Stories from Jerusalem / Al Quds

In this podcast episode you can listen to Marcelo Marzouka, a third generation Palestinian living in Chile. His grandfather was the first one to move to South America in the 1950s and his children spoke Spanish. The grandfather returned to Bethlehem but his children moved to Chile where they build a new life. Marcelo was born and raised in Chile but he grew up, just like most Palestinians in Latin America, with a strong sense of Palestinian identity.

In this episode we talk about why so many Palestinians ended up moving to Chile, how they were received by the Chileans, what they managed to establish there and how the younger generations are still strongly related to the Palestinian culture and heritage.

If you want to read or see more then here are some suggestions:

Historical documents:
Social Guide of the Arabs in Chile (1940s):
http://www.memoriachilena.gob.cl/602/w3-article-92245.html

Literature:
Walter Garib - El viajero de la alfombra mágica

Academic articles:
Douglas Smith - Discursos hegemónicos y corrientes alternativas en la colectividad palestina de Chile (in English)

Movies:
4 colores: Documentary about the Palestino football team.

Institutions/Organizations:
Center for Arab Studies at Universidad de Chile
@comunidadpalestinadechile
@palestino
@osp_uc


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Every year on the 29th of November it is the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian people.  (The day of release of this episode)

This was decided in the United Nations in 1977 when the General Assembly adopted resolution 32/40B

It was not a coincidence that they chose this date. It is the dame date of the United Nations Partition Plan, resolution 181, that was adopted exactly 30 years before in 1947. And most of you will be aware that the partition of Palestine by the UN gave the Zionist movement the push they had been waiting for to establish their Jewish homeland in Palestine. And that happened with a lot of force and violence. Most of the Palestinian villages, towns and cities were partially or completely depopulated and destroyed. And until today families from these towns and cities can be found living in refugee camps in the Westbank, Gaza and neighboring countries with the fourth generation being brought up under very difficult circumstances. 

In the meantime the State of Israel was created in 1948 and then in 1967 this new country took its chance and military occupied the Gazastrip, the Westbank, Sinai and Golan Heights. It started moving its own population into the territory it occupied, mainly in settlements built on Palestinian agricultural land, but in Jerusalem and Hebron also inside the city. 

For this podcast episode I asked several Palestinian friends to send me an answer to the question: What do you think that people can do in solidarity with the Palestinian people. 

I also asked my friend Anwaar, who is from Hebron and lives in Shuhada street, the infamous street that is closed off by military checkpoints, to tell us a bit about life in the old city of Hebron. This is the street where the Israeli settlers are protected by the army and the native population is struggling to stay. 

Here are some links to websites that can help you to get more involved!

Www.grassrootsalquds.net

www.handmadepalestine.com

https://eappi.org

https://bdsmovement.net

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Five foreign women from Europe and the United States got together on a Tuesday morning in October for a traditional Palestinian breakfast and to share their experiences as spouses of Palestinian husbands. 

They talk about how do they experience life in Palestine and what are the difficulties they face in order to stay with their husband and children in Palestine. Each of them has their personal stories that reflect the difficulties to live in a place that is military occupied. 

The Palestinian Authority has no say in who gets a visa and for how long. It is the Israeli occupation authorities that decide about the fate of the women. Most women have been getting visas that do not allow them to travel to Israel (including Jerusalem and the airport in Tel Aviv), they are not allowed to work, they need to renew their visa every three months and pay full visa fees. 

Some of the women have the experience of being stuck outside of the country without permission to come back. Others have been without visa and were not even able to leave the town they live in, because of the many Israeli checkpoints where they may find out that you are without visa and you can be deported and separated from your family. This causes a lot of anxiety among the families. 

Despite the difficulties, the women feel home in Palestine and among Palestinians. They know that the policies were created to make them want to leave. But they are convinced that this is where to want to be and they are not planning to move.

This podcast episode was recorded in cooperation with the British Academy project on visa precarity lead by Dr Mark Griffiths.

