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Hey this is Mary Harris the host of

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0:28

May not remember. What do you have? A

0:30

unique name? But. I guarantee

0:32

you he remembers story. You.

0:36

First heard about him in October.

0:38

the war in Gaza had just

0:40

started. their been one image after

0:42

another coming out of the Middle

0:44

East of children killed. And then

0:47

there is another kind of image

0:49

here at home. This

0:52

is one of the last pictures taken

0:55

of Where the Alpha you me who

0:57

just a couple of weeks ago celebrated

0:59

his sixth birthday his life was brutally

1:02

take it away yesterday morning at his

1:04

home in unincorporated playing field after he

1:06

was stabbed twenty six times with a

1:09

military style knife. Seventy

1:11

one year old Joseph Juba was accused

1:13

of stabbing the boy and his mother

1:15

for their Muslim faith or authorities say.

1:17

the landlord knocked on their door and

1:20

before the attack said that they should

1:22

die for their beliefs. Were

1:25

these scroll past an article about what

1:27

dia online or came across a news

1:29

report? Most every story was accompanied by

1:32

the same picture of would year and

1:34

a paper party hat and a plaid

1:36

shirt. It. Looked like it

1:39

just unwrapped a stack of presence. As.

1:41

Picture. It. Stopped slates him

1:43

and his smile and his tracks. Yeah.

1:46

That would would have been to a

1:48

diaz particularly heartbreaking because. There's.

1:50

This expectation that in this country were

1:52

relatively safe. And now feels

1:54

like. The. Threat of death was.

1:57

Real here in America. amen

2:00

dad, a Muslim too. Pretty

2:02

much right away he started wondering about Wadiya,

2:05

who he was, how he died

2:07

so young. But Wadiya's

2:09

story soon got drowned out by so

2:11

many other tragedies. The news

2:13

cycle at that point was moving so

2:15

quickly that it almost felt like okay

2:18

that was horrifying. This next story coming

2:20

out of that is also horrifying. This

2:22

other story coming out of the Khabut's

2:24

Bay area was also horrifying. It was

2:26

just horrifying after horrifying. So

2:30

it was just this cyclone of depressing,

2:34

horrible, awful news. Did

2:39

most of the news coverage of what happened in

2:41

Chicago seem complete to you?

2:45

No, it didn't feel complete. It

2:49

was missing everything. I mean this family

2:51

they were Palestinian but

2:53

they were also American and I wish that

2:56

we saw a little bit more of that kind of reporting on

2:58

the ground right away. Aiman

3:01

decided to do that kind of

3:03

reporting himself. Today

3:06

on the show, what Aiman

3:09

found when he visited a

3:11

family experiencing unimaginable grief. I'm

3:14

Mary Harris. You're listening to What Next. Stick

3:17

around. Hey,

3:31

this is Mary Harris, host of Slate's

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daily news podcast, What Next? Slate's

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plus. Again, that is three months

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for only 15 bucks. So

4:29

sign up now at slate.com/podcast plus. I'm

4:36

wondering if we can retell the story of what happened

4:39

to Wadi Al-Fayumi and his mother,

4:41

Hanan. I guess

4:44

we should start by just explaining where

4:46

Hanan and Wadiya were living because

4:48

that really shaped the relationship they

4:50

had with their landlord, Joseph

4:53

Kazuba. You know, it's an incredibly

4:55

American story. Hanan, the mom,

4:57

she moved

4:59

to Chicago about two

5:02

years before Wadiya was born through

5:04

another marriage. She's from the West Bank, right?

5:07

Yeah, she's from the West Bank in this

5:09

village just south of Ramallah. And

5:13

she grew up on a very

5:15

quaint and beautiful, idyllic

5:17

farm out in a

5:19

suburb in the West Bank just south of

5:21

Ramallah. And the way she

5:23

described it, it was so beautiful. She

5:26

talked about how she spent a lot

5:28

of time on her family's farm and

5:30

they grew everything from onions to tomatoes

5:32

to olives. Yeah, we had like many

5:34

kinds of peaches and

5:36

the grapes, yes, yes,

5:39

and grapes and figs

5:42

and olives.

