Chef Amanda Saab lay in bed restless on the night of October 19, horrific images from the strikes on the Gaza strip swirling in her mind. Tossing and turning through that sleepless night, she knew the next morning that she had to do something to offer help to the Palestinian people.
“I don’t want to just sit here and cry every day. I still am crying every day, but I need to take action,” she thought. “My parents have always instilled in me that I have a voice and I can do really good and challenging things in the world and when tragedy happens, I’m moved to take action immediately.”
So she took to social media, armed with her love of food and a network of local chefs asking for people to contribute to a fundraiser dinner to support Palestine. Following an overwhelming response from over 20 chefs, event planners, and local businesses, Saab organized a “Chefs for Palestine” benefit dinner slated for Monday, October 30 in Dearborn.
Chefs for Palestine is a strolling dinner featuring food from Saab, George Azar of Flowers of Vietnam, Saffron De Twah’s Omar Anani, Baobab Fare’s Nadia Nijimbere, Lena Sareini, Zo’s Good Burger, Gateaux Patisserie, and more. One hundred percent of the proceeds from Monday’s dinner will be donated to the Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund and Palestinian American Medical Association through a partnership with the Amity Foundation.
“Chefs are the great uniter and food is our platform to do so,” Saab says. “Activism comes in many different forms. We need to have space for community so that we can come together, fundraise, eat together, and have a space for conversation, and that’s my area of expertise… When so many of us are just watching from a screen, we might be feeling helpless and disconnected from those around us just sitting in our grief, but coming together over food is healing.”
The Chefs for Palestine dinner is scheduled for 6 p.m. at Dearborn’s Bint Jebail Cultural Center and is a suggested $25 donation. There will also be raffles for gift cards to restaurants like Sava’s and Aventura in Ann Arbor, plus gift baskets from local businesses like Oro Esthetics Spa.
Saab is a first-generation Lebanese American and Michigan native who once competed on MasterChef. She says the Israel-Hamas conflict hits close to home because the village in Lebanon her parents are from is close to the Palestinian border.
The Palestinian rebel group Hamas launched an attack on Israel on Oct. 7 that killed 1,300 people. In response, Israel launched an attack on the Gaza Strip that has killed an estimated 4,000. President Biden has since pledged additional support for Israel.
“We can see the Palestinian border from our village,” Saab says. “And truly at a human level, when you see something, you must take action… If you feel like you can call your legislators, keep calling. If you feel like you want to march, please march. If you feel like you can fundraise and donate money, whatever it is, just keep doing it.”
In addition to the dinner, a slew of restaurants in Dearborn are donating their proceeds to humanitarian aid in Gaza.
Dearborn is home to one of the largest Arab American populations in the United States. Thousands of protestors have flocked to the streets of Arab-majority Dearborn to show their support for the Palestinian people. A smaller Jewish-led protest in Detroit held days later demanded an immediate ceasefire, with more protests taking place in the coming days.
“We have to acknowledge how we’re feeling because that’s very real, but then use that to help you do something,” Saab says. “It’s really easy to get caught in the emotion and then spiral in it, or you can use that to fuel you forward… I have to do this to show others that we’re not hopeless. We’re not helpless. We can always do something.”
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