May 2023 Newsletter

We held our second annual Palestine Way Street Festival!

Our biggest event of the year, with over 7,000 people in attendance, was an incredible success! PACC is pleased to have contributed to the smiles and laughter of families and friends as they attended our event where they showcased their Palestinian pride. We had performances, dancing, flag waving, kids zone and lots of vendors that sold a unique selection of artisan goods. We also had a Palestine Education table that taught people about the Nakba and what it means to them.

We are very grateful to our community and those who came from out of state to join our festival. Check out our pictures and videos! We also wanted to thank our sponsors for their help in funding this event.

75th Anniversary of the Nakba

We hosted a Rally at the UN

In honor of the United Nations commemorating the 75th Anniversary of the Nakba, PACC rallied outside of the U.N. in support of the decision. Our Palestine Education Director, Abire, gave a powerful speech about the Nakba.

We were joined by Within Our Lifetime’s Nerdeen Kiswani and the Neturei Karta as we chanted into our megaphones for all to hear that we will never forget what happened in 1948! PACC was also able to attract a lot of press who asked for interviews from our board members, Executive Director, Rania, and Palestine Education Director, Abire. Check out highlights from our rally here!

We attended the UN commemoration of the Nakba!

On the evening of the 75th Nakba anniversary, we attended the United Nation’s commemoration in the UN headquarters. Fifty members of our community attended and partook in a night of remembrance, culture and commemoration.

We are launching a new documentary!!

On the 75th anniversary of the Nakba, we released the trailer of PACC’s original short documentary, Stories of the Nakba: 75 Years Later. The documentary features the stories of local Palestinians who lived through the Nakba. This month we debuted the trailer at the Palestine Way Street Festival and on our social media. Save the date and RSVP for the full film debut on June 8th!

We hosted Dr. Mohammed Ghosheh!

In honor of the 75th anniversary of the Nakba, we hosted Dr. Mohammed Ghosheh to share his work and upcoming project, Our Palestine, which will feature extensive documentation of around 30,000 historical maps on Palestine never revealed before. Fifty-five community members in attendance were impressed and inspired by the extensive work Dr. Ghosheh has done to prove that Palestine always existed on the map and to document its historical architecture. We had a generative conversation about how we can continue to preserve this history and pass it on to future generations here in the diaspora.

We relaunched and expanded our Community Garden!

With the help of the Palestinian Feminist Collective, Montclair Community Farms and our wonderful volunteers, we were able to re-launch and expand our community garden! We planted 3 8x8 garden beds full of crops such as okra, tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers!

Programs

We are halfway through our Spring Programs!

Dabka has been one of our most popular programs this session with 35 kids registered in our beginner’s dabka classes alone! Across all of our dabka classes, we have more than 80 participants.

Five of our Citizenship students are scheduled to take their exams before the end of the month. We wish them the best of luck on their exams!

Our Girls Advanced group performed at our annual Palestine Way Street Festival and did an incredible job, as always!

We launched a Cooking Class for Adults! Registration for our 2023 season of our PACC Summer Fun program is now OPEN on our website! We already have over 50 kids registered and spots are filling quickly!

Events

We screened Angel of Gaza!

We hosted award-winning Director Ahmed Mansour for our Sunday Series this month. Participants from all over the U.S. and Palestine joined us as we screened the short film, Angel of Gaza and had a discussion on how it felt living as a diaspora. We had 14 people join us on zoom.

We hosted a Book Talk with Nora Lester Murad

We held a fun and educational book talk with Author Nora Lester Murad who discussed her children’s book, Ida in the Middle, which is centered around the occupation currently happening in Palestine. This workshop was a great opportunity for 45 kids in our community to learn about what’s going on in Palestine while reading a wonderful book!

Our Women’s Brunches are back!

We held our Women’s brunch with presentations by Ahlam Mohammed from Smile and Eslam Mosleh from Fitness for Her. Ten women attended and partook in various activities with our presenters while eating light appetizers.

Community Outreach

Our Grassroots Organizing Team has been busy!

Our Grassroots Organizing team spent the month tabling at various eventssuch as at the Community Baby Shower in Clifton, during Jumma Prayers at ICPC, and a Street Festival in Woodbridge- to spread awareness about PACC, our upcoming events, encourage voter registration, and spread Palestine Education.

Happy Mother’s Day!!

In honor of Mother’s Day, we put together a video with sweet messages and some songs for the moms of our community! Check it out here!

We attended the IMEU Gala

We were able to hear from and meet amazing Palestinians such as Lina Hadid, Darin Salam, Lina Abu Akleh, Mohamed Hadid and Alana Hadid. It was a great night and we are incredibly grateful for the amazing work that IMEU does. We want to thank Muna and Basem Hishmeh for their generosity in purchasing a table for PACC at the Gala!

We were on YaHala!

YaHala, a popular Arabic YouTube channel released a video on PACC. Our Director of Operations and Logistics, Reem Qasem, and Board President, Diab Mustafa, were interviewed as they gave a tour of our center.

Congratulations to our 2023 Graduates!

PACC wants to extend congratulations to the 2023 Graduates of our community! We are giving social media shout outs to our college graduates on Instagram and Facebook for all their hard work and achievements. If you would like to shout out your graduate, please fill up this form!

Happy World Kuffiyeh Day!

In honor of World Kuffiyeh Day, we compiled pictures of our community members wearing the Kuffiyeh into a reel and tiktok to showcase our Palestinian Pride! The video reached almost 1,400 accounts on TikTok and 6,000 on Instagram!