5:47

And you know, she really liked her life there. She had

5:49

a lot of siblings. And when she

5:51

got older, it just

5:53

sort of felt like it was her turn to

5:55

get married. And when somebody came from Chicago and

5:58

asked for her hand, she was like, okay, this

6:00

this feels right I'll leave my life

6:02

here and I'll move to

6:04

Chicago." That first marriage which brought Hanaan

6:06

to the US, it didn't

6:09

last. When it ended, Hanaan

6:11

met Ade Alfayumi, Wadiya's

6:13

father. They hit it off, got

6:16

married. Once Wadiya was born

6:18

though, Hanaan realized what she really wanted was

6:20

to be on her own. So she

6:22

and Ade split but they kept

6:24

raising Wadiya together, which is

6:27

how Hanaan ended up living with Joseph Kazuba,

6:29

who was renting out space in his home

6:31

for only $300 a month. Obviously

6:34

she was making a lot of concessions. She

6:36

didn't have her own kitchen, she didn't have

6:38

her own living room. She was renting out

6:41

two rooms and a bathroom essentially from this

6:43

owner occupied house. So

6:45

you know she wasn't so

6:47

excited about that. She also

6:50

felt like it was necessary so that she

6:52

can sustain her kid and give her kid

6:54

the toys that he wanted. She

6:56

described him as such a happy little

6:58

boy, Wadiya, dancing, singing, like

7:01

little angel who really enjoyed

7:03

playing with cars and balls and so

7:05

she really actually enjoyed her life as

7:08

far as I could tell, even though she was under

7:10

all this pressure and was living out on her own

7:12

out of this house where she would

7:14

regularly describe the landlord as angry and

7:17

would be playing right-wing media really

7:21

loudly and responding to it

7:23

angrily. So you

7:26

know she also describes her sons being patient and having

7:28

a lot of patience with the landlord, which

7:31

is all tragic because we all know

7:33

how this story ends. Yeah, yeah and

7:36

I mean they were living in such tight

7:38

quarters. It was like almost impossible for them

7:40

not to just constantly interact with each other

7:42

I imagine. They interacted every day. You know

7:44

in order for her to get into her

7:46

space, they walked into the same door as

7:48

the landlord did for his own home. She

7:51

walked through the kitchen that they shared and

7:53

they walked through the living room and then they

7:55

walked into their space and

7:57

so it was very much like they

8:00

were sharing this house together. How

8:02

strange to like share a house

8:04

with this person who's so

8:06

angry. It just must have felt tense. Yeah,

8:09

but on top of that, Joe was also, the

8:11

landlord was also really nice to the son. So

8:14

he would like make things out of scrap

8:16

wood for him. Like he made a little

8:18

stage for him to perform and like do

8:21

dances and sing songs on. He

8:23

installed the pool in his backyard even though he didn't

8:25

swim. It was specifically just for the boy to play

8:27

in. He set up a whole

8:29

tree house like it's a put a

8:31

lot of labor of love towards this

8:35

young boy. And they had a

8:37

great relationship when I asked her about it. I mean,

8:39

the little boy used to call him grandpa.

