A Palestinian Muslim Jewish-American Love Story

As a ‘meet-cute’, it was about as mundane as it gets. A mutual
friend made the introduction, they checked each other out on social media and met over dinner. But Nuseir Yassin was well aware of the complexity of this romantic equation. “I mean, look, it takes a specific kind of person to show up to a date with a Palestinian Muslim if you’re Jewish-American,” he says. Then there was the fact that their rendezvous took place two weeks before October 7.

For Nuseir – the Tigger-ish online megastar behind the Nas Daily videos – it was love at first Instagram swipe. “Men know at first instance,”
he says, adding that he realised: “I want this to be my girlfriend, future wife, and I’m going to work towards it.” For fellow content creator Aija Mayrock, it took a few months longer.

“There wasn’t a specific moment,” she says, sitting next to Nuseir on a video call from New York for their first joint UK interview. But their conversations about the trauma of  2023 were what sealed the deal. “After October 7 happened, he was the only person I wanted to
talk to because he just has this incredible way of looking at even the most horrible things in the world: there is a way to rebuild and to come together.”

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Not everyone in their lives was singing from the same hymn sheet. Aija was thrown out of a Shabbat meal because of the relationship. Nuseir had a similar experience with a distant family member, but is keen to stress about negative feedback: “The truth is that it’s minuscule.”

Aijia says she was heartened recently to hear from a Jewish acquaintance who “to my face was very supportive”, but got in touch to admit
to different feelings in private. “When I started following you, I saw a special Jewish girl,” the message read. “I was then disappointed to see that you were dating a Palestinian. I’m writing to you because I felt like
I needed to out of guilt, but also because you should know the impact you are making. You are truly two special people made for a big purpose.”

Nuseir adds: “And because of dating her, I get invited to more Jewish Shabbats!” Aija is an author and poet who has written books on bullying and women’s empowerment, and produces videos on mental health and ageing. This year, she visited six countries in six months to tell the stories of Jewish communities across the globe. But, for a long time, the 30-year-old struggled with being a “self-hating Jew”.

Growing up in Santa Barbara, California, “a town that had very few Jews, there was a lot of very normalised antisemitism. I think I didn’t even see it as antisemitism. I just thought, ‘I don’t want to be this thing that I am.’”

Once she was at New York University, studying film and TV production, she found herself in “an antisemitic echo chamber”. She says: “NYU is known to be very Jewish. It’s just that, for some reason, I was not in those circles. I was in very progressive circles, and those were very antisemitic.”

Just as she was soon converted to “the joy and beauty and culture” of Judaism, she similarly came around to seeing the benefits of websites
that had once seemed purely doom-laden.

“I started my life seeing only the dark sides of social media. I was bullied really badly. I was told to kill myself every day. A girl dressed up as me for Halloween. I really suffered from it, but then social media gave me everything. It gave me a voice, a platform, a career, a way to connect with people. It gave me my partner.”

Nuseir quit his job at an online payments company in 2016 to embark on a 1,000-day trip across 64 countries, posting a one-minute video every 24 hours as Nas Daily (Nas being both his nickname and Arabic for ‘people’). It embodied an openness that has amassed him 68 million followers.

When he last spoke to Jewish News, three years ago, he revelled in his candour: “I have not seen any downsides of sharing my private life yet. I share everything – from my relationships to my financial status.” 

Does he still adopt the same approach? The couple grin anxiously at each other. “You want to talk about tensions in the relationship?!”
asks Nuseir. “It’s not about Jewish, Muslim, Palestinian, Israeli, whatever. It’s about: she’s very private, I’m very public, and how do we reach a middle ground?”

They have posted “paid partnership” videos detailing everything from their weekly online therapy sessions to their two-bedroom flat in Miami. However, “even this [interview] makes me feel nervous,” admits Aija, visibly cringing. “I love posting about things I learn, things I believe in. But personal, personal things, it’s hard for me to.”

In 2023, Nuseir revealed he was worth $5 million (£3.7m). Would he like to update the figure today? “Oh yeah, I’m happy to share. It’s a lot higher now. Baruch Hashem!”

“Sorry, this is not something to share,” says Aija, after rolling her eyes. “I don’t care,” reassures her boyfriend. “Well, I care,” she replies softly. “It’s in the 20 to 30 [million] range,” he tells me. “I’m very transparent.” Sensing Aija’s profound discomfort, he exclaims: “Babe, who gives a shit? Alhamdulillah, baruch Hashem, we made it. You know, I come from a village with no money, so, like, it’s awesome. I made money!”

Nuseir grew up in the Arab city of Arraba, northern Israel, the son of a psychologist and special needs teacher, and did not befriend a Jew until he was studying economics at Harvard. But from the age of 12, he was disturbed by friends who refused even to “say the word ‘Israel’” – and he began actively identifying as a “Palestinian-Israeli”.

“We could probably say that we’re both spending our adulthood kind of righting what we thought was wrong in our childhood,” he muses. But the 34-year-old took this one step further  on October 8, 2023, taking to X to make an announcement.

“I realised that if Israel were to be ‘invaded’ like that again, we would not be safe,” he wrote. “All citizens are targets. And I do not want to live under a Palestinian government. Which means I only have one home, even if I’m not Jewish: Israel. 

“Palestine should exist too as an independent state. And I hope to see the country thrive and become less extreme and more prosperous. I love Palestine and have invested in Palestine. But it’s not my home. So from today forward, I view myself as an ‘Israeli-Palestinian’. Israeli first. Palestinian second. Sometimes it takes a shock like this to
see so clearly.”

Nuseir – who has said he loses 100,000 followers every time he mentions “the I or P word” – smiles when I ask if this means he is a Zionist. “I mean, obviously. This whole idea of the ‘Z word’ being scary is, frankly, stupid. Do I want Israel to continue to exist? Did my grandmother just get treated at the Zionist project of Hadassah Hospital? Are my parents eating food from the Zionist project of turning the desert green? An uneducated person sitting in Pakistan telling me that Zionism is bad will not make me stop
using the word.”

He insists he is far from the only Palestinian-Israeli (or Israeli-Palestinian) who feels this way. So where does he get the nerve to be so vocal? “It’s from the number I just shared with you. You get a lot more courage when you don’t have to financially rely on anybody.”

Such bravery has its limits. His profile means he has to have security when appearing in public. “Only in the UK,” he clarifies. “There’s a live event in the UK… double the security!” I can’t tell to what extent he is joking. “No, he’s serious,” says Aija. “The UK is definitely a place of high concern.”

Nuseir continues: “Some of these big European cities have brought in a lot of immigration, but they have not focused much on assimilation and so you allow these states to exist within the country. Go to Birmingham and it’s a different country.”

The threat is so grave that Britain is the place in which he will not wear his trademark T-shirt (it shows a battery gauge with a percentage of how much of his life he has lived, currently 44%).

“I don’t want to be identified. I love the UK. But it’s become a hotbed for Islamic extremism. And as somebody who also lived in Dubai for
years – everybody that’s not welcome in the UAE goes to the UK.”

Nuseir has already built a personal brand into a business empire that helps clients such as Google and Meta tap into “The Perfect Formula To Go Viral”.

But he says that in 10 years’ time – when his T-shirt has hit 57% – both he and Aija may have moved on from content creation to climes yet unexplored.One thing is clear, though, he adds. “We do know we want to make sure we’re together for that.”

Follow http://nas.com/career and partnerships@aijamayrock.com