"I came from a place where they murder in front of your eyes. On October 7th, I said: I cannot be silent"
2 million people watched the "Seik Cosmetics" song about Hamas ("Hamas, you cowards / from the IDF you run"), but he was a web phenomenon even before that. Hundreds of thousands of followers already know his humor ("Tired of itching? Come buy a bedding set"), but they don't know he is more than just a business owner at the Central Bus Station in Tel Aviv who blew up on TikTok. He is also a refugee who went through hell to get here — a country he fell in love with, and a state that does not want him.
A few days after October 7th, an Instagram reel appeared of a young, charismatic man standing in a bag shop singing: "Hamas, you cowards / from the IDF you run / you acted like men / and now you are crying / you sons of bitches / die in the tunnels." This song — silly but amusing, comfortingly patriotic — was the first thing that brought a smile to my face in those times. I immediately forwarded it to everyone I know. The artist, I discovered on his profile, calls himself "Seik Bags." He was a web sensation even before the song about Hamas, with more than 100,000 followers on TikTok and tens of thousands of followers on Instagram — all thanks to a unique sales method for the merchandise in his bag shop at the Central Bus Station in Tel Aviv.
In hundreds of videos, he holds a bag or a bedding set and says in a heavy Sudanese accent things like: "You know why you don't have a girlfriend? Because you're stingy! Come break your stinginess" (views on TikTok as of today: 1.9 million), or alternatively, "Tired of itching? Come buy a complete six-piece bedding set and don't be stingy."
About a year ago, I visited his shop for the first time. All I knew about the Central Bus Station was that there are drug addicts, sex workers, Sheffi Paz, buses, and I think an atomic shelter. In practice, I discovered a hot scene of colorful shops where the sellers are mostly war refugees who just want to earn a living with dignity, and they do it with infinite charm. At their head stands the one the web knew as "Seik Bags," and his real name is Alseik Abdelkarim Ahmed Alseik. The click with him was fast, we immediately became friends. He was also one of the first people I told that I was pregnant, because once I arrived and he said that I had gained weight and that I needed to exercise, so I immediately felt the need to defend myself.
This week I returned to Alseik's shop with a different goal. I wanted to tell the full story of the shrewd merchant, the poet and comedian, the romantic, the incorrigible optimist, the greatest Zionist I have ever met in my life, and the most good-vibes person who was probably ever born (by the way, today he is no longer "Seik Bags" but "Seik Cosmetics." Professional retraining). Along the way, I wanted to open a window to a slightly different story about the notorious Central Bus Station: a story about an underground culture that uses social networks to clean up the bad name it got, a story about colorful and funny people who just want to live. And in Alseik's case, living is not taken for granted. He arrived in Israel from Sudan after leaving his family behind at age 17. When I ask him how many siblings he has, he says he doesn't know, because he hasn't met some of them. He is the only one who crossed the border from Sudan and fled the genocide in the Darfur region in the west of the country. "In the videos, I made mistakes on purpose, because Israelis love to correct. So I said 'stingy' instead of 'miserly' and 'friend' instead of 'girlfriend.' Correct me, what do I care, I didn't come from here. I understood that I will say it as I say it, I will be who I am, and that is what will work."
"You know, when I was in the desert, they shot at me," Alseik says. "I entered Israel from Sinai, apparently it was the Egyptians who shot at me. And then they called an Israeli helicopter while I was with a bullet in my stomach." He doesn't elaborate too much on the circumstances of his entry into Israel 15 years ago, perhaps because he is still a temporary resident and can be deported at any moment. "After they treated me in the hospital, I found myself living on the street, sleeping in a garden for eight months, not knowing what to do. I would sit there and they would bring us food from some organization," he says about his absorption basket. "After some time, I rented an apartment with friends, and to call my parents I had to go to such a place with computers, where you can talk to them on Messenger. The moment the parents say, 'How are you, we miss you,' you just cry. But quietly, so they don't see, so they don't feel that you are in pain. You tell them 'everything is fine, I'm fine.'"
Why are you actually the only one from the family who arrived here? "As a child, a teenager, you have energy, you can cross the border. You can get up and say, 'I don't like this life, I can't do this, I want to change the situation.' I arrived here with many dreams."