8:42

Huh. So what happened on

8:45

October 14th? You know, to

8:48

hear Hanan tell it, it

8:50

almost feels like something just snapped like

8:52

a flip just got switched. And

8:55

you know, she said that when the war

8:58

started, they had they talked about it a

9:00

little bit. And that he would be angry

9:02

towards her and ask her to fix the

9:04

war and say, to do

9:06

something. That's what she would say is he was asking me to

9:09

do something about this war. The

9:11

news, he's listening to news

9:13

and he's judging me for

9:15

the news. Like, you know,

9:17

I told you about the

9:20

war between your people, Muslim

9:22

and Israelis, and you're not

9:24

doing anything about it. He was going

9:26

to do anything. And she would

9:28

tell him that I was praying for peace, but

9:31

that didn't seem to satisfy him. And so

9:33

one day, once she was in her

9:35

private space with her son, she was getting her son

9:37

ready for a bath, and then she hears a knock

9:39

at the door. So she goes to answer it and

9:41

Joe's there. And sort of starting the

9:44

same argument again, why aren't you doing

9:46

more for Palestine? Why aren't you

9:48

doing more? Why when will your people stop killing

9:51

Israelis, like being very

9:53

hostile and sort of accusatory. And

9:55

then when she told him the same thing that she was

9:57

praying for peace. That's when he

9:59

pulled that a knife and repeatedly

10:01

stabbed her in the abdomen, in

10:03

the arms, and she would fight

10:05

back, but he had her pinned. And

10:08

she was able to fight him off enough to

10:11

tell him, hey, it's okay, let's

10:13

just both go to the hospital. And at that point,

10:15

he got up, left her bleeding

10:17

on the floor and left the space. And

10:20

she sat down for a minute. And in those moments, she was

10:22

thinking to herself that this was it, that she was going to

10:24

die. I mean, she had been stabbed 12 times. And

10:28

she summoned the strength somehow to

10:30

get up on her feet, lock the door,

10:33

and call the police. What

10:35

she didn't expect, though, was that Joe

10:37

Kazuba had gone back

10:39

into the space somehow quietly and

10:42

got to the sun and

10:44

also stabbed him 26

10:46

times with the same military

10:49

knife. But she didn't know what had

10:51

happened until she left the bathroom after

10:54

she was done calling the police, and then she saw her

10:56

son. And as

10:58

a parent, you can't even fathom what

11:01

that experience must have been like. Yeah.

11:05

I mean, you described

11:07

this really harrowing detail that

11:09

eventually Hanan and her son

11:12

are both brought to the hospital, and Hanan

11:14

is instructing a nurse there, like, here's

11:16

how to care for my son in

11:18

case she didn't survive. Yeah. And

11:21

she also gave the same nurse the phone number

11:23

for Joe Kazuba's wife, who had been at work

11:25

at that time, so that

11:27

she could be warned about what had happened so that

11:29

she wouldn't just stumble onto the scene herself. Like,

11:32

she's just thinking about anything other than herself in

11:34

this moment. It's kind of incredible. Yeah.

11:39

It sounds like Joe Kazuba had shown

11:42

anti-Arab, anti-Muslim sentiments in the

11:44

past, and there had been these

11:46

signs that things weren't right. Like, Hanan knew

11:48

that he abused his wife, that

11:51

he got weird when he got

11:53

angry, and that he was

11:55

concerned that there was this day

11:58

of jihad that had been planned for him. that

12:00

week. Why do

12:02

you think she stayed in his

12:05

home anyway? I

12:08

mean, I can only speculate, but I can imagine

12:10

it being really

12:12

difficult to get up and

12:14

move your whole life when you're

12:17

just not financially stable. It's

12:20

just too much to ask, I think, for

12:23

someone to get up and

12:25

move their life when they are

12:28

being confronted with those kinds of

12:30

sentiments because they really are everywhere.

12:32

If I got up and left every time somebody

12:34

said something racist to me

12:36

or anything, I would

12:38

be on the edge of the earth. When

12:43

you visited her, Hanaan's reaction to you

12:45

as a reporter was so striking

12:47

to me. You noticed that

12:50

she couldn't stop laughing,

12:52

which seemed to me like a shock reaction. She's

12:54

just lost her son in this awful way she herself

12:56

has been attacked. Is that

12:58

how you thought of it, as shock, or did you think

13:00

of it as something else? No, I thought

13:02

of it as something else, to be honest. Well,

13:05

first, I asked people who knew her.

13:07

Well, she was like before all this, and they

13:09

described her as the same way. It's just jolly,

13:13

happy, loves to make people smile, loves to

13:15

make people laugh. So,

13:18

in my opinion, I asked

13:20

her up front, like, why did you say yes

13:23

to this interview when you said no to

13:25

all other interviews? She felt

13:27

the responsibility to let people know

13:29

that she was okay. She also

13:31

said something else that was really striking. She said

13:33

that she felt the

13:36

responsibility to

13:38

show Americans that

13:40

Muslims were capable of love in the face

13:42

of hate. We must

13:45

tell people here that Muslims

13:47

have love and peace, and

13:49

they can be kind and

13:51

to share their love and

13:53

peace with the people. Yeah,

13:55

yeah, and why not? And

16:02

you see the same thing happening in Reza,

16:04

right? With people holding up their

16:06

dead bodies of their children for the camera so

16:08

the world could see that their grief is real.

