{"id":3881,"date":"2022-11-07T14:37:31","date_gmt":"2022-11-07T10:37:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mcmmediahub.aus.edu\/?p=3881"},"modified":"2022-11-14T12:51:22","modified_gmt":"2022-11-14T08:51:22","slug":"new-dubai-cafe-is-founders-love-letter-to-palestine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mcmmediahub.aus.edu\/index.php\/2022\/11\/07\/new-dubai-cafe-is-founders-love-letter-to-palestine\/","title":{"rendered":"New Dubai caf\u00e9 is founder\u2019s \u201clove letter to Palestine\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/drive.google.com\/file\/d\/1L8KZRH4cQ4V_IQcclOz6t_3TDfhFVS31\/preview\" width=\"720\" height=\"394\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe>\n\n\n\n<p>By Zahra Rashid<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dubai, UAE \u2013 Mishkah, a newly opened caf\u00e9 in Dubai, is the founder\u2019s love letter to his home country, Palestine.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Hasan Al-Zeer, founder and CEO of the coffee shop, told Dubai Eye FM? Why not you? that he wanted his brand to reflect what Palestine truly means to him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cFor me, Palestine is the olive oil, the smell of olive, the calm olive-green colour. We want people to come in and feel that same vibe,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The caf\u00e9 is based around showcasing Palestinian ingredients like olives and zaatar. These ingredients are incorporated in their dishes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Heba Mohamed, who visited Mishkah with her husband, said she tried the zaatar chocolate cheesecake.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI would have never thought that those two flavours would go well together but I enjoyed it a lot,\u201d said Mohamed.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The caf\u00e9, located in Al Quoz Industrial Area, also doubles as an olive oil station. Customers can fill up bottles of oil directly imported from Palestine.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Each olive oil bottle has the slogan \u201cfrom farm to table\u201d printed on it. Al-Zeer said this is because all the ingredients they use are picked from farms in Palestine by elderly women and are sent directly to Dubai for distribution.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The interior of the coffee shop is minimalistic, designed with a variety of Palestinian textiles and prints. In the center of the caf\u00e9 stands a real olive tree trunk, surrounded by tables and chairs for customers to dine. Tabletops are staged with miniature figures that represent Palestinian culture like clay pots and furniture, as well as Palestinian books. One of the walls in the shop is covered in frames with pictures of many Palestinian families and landmarks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When asked about the meaning of Mishkah, Al-Zeer said it is an Arabic word that comes from a Quranic verse where God describes the light of his face through an analogy of an oil lamp.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe verse says that the light of God\u2019s face is neither east, nor west. It is a very deep meaning,\u201d he said.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bravo Genje, the supervisor of Mishkah, said the caf\u00e9 is all about heritage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI think the olive tree here symbolizes going back to the roots of Palestinian culture,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Al-Zeer said he came up with the idea of Mishkah with his friend and partner Khalid during quarantine in 2020.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"617\" src=\"https:\/\/mcmhub.wpengine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/20221107-new-dubai-cafe-is-founders-love-letter-to-palestine-02-1024x617.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-3882\" srcset=\"https:\/\/mcmmediahub.aus.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/20221107-new-dubai-cafe-is-founders-love-letter-to-palestine-02-1024x617.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/mcmmediahub.aus.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/20221107-new-dubai-cafe-is-founders-love-letter-to-palestine-02-300x181.jpg 300w, https:\/\/mcmmediahub.aus.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/20221107-new-dubai-cafe-is-founders-love-letter-to-palestine-02-768x463.jpg 768w, https:\/\/mcmmediahub.aus.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/20221107-new-dubai-cafe-is-founders-love-letter-to-palestine-02-696x420.jpg 696w, https:\/\/mcmmediahub.aus.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/20221107-new-dubai-cafe-is-founders-love-letter-to-palestine-02-1068x644.jpg 1068w, https:\/\/mcmmediahub.aus.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/20221107-new-dubai-cafe-is-founders-love-letter-to-palestine-02-697x420.jpg 697w, https:\/\/mcmmediahub.aus.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/20221107-new-dubai-cafe-is-founders-love-letter-to-palestine-02.jpg 1430w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><figcaption>Mishkah is a caf\u00e9 that is all about Palestinian heritage.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Zahra Rashid Dubai, UAE \u2013 Mishkah, a newly opened caf\u00e9 in Dubai, is the founder\u2019s love letter to his home country, Palestine.&nbsp; Hasan Al-Zeer, founder and CEO of the coffee shop, told Dubai Eye FM? Why not you? that he wanted his brand to reflect what Palestine truly means to him. \u201cFor me, Palestine [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3883,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"video","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,4,11],"tags":[17,46,45,25],"class_list":{"0":"post-3881","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-video","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-campus-news","8":"category-videos","9":"category-video-reports","10":"tag-community","11":"tag-culture","12":"tag-leisure","13":"tag-sharjah-uae","14":"post_format-post-format-video"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mcmmediahub.aus.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mcmmediahub.aus.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mcmmediahub.aus.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mcmmediahub.aus.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mcmmediahub.aus.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3881"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mcmmediahub.aus.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3881\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mcmmediahub.aus.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mcmmediahub.aus.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mcmmediahub.aus.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mcmmediahub.aus.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}