
Lebanese poet Kahlil Gibran wrote, "You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give." Beth gives of herself.
BETH'S TWO BROTHERS and their families still live in Beirut. "They're safe," she says, "I think. I'm more concerned for their futures and mental well-being."
Beth and her family visited Lebanon annually until her father died in 2001 (her mother now lives outside Boston near her sister). "I feel a deep yearning to go back to Lebanon," she says, "a visceral pull. It is a wonderful place, even if it's not the same as when I grew up."
May the sky clear so yellow light shines again.
[[In-content Ad]]