16:11

And that these aren't just human shields or these aren't

16:13

just, you know, XYZ, fill in

16:15

whatever rationale you want. These are kids. And

16:17

these parents are actually crying real tears. You

16:22

know? We'll be right

16:24

back after a break. While

16:33

you were in Chicago, you also visited

16:35

with Wadiya's father, Odey Al-Fayumi.

16:38

He was not there when his son was killed. He

16:41

found out from a call from the police which seemed to

16:43

really upset him. And his

16:45

reaction seemed so different from Hanan's. Can

16:48

you tell me about that contrast? Yeah.

16:52

So I met with Odey in his

16:54

home. You

16:57

know, I immediately knew where I was

17:00

because I recognized the shelves on the

17:02

background and sent the pictures of Wadiya

17:04

from his last birthday when he turned

17:06

six years old that week before he

17:08

was killed. And

17:12

you know, I could see in his eyes right

17:15

away that he had been crying all day.

17:19

And I, you

17:21

know, as a reporter, it almost feels like you're

17:24

intruding, like you shouldn't be talking to this person in

17:26

their worst moment, but this is also what

17:28

you need to show and this

17:30

is the real, the rawness that the readers

17:32

need to be informed of

17:34

because this is what they're going through. Yeah.

17:39

So he was allowing himself to feel the sadness

17:42

in a way that his ex-wife was not. Was

17:44

he allowing himself to feel anger as well? Yeah,

17:47

yeah, I think so. I mean, some of what

17:49

we talked about was how, you

17:52

know, how

17:54

unexpected this was, but also what

17:57

justice would look like for his son as well. I

17:59

mean, he... once Joe Kazub to be

18:01

made as an example of. He

18:03

talked about how he wanted Joe

18:06

Kazub to be executed and after

18:08

his execution, that day be turned into a Diasle

18:11

Feyumi day where people would celebrate. Oh,

18:13

wow. And I understood that. I

18:17

understood that. There's no wrong or right

18:19

way to experience this kind of grief,

18:22

but it all just felt real

18:25

to me that this person was constantly

18:27

thinking about this, that this person

18:30

feels robbed of their dream. You

18:32

know, he talked about how he wanted

18:35

his son his whole life. And since he was

18:37

a little boy, he had

18:39

told his dad that he wanted to be named Wadiya.

18:42

And so his whole family nicknamed him Abu

18:45

Wadiya. Abu Wadiya's father of Wadiya. Yeah, basically

18:47

telling him that when he was older, he

18:49

can name his own kid that

18:51

name. And so when he did have his own son,

18:53

it was a no brainer. Even his

18:56

wife Hainan was like, we have to name him Wadiya

18:58

and just been destiny for it for the father. And

19:02

the whole reason he comes to this country was to

19:06

create a better brighter future for his kids. Like he

19:08

actually had a pretty comfortable life in

19:10

Jordan where he grew up, where he had his own

19:12

business, he had a really nice car. He was an

19:14

interior designer. He was an interior designer. Yeah, he had

19:16

a home that he had paid off. You

19:19

know, so he was one of the lucky

19:21

ones. But he still left all

19:23

that behind because he didn't want his son to be

19:25

rolling the same dice. And, you

19:27

know, maybe he'll be well off, maybe he won't be his

19:30

hypothetical son at that point. And

19:32

so you could tell just from, you know,

19:34

this tragedy, it wasn't just that he had lost

19:36

his son as awful and ginormous

19:38

as that is. He'd lost his purpose

19:41

for being there, you know, he'd lost

19:43

his purpose for even coming to

19:45

the country, he'd lost his purpose for, you know,

19:47

existence. And

19:50

you can see the depression in his eyes, the depression, the

19:52

way that he walked, the way that

19:54

he sat down, he didn't make eye contact with

19:57

me. You could tell that he was just on

20:00

the inside, hallowed by what had happened. And

20:03

he drives his Uber driver now, and so he's talked

20:06

about how he can't really bring himself to

20:08

go to work because people recognize

20:10

him, and they ask him about Joe Kazuba, and they

20:12

ask him about Odiya. And

20:15

it's just, it's a never-ending nightmare for him.

