Steve Jobs Was the Child of a Syrian Immigrant

Amidst the worst humanitarian crisis of the last decade, a Swedish tech entrepreneur reminds us of Steve Job’s heritage.

u22934564 he world had an epiphany upon seeing photos of a drowned Syrian toddler, face down on the shores of a Turkish beach. The refugee problem can’t be ignored. Keeping with that momentum, activists and observers continue to rally behind the displaced people of Syria, reminding us that this deadly conflict has woefully disenfranchised human beings at its center.

David Galbraith, a Swedish tech entrepreneur and designer, tweeted a simple, yet powerful message to the world. It consists of an iconic black and white image of late Apple founder and CEO Steve Jobs, widely regarded as the last decade’s most visible and influential mind in consumer technology. Accompanying the picture is the caption: “A Syrian migrant’s child.”

A Syrian migrants' child. pic.twitter.com/sjBxuInpEp

— David Galbraith (@daveg) September 2, 2015

The post has racked up more than 12,000 retweets and 6,000 favorites since being posted on September 2nd. Jobs was born to a Syrian father, Abdulfattah, and an American woman of German descent, Joanne. Troubled soon brewed for the couple as Joanne’s father disapproved of her relationship with a Syrian man. The couple decided to give the infant Jobs up for adoption.

Residents wait in line to receive food aid distributed in the Yarmouk refugee camp in Damascus, Syria. (USN)

“I always thought of myself as a humanities person as a kid, but I liked electronics … then I read something that one of my heroes, Edwin Land of Polaroid, said about the importance of people who could stand at the intersection of humanities and sciences, and I decided that’s what I wanted to do.” — Steve Jobs

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