Music in the end of the episode is called Mawtini, which means 'my homeland'
(the previous unofficial Palestinian national anthem)
It was performed by the Cello Orchestra in 2021 in an online concert that you can find on the YouTube channel of Al Kamandjati

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In the most northern part of historic Palestine is an archaeological site, now within a National Park, that has remains of the Bronze Age city of Laish and of the iron age city of Dan. In Arabic the location is called Tel el Qadi, the hill of the judge.

This archaeological site has two very impressive city gates that were excavated. The Bronze Age gate was built by the Canaanites who called their city Laish. They built a mud brick gate with pointed arches, the oldest one found in the region (18th Century BC).

The city was conquered by the Israelites who built new walls and new gates. The iron age gate that was excavated is built of local basalt blocks and has four chambers. At the gate they found a platform with stones in which sticks could be placed to hold up a canopy to create shade for the judge (hence the hill of the judge).

It is also the site where the Israelite King Jeroboam set up a high altar with a golden calf where the Jewish people could worship their God Yahweh instead of going to Jerusalem in the south. The sacrificial area that the excavators found is thought by some scholars to be that place.

The excavations are found in the Tel Dan National Park. Through this National Park the Dan stream flows down towards the Jordan river. The other contributors to the Jordan river are the Hasbani river and the Banias river.

If you want to watch a video I made about Tel Dan, then click on this link to go to the YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/A9YBKFi7btA

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This is the last episode of a series of four about the work of Handmade Palestine and the artisans that they support. In this episode I take you to an olive soap factory in the old city of Nablus where Amjad tells us about this family business and how they are developing new products that include goat and camel milk and very soon also dead sea mud.

Morgan, from Handmade Palestine, visited the women in Nsf Jbeil that run the ceramics center and she interviewed two of the women there.

You can also learn a bit more about the fate of the Bedouins living in the Westbank under strict military surveillance and how they struggle because Israel made it impossible to live their traditional Bedouin lifestyle.

If you want to support Handmade Palestine with a donation or if you want to order Palestinian artisan handicrafts go to their website: https://www.handmadepalestine.com

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This is the third episode in a series of four about Palestinian artisans and their work. I made these episodes to support Handmade Palestine with their online crowdfunding and online Bazar. They invited me to come to the first physical Bazar held in La Vie Cafe in Ramallah since the Corona pandemic started. It was a lovely day with wonderful conversations. The artisans are very passionate about their work and engaging in their talking. We also tried some of the traditional Palestinian food that was made especially for this occasion: romania with lentils, eggplant and pomegranate. 

Please check out the website of Handmade Palestine and buy your gifts from there! Not only do you support the local artisans but also you support the arboretum and eco project Mashar Juthour on the outskirts of Ramallah.

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For Handmade Palestine, an initiative that promotes the sales of handicrafts made by local Palestinian artisans, I am producing a series of podcast episodes about the artisans and their work.

In this episode you can listen to two interviews with artisans in Bethlehem.

At Ma'an Lil Hayat we speak about the felted wool items that they produce, with local wool from sheep in the Bethlehem area. At this Center people with and without intellectual disabilities work together in the felting process. This is not only about producing felt items like nativity sets and Christmas hangers, but more so about a social life and learning skills for people with intellectual disabilities. In the interview you can hear them and the staff of the Center and you can feel how valuable this place is for all of them.

The father and son Tawfiq and Samer Kattan are silversmiths in Bethlehem. Together with Nadira Al Araj they work on producing silver jewelry in the shape of the olive leave. Each piece is unique because it is shaped with a real olive leave as the model. The olive leave burns inside the melted silver after it gave its shape to the pendant or earring.

If you want to see the items and possibly order online go to https://handmadepalestine.com

For updates on the opening of the country for individual tourists click here

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Handmade Palestine is an initiative by Morgan and her husband Saleh, who run the La Vie Cafe in Ramallah, and Majdi, to support the sales of handicrafts of local Palestinian artisans.

