Before she embarked on a baking career, Reem Assil grew up in a Palestinian-Syrian household and spent a decade as a community organizer. Both of these things are evident at Reem’s California, the bright, bustling Arab bakery Ms. Assil opened in Oakland’s Fruitvale neighborhood in May.

Reem’s is one of a handful of Arab bakeries in the Bay Area — but it is likely the only one where you’ll find the children’s book “A Is for Activist” on the shelves and an enormous mural of the controversial Palestinian activist Rasmeah Odeh on the wall. (In 1970, Ms. Odeh was convicted by Israeli courts for her role in the murder of two students. In 2014, she was convicted of immigration fraud in U.S. federal court and deported to Jordan in 2017.) Affixed to Ms. Odeh’s kaffiyeh is a button of Oscar Grant III, the young black man killed in 2009 by transit police at the Fruitvale BART station, which looms just across the street. (The story inspired the acclaimed film “Fruitvale Station.”)

But while social justice “has always been a core component of Reem’s,” Ms. Assil said, her business was inspired by the bakeries she visited during a trip to the Middle East several years ago. “Even though there was political turmoil outside, you never would feel it inside,” she said. “In Oakland, I felt we didn’t have enough of those places where people could feel alive and safe and connected.”