An Israeli-Palestinian restaurant in Berlin conceived as an island of peace will close in the spring, but its Jewish and Arab owners say their dream will live on in a television series based on their unlikely partnership. Kanaan, a decade-old casual eatery in the Prenzlauer Berg district of the German capital, gained an international profile for its message of unity over hate after the 7 October attacks on Israel by Hamas and the outbreak of the Gaza war.
As an Israeli Jew fluent in Hebrew, Arabic and English, Shuster Eliassi could nimbly weave between different audiences, and what started as short comedic videos on social media soon became an invitation from Harvard to develop a full-on stand-up routine skewering the idea of coexistence as it's often used in the Israeli-Palestinian context. The show would riff on her upbringing in one of the only joint Israeli-Palestinian communities in the country, threading a fine needle with self-deprecating humor and an activist's edge.