As they do not have a budget for marketing, they decided to start a crowdfunding and online Bazar. The crowdfunding and Bazar will be released on 22nd of October 2021.

On Saturday 23rd of October there will also be a real Bazar at La Vie Cafe in Ramallah where all the 25 artisans will be present with their produce for sale!

This is the first episode of a series about the artisans of Handmade Palestine. In the next episodes you will hear interviews with several of the inspiring businesses, cooperatives and initiatives.

To learn more about the campaign and how you can support the artisans visit -->
 https://bit.ly/Palestine_Online_Bazaar

https://handmadepalestine.com/

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New tour guides, who finished the tour guide program at the Bethlehem Bible College with me this summer, organized a day trip to Nablus and Sebastia. There were about 35 Palestinians on the bus that took off from Beit Sahour early in the morning. After 2,5 hours we reached the Jacob's well church in Nablus. This church is a very recent building that was built on the location where several churches were built around a water well that is said to be the well that Jacob dug on the land of Shechem. Jacob was the grandson of Abraham who came from Mesopotamia and is considered the founding father of all three monotheistic religions.

In this podcast episode you can learn more about the relevance of this water well also in the New Testament of the Bible when Jesus met a Samaritan woman at this well with whom he had a very important conversation about the location of the Temple. Samaritans believed that they should pray to God in the Temple on Mount Gerizim while the Jews prayed in the Temple in Jerusalem. Jesus reveals to her his true nature and tells her that the time has come when the location of prayer is not relevant anymore. The woman goes to her village and tells everyone about Jesus. She is considered the first female evangelist.

After our visit to the Jacob's well church you can hear more about the archaeological site of Sebastia, a city that was established in the Roman time under emperor Vespasian. We visit the ruins of the forum and basilica, the theater and the Hellenistic tower. Up on the hill are the stairs that used to lead to the Temple for Augustus and behind it a big structure that is often indicated as an iron age palace for the Israelite kings Omri and Ahab, but some archaeologists date the site to later times. And the Byzantine church ruins are also interesting as they give access to a crypt where John the Baptist is said to have been buried, his body that is, after he was beheaded by Herod Antipas.

You can hear all about these historical sites in this podcast episodes. With thanks to Ibrahim Khair, Elias Khair, Nayif Gharib, Waffa Sabat and Saleem Anfous.

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 Psychology and health care in Palestine

In this podcast episode I speak with Jumana Kaplanian about psychology in Palestine and the stigma about mental health that still exists in the Palestinian society. Jumana  holds a Bachelor’s degree in Social Work and Psychology from Bethlehem University in Bethlehem and an MSc in Psychology from Oxford Brookes University in Oxford.

Mental illness is considered one of the largest and least acknowledged health problems in Palestine.​ For decades the West Bank has suffered from political, social, and economic strife. Palestinians have been exposed to a series of traumatic events, such as imprisonment, torture, humiliation, human rights violations, house demolitions, land confiscation, restriction of movement, unemployment, and under-employment. As a result, many people suffer from various emotional and psychological traumas. 

The importance of psychological treatment in Palestine

Mental health service providers in Palestine usually offer support, rehabilitation, and counseling services for people dealing with psychological problems. Mainly, these organizations focus on counseling and treating the disorders rather than arming people with the required knowledge to realize the importance of psychological needs to seek treatment. In most cases, these organizations are the ones who approach people to offer help. In many other cases, people ignore their psychological distress for an extended period and only seek help when they reach advanced disorder stages. 

Awareness of mental health at Psychology Spa

Psychology Spa works to raise awareness of mental health, fight social stigma, and achieve social transformation regarding mental health.   

​Psychology Spa is the first specialized non-profit company in Psycho education in Palestine since 2016. Psychology spa is a place where groups meet to learn, discuss, share, and seek ways to gain psychological knowledge.   

Website
https://www.psychologyspa.com/

Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/PsychologySpa

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