re: Bama Football Tidings

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Tuberville likely doesn’t know that there’s a neighborhood in the Middle East that’s often overrun by Alabamians. There, his rival is not Sessions but Saban. On David Street, in the Old City of Jerusalem—a warren bustling with religious-souvenir stores, not far from the Western Wall—is a gift shop run by a Palestinian named Hani Imam. He took it over from his father, twenty years ago. As a young man, Imam spent a decade in the U.S., where he studied business at the University of Alabama. At first, he ran his shop the way his fellow tchotchke merchants ran theirs, but he felt himself pining for the American South, land of open spaces, barbecue, and Southeastern Conference football. Homesick, he put up a few photographs of the Crimson Tide and changed the shop’s name to Alabama: The Heart of Dixie. Afterward, he and the other Arab merchants on his street occasionally found their stalls mobbed by tourists from Alabama.

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“But I ordered some prayer rugs that say ‘Alabama.’ ” The shop is tiny, accommodating only a few customers at a time, and the overflow of waiting Southerners helps the neighboring merchants. Imam has tried to educate and convert the other shopkeepers by showing them highlight reels of the team. “They think it’s a bunch of big guys beating the hell out of each other,” he said. “But a lot of them claim to be Alabama fans. A lot of my neighbors, whenever they see Americans, they’ll say, ‘Hey, man, Roll Tide!’ ”

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