My paper looks at Israeli author Sami Michael's early Arabic stories as the intellectual and aesthetic origins of his well-known Hebrew works that were to come decades later. Known popularly in Israel as an author whose Hebrew novels are often referred to as "Mizrahi" (Jews from the Arab world) writing, Michael's activity publishing in Arabic during the 1950s when he first arrived from Iraq is generally relegated to a footnote, if mentioned at all. Born in Baghdad, Michael's native language is Arabic, and as a member of the Communist Party in Israel, he published short stories and articles in al-Jadid, the Party's literary-cultural monthly under the pen name Samir Marid (Arabic for "rebel"). In a 1954 article, Michael calls for "a humane, progressive Hebrew culture dedicated to the interests of its people and with respect for others." This sentiment is reflected in his Arabic stories: realist texts particularly concerned with social inequality and the fate of the Arab minority in Israel. Long before the crystallization (and academization) of critical Mizrahi discourse, Michael's writing was engaged with important social and political questions at the very heart of Israeli culture. I will discuss Michael's Arabic fiction as constituting the early expression of an imagined Arab-Jewish literary self oriented toward a universal ideal - a poetic project that was full of desire for the possibility to re-imagine the future of the nascent Jewish State, as well as to partake in fashioning its cultural and aesthetic symbols. These stories constitute a call to collective social responsibility that would find fuller form in his later Hebrew novels, and I will discuss how Michael already attempted to reinvent the economy of Hebrew culture while writing in Arabic. These early Arabic stories are highly relevant not only for understanding Michael as a Hebrew author, but also because they reflect a sense of belonging among Arab-Jewish intellectuals at a crucial moment in the formation of Israeli society; they also highlight the intersection of ideology, aesthetics, and multiplicity of languages below the surface of Israeli literature.