A quick scroll through the list of events at the Center for Jewish Life reveals one event that is slightly out of the ordinary: Israeli Cafe and Hookah Night, Tuesday, 10 p.m. However, hookah, also called narghile, shisha or hubble-bubble, is far from anomalous. The hookah nights at the CJL are part of a nationwide phenomenon.
While hookah — a pipe that filters flavored tobacco smoke through a bowl of water — is still not quite mainstream, the popularity of hookah has been growing.
For some students, smoking hookah is about getting in touch with their roots. For others, it's about exoticism and escape — a chic alternative to the rowdier drinking scene. The popularity of hookah has spread among Middle Eastern students as well as those with ties to the Middle East — a summer trip to Israel, an Arab roommate or a parent who travels there.
"It's a kind of feeder activity that leads into good conversation," said Jacob Savage '06. On campus, it attracts the "pseudo-hippie-hipster-stoner crowd," he said.
The ritual of starting a hookah can take five or 10 minutes and consists of choosing the tobacco, lighting the coal, and drawing the smoke through the hose. But once it is lit it can be smoked for an hour or two, or the whole night if the bowl is refilled.
Young crowd
The main demographic for hookah smokers in the United States is the 18-24 age group, said George Egho, co-founder of TheHookah.Com, a two-year-old Internet company selling hookahs and hookah tobacco out of Los Angeles.
"Our orders coming from college campuses have been increasing ever since we started," said Egho. "It's definitely been picking up. It's the hip thing to do."
For students who are neither Jewish nor have ties to the Middle East, hookah is trendy and ultra-exotic. "I think there are a lot of people with some Orientalist fetish that drives them to do it," said Lihi Ben-Shitrit '06, who is Israeli and has three hookahs in her dorm room.
"It's not really like a [cultural] bridge, but I kind of feel like it is when I'm smoking it, which is kind of ridiculous because every single other person I smoke with is white," said Danny Miller '05.
"I do it because I'm really sheltered here . . . When I do this, I feel like I'm escaping into another world."
For other students of Middle Eastern descent, hookah has always been a traditional medium for conversation.
"I've definitely heard that before . . . 'oh, your grandfather used to sit with his old friends and discuss politics and smoke gheilun' [the Persian word for hookah]," said Miriam Schive '06, whose mother is Iranian.
Many other students become familiar with hookah through their Jewish roots, such as on summer trips to Israel. Savage, who attended a Jewish day school in New York City, said that most of the people he smokes with are Jewish, "which is kind of weird, because it's not really Jewish," he said.
History of hookah
Originating in Turkey about 500 years ago, hookahs spread throughout the Middle East in cafes where men would spend their afternoons, said Gözde Kuçuk '06, who is from Istanbul.
However, hookahs went out of style after the fall of the Ottoman Empire and it's only in the last five or six years that it has become popular again, mainly in the big cities and among the young people, Kuçuk said.
Not a drug
Hookah smokers rave about the communal feel of hookah, and the way it promotes conversation.
Miller's roommate James Friscia '05 compared hookah to mature alcohol culture. "You don't get crazy," he said, noting the difference with University drinking scene.
That said, the mild high is still a big part of the attraction to hookah: the dizziness, the euphoria and the lucidity.
"Sometimes the feel of narghile in your lungs is just better than air," said Adam Brenner '06.
Hookah aficionados, however, are quick to defend hookah against the accusation that it is in any way a drug.
The most common misperception about hookah is that it is nothing more than an apparatus to smoke illegal substances, like marijuana.
Several students said that when they introduced their friends to hookah, those who had not seen it before immediately assumed that it was just an accessory for drug use.
Educating the public about the traditional nature of hookah is a big part of making hookah culture more mainstream in the U.S., said Egho, who is of Lebanese descent.
For example, smoking hookah is not addictive, said Kuçuk, who used to smoke every day after school in Istanbul. "There's no craving," .
"It's looked down upon in the Middle East if you're smoking illegal substances out of a hookah," Egho added.
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