A taste of Middle East in middle of Lynn

LYNN – Saad Sanad has only lived in the United States for seven months and when he yearns for the sights, tastes, sounds and smells of his native Iraq, the Lynn resident visits Alnour Market.The Essex Street store is the Middle East and North Africa in miniature with shelves stocked with Turkish chocolate, Moroccan tea, Lebanese honey and Tunisian hot sauce. Sanad, a former Baghdad television station worker and teacher, likes Alnour for its black tea and honey with nuts.”Some of this food you can find nowhere else,” he said.Alnour is also a gathering spot for Arab-speaking people living mostly in Lynn and Revere. Sanad and Moroccan-born Amina Alabbasi said a growing number of Arab speakers live in Lynn – School Department enrollment statistics underscore that claim.Three Iraqis were among new arrivals to the country enrolled in local schools in 2010 and 2011. That number jumped to 16 in the 2012-2013 school year and enrollment reports through June 2014 list 25 Iraqi students, plus students from Egypt, Jordan and Morocco, entering local schools.Alnour is a hub for area Arab-speakers in part, said Alabbasi, because the store sells meat butchered and prepared in accordance with halal – Islamic dietary guidelines.”There’s also all kinds of specialty foods, especially Arabic bread,” Alabbasi said.Alnour’s Egyptian-born owner Abu Albara’a opened the store eight years ago “from scratch.” He said Alnour’s international flavor prompts customers to ask, “Where are you from?” and launch into conversations that almost always boil down to heated soccer rivalries between Middle Eastern teams.”It’s socializing; not just shopping,” he said.Sanad said he has shopped almost exclusively at Alnour since moving to the United States, mostly to buy the meat, rice and bread that are staples in his homeland.”We cook at home for ourselves and the kids,” he said.Alabbasi traveled from Casablanca, Morocco more than 11 years ago to visit the United States and wound up married and living in Lynn. Alnour (Alabbasi said the name means “the light” in Arabic) has been her place to buy food from home since she settled in the city.Hasan Alkhazaali came to Lynn from Iraq a year ago and said Alnour is one of a couple local gathering places for area Arab-speakers, including the New American Center on Wheeler Street. He shops for halal meat and bread in Alnour but lingers for conversations about work opportunities or events at Muslim mosques – or centers, as Alabbasi referred to them – in Quincy and Roslindale.Albara’a’s involvement in the local Arabic-speaking community extends down Essex Street to the mosque founded in 1996 when he said “hardly any” Muslims lived on the North Shore. On Friday, men filed into the mosque through a doorway with a traditional Arabic-style design and removed their shoes prior to praying in a carpeted room.”We have so many people now from all over the area,” he said.Although he has met many different people since he moved to Lynn – fellow Middle Easterners and non-Arabic speakers – Alkhazaali said a dose of homesickness draws him to Alnour to shop.”It has the same food as my country,” he said.