20:18

But he goes to work anyways because he needs to earn money,

20:20

and you know, you could just

20:22

tell that this is the beginning of a new

20:24

life for both him and the mom. Uh,

20:27

that this doesn't, this story doesn't just end with the,

20:30

with the brutal killing of their son. This is

20:32

their new life after their son. Before

20:36

you left, Wadiya's father, Ade,

20:39

he told you that he

20:41

plans to attend Joseph Kazuba's trial as much as

20:43

he can. What do you think he's

20:46

hoping to get from that experience?

20:49

Um, you know, it's hard to say. Um,

20:53

he didn't even know when I asked him that. He

20:55

just said justice. And I asked him

20:57

what justice looks like, and he said that that's in the hands of the,

21:00

the courts, and that he has faith in the

21:02

courts. Ah,

21:06

I don't know, man. It's, it's tragic.

21:09

I can't even begin to put myself in his

21:11

shoes. Um, I just

21:13

know that he wants Joe

21:16

Kazuba to feel his pain like

21:18

any other father would in this moment. And

21:21

I think he wants, not

21:24

just, he doesn't want to just show up and

21:26

show Kazuba his pain, but he wants to like

21:29

bring a lot of Muslims around. And

21:32

one of the sentiments that I heard from the funeral that

21:34

I thought was very powerful was

21:36

that Joe Kazuba, when he stabbed Wadiya,

21:38

stabbed our whole community. He

21:41

stabbed Muslims and Arabs and Palestinians

21:43

everywhere. And he only stabbed Wadiya

21:46

and the mob because those were the ones that

21:48

he can get his hands on, you

21:51

know. And so what I think Ade

21:54

wants is I think he

21:56

wants defiance in that kind of violence. I

21:58

think he wants not He

22:00

wants a crowd of Muslims and Arabs,

22:03

and not just Muslims and Arabs, but everybody to show

22:05

up in defiance of that kind of hate at

22:07

the court and show Joe Kazuba that he's

22:10

outnumbered in a way. Yeah. I

22:13

wonder how he thinks about the United States now.

22:17

He definitely is sick

22:19

of the hypocrisy. That's another thing that we talked

22:21

about was the

22:24

fact that his tax dollars are going to kill his

22:26

own people in the form of military

22:28

aid to Israel. And so when

22:31

we talked about how when Biden called him and

22:34

Biden cried on the phone because he

22:36

was trying to show his pain and

22:38

talk about how he lost his son

22:40

too, they kind of rolled his eyes. He

22:43

was like, if he really understood the pain

22:45

that he wouldn't be supporting Israel's

22:47

massacre of Palestinians. And

22:53

I think this is something that a lot of Arabs and Muslims

22:55

are thinking about right now. The

22:58

support that we're giving to the massacre of

23:00

helpless people is painful.

23:05

And the bombs keep falling that are made

23:08

in America and being given to Israel for free

23:10

so that they can be used against these kids.

23:12

It's hard to take their

23:14

compassion for Wadiya seriously

23:18

because it almost doesn't make sense to

23:20

him that somebody could be

23:22

sympathetic towards him as a father who lost his son

23:24

while at the same time supporting the

23:27

many Wadiya that are being massacred

23:30

and creating a lot more grief.

23:32

And if their father survived, that's

23:36

sort of the same pain. He sees it. He

23:39

described Wadiya as being a martyr

23:42

for the same cause. And

23:46

I think he wants other people to see it that way too. Amen.

23:50

I'm so grateful for your time. Thanks for

23:52

coming on the show. Thank you for bringing

23:54

this story back. It's something that I really hope

23:56

that stays in the minds of people moving forward.

24:00

Aiman Ismail is a staff writer at

24:02

Slate. And that's

24:04

our show. What Next is produced

24:06

by Paige Osburn, Elena Schwartz, Rob Gunther, Madeline

24:08

Ducharme, and Anna Phillips. We

24:11

are led by Alicia Montgomery with a little boost from

24:13

Susan Matthews. Ben Richmond is the

24:15

Senior Director of Podcast Operations here at Slate.

24:18

And I'm Mary Harris. We'll catch you back here next

24:21

time. Thank

24:30

you.