Palestine Week

We held our Book Club!

Our book club discussed Ghassan Kanafani’s Men in the Sun and other short stories. Nine people attended and engaged in a rich conversation about Kanafani’s literature and the important themes and artistic symbolism of his work.

We raised the Palestinian Flag in Clifton and Paterson!

We raised the Palestinian flag at both Clifton and Paterson City Hall again this year! Seventy people attended each event where we honored our community and thanked elected officials for their support. We also presented our Clifton High School Scholarships to three of our CHS seniors and our Commitment to Uplifting Community Stories Award to Hanan Adely. We ended with a performance by our Boys Advanced Dabka group that everyone joined in for!

We discussed The Economic Impact of the Naksa on Palestine!

Since Palestine week fell on the anniversary of the Naksa, we held a virtual conversation with Raja Khalidi, the Director General of the Palestine Economic Policy Research Institute. He shared the current conditions of and effects on Palestine’s economy with 14 people on zoom. We ended the conversation with a hopeful plan for further connecting the business community of the diaspora with that in Palestine.

We held a Tatreez and Dabka workshop!

To keep preserving Palestinian heritage, we taught our community how to stitch intricate tatreez patterns and the basic movements of dabka! The workshop was open to all ages; 15 people attended the tatreez workshop and 10 people attended the dabka lessons.

We premiered our documentary about the Nakba!

We officially debuted PACC’s short documentary, Stories of the Nakba: 75 years later! 140 attendees watched the documentary together for the first time before it was posted online. The documentary features the stories and lived experiences of local Palestinians who lived through the Nakba. We want to especially thank Salah Daoud for filming the documentary,

Ehad Daoud for editing it, Rania Mustafa and Fadia Alagha for producing and directing the documentary and of course our special guests and interviewees: Aref Assaf, Bashar Assadi, Dawud Assad, and Huweda Elsmana. By uplifting the voices of our elders and community, we hope to inspire the present and future generations to keep learning from and passing down the history of the Nakba. If you are interested in hosting a film screening, please email Abire at ASabbagh@paccusa.org.

We held our Community Garden meeting!

This month we had our second community garden meeting where we laid out the rest of our garden beds and soil, then planted more Palestinian crops.

We are excited to continue growing our garden with the community!