“There is no people so scattered over the earth as the gypsies,” wrote anthropologist Alfred von Kremer. “Homeless, yet everywhere at home.” It is a romantic vision of an unromantic reality. To many, ‘gypsies’ are enthralling mystics; they are colorful characters homed in the works of Victor Hugo and the tirades of xenophobic, zealously-religious clustres. They embody an ‘Other’ so profoundly shunned and misunderstood that it is only allowed to exist within the margins of society. Synonymous with the taboo and unsavory, many are startled to discover that the term ‘gypsy’ is appropriated from Egyptian, and owes its reputation to Eastern travelers crossing the threshold into medieval Europe. Despite being used in academia, today the word ‘gypsy’ is considered a derogatory oversimplification of their cultures, if not a slur altogether in social contexts. In Arabic, they are the ghagar: pariahs associated with psychic, malevolent powers often attributed to the Romani (Roma) of Europe. Known also as the Domari (Dom), this subset of Eastern nomads are wanderers dispersed across Syria, Turkey, Palestine and Egypt. There is a shared, inherited stigma between the Roma and the Dom: for centuries, they have lived…
