Dorgham Abusalim grew up in Deir Albalah, a coastal farming town south of Gaza City. He earned his Bachelor of Arts in 2012 from the College of Idaho, followed by his Master of Arts in International Affairs in 2015 from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies. He currently resides in the United States where he is passionate about screenwriting.
Abdullah Aljammal is a Palestinian Jordanian who studied journalism in Egypt in the 1960s. He is now a writer, living in Amman, and very happy for the opportunity for his daughter, Shurouq Aljammal, to have translated his story for this book.
Hala Alyan is the author of the novel Salt Houses, winner of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize and the Arab American Book Award and a finalist for the Chautauqua Prize, as well as four award-winning collections of poetry, most recently The Twenty-Ninth Year. Her latest novel, The Arsonists’ City, was released by HMH earlier this year. Her work has been published by The New Yorker, the Academy of American Poets, LitHub, The New York Times Book Review, and Guernica. She lives in Brooklyn, where she works as a clinical psychologist and teaches creative writing and graduate psychology at New York University. halaalyan.com
Dr. Shirly Bahar’s writing and curatorial work explores the relationships between representation, politics, and the body. Shirly teaches in the School of the Arts at Columbia University. She is also the co-director of Tzedek Lab, a network of practitioners in the Jewish social justice field. Shirly’s first book, Documentary Cinema in Israel-Palestine: Performance, the Body and Home, is forthcoming in September 2021.
Riham Barghouti is a Palestinian-American political activist, cultural worker, and educator. She lived in the Occupied Palestinian Territories for ten years and currently resides in Brooklyn, New York, where she works as a teacher and instructional coach.
Talia Baurer is an educator, writer, and activist living in New York City. She is a self-loving anti-Zionist Jew who spends most of her time fighting for sexual and reproductive justice and a free Palestine. She wrote her essay at a crucial turning point in her own journey of confronting Zionism, and she is honored to be included in this volume alongside many whose words and work have transformed her worldview. Talia is currently pursuing a Master’s in Public Health at the Hunter College School of Public Health.
Micah Bazant is a white, Jewish, transgender visual artist who works with social justice movements to reimagine the world. They create art as an act of love and solidarity with struggles to free ourselves from Zionism, white supremacy, patriarchy, ableism, and the gender binary. micahbazant.com
David Bragin is a designer and artist with a Bachelor of Industrial Design from Pratt Institute. He works as a design consultant in the commercial world, having engaged in decades of progressive activism with groups like War Resisters League, Committee of Returned Volunteers, Venceremos Brigade, and most recently, Jewish Voice for Peace-NYC.
Asaf Calderon was born and raised in Tel Aviv, graduated from Tel Aviv University and moved to the United States in 2016. He currently works as an independent Hebrew teacher and is a member of Jewish Voice for Peace-NYC. He recently graduated with an MSW at the Silberman School of Social Work at Hunter College.
Shirien Creates is a Palestinian artist, designer, and community organizer born and raised in Chicago. She brings her social justice organizing background into her art, seeking to challenge systems of oppression and uplift heavy and bleak topics with boldness, color, and hope. She uses her creativity as a tool to uplift social justice movements and campaigns, to amplify marginalized groups, to promote community healing, and to envision a better world. Shirien’s work can be found on Instagram @shirien.creates.
Mahmoud Darwish (1941–2008) was born in al-Birwa village in Galilee, Palestine, to a family of landowners. After the 1948 Nakba, he went into exile in Lebanon. He returned to Palestine in 1996, dividing his residence between Ramallah and Amman. Regarded as the most distinguished Arab poet of his generation, he published more than twenty books of poetry and ten of prose, and was the recipient of many literary awards. He also edited the international literary journal al-Karmel, based in Ramallah. Among his books that have appeared in English are Memory for Forgetfulness; The Adam of Two Edens; Why Did You Leave the Horse Alone?; and The Butterfly’s Burden, from which his poem in this book was taken.
Susan Eisenberg is a poet, visual artist, and oral historian who works within and across genres. Her most recent books are Stanley’s Girl, her fifth poetry collection, and We’ll Call You If We Need You: Experiences of Women Working Construction. She curated the online installation, On Equal Terms: gender and solidarity, and speaks nationally on gender issues in the workplace.
Esther Farmer (co-editor) is a Palestinian Jew and a native Brooklynite whose passion is using theater as a tool for community development. She is the director of Wrestling with Zionism, a Readers Theater project that has been performed throughout the NY metropolitan area. She is the author of several published articles (Routledge) on theater and community development. She is an active member and on the leadership team of Jewish Voice for Peace-NYC.
Stefanie Fox is currently Executive Director of National Jewish Voice for Peace where she previously spent a decade on staff. She launched the organizing program and then built the organization as a whole. Prior to JVP, Stefanie spent years as a grassroots organizer, policy advocate, and educator. She holds a Masters in Public Health and a deep love for the beautiful, messy, exhilarating, sometimes-slog of grassroots movement-building toward a more just world.
Sagiv Galai grew up in a West Bank settlement, and has spent much of his life fighting against Israel’s apartheid regime and military occupation. Sagiv moved to Queens, NY, as a young teen. In New York, he attended an overpoliced school, and often found himself down overpoliced streets. Sagiv’s deep passion for justice stems from personal experiences. Sagiv earned his bachelor’s degree in Human Rights from Bard College, where he received the New Generation Scholar award, and he is currently enrolled in the University of Washington School of Law, where he is a Gates Public Service Law Scholar.
Lena Ghannam is a Palestinian cultural worker practicing graphic design within the Palestinian liberation movement, with a background in education, architecture, and journalism. Her past includes creative direction for the DC Palestinian Film and Arts Festival and teaching architectural graphics at the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design at George Washington University. She is uncompromising in her commitment to justice and the struggle for liberation through her work. lenaghannam.com
Amira Hurriya is a Palestinian organizer in New Orleans, Louisiana. Outside of working for a free Palestine, her work primarily revolves around Southern organizing, socialism, and labor.
Kenan Jaffe teaches Latin, Greek, and philosophy at a public high school in New York City. He is engaged in education and union politics as well as Jewish religious and political life.
Nadia Kader is a Brooklyn-based educator who loves storytelling, film, and art. She has participated in the Queer Storytelling project, “Queer Memoir,” twice, and hopes to see the end of Zionism in her lifetime.
Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz (1945–2018) was an American essayist, poet, academic, and feminist political activist. She was a founder of Jews for Racial and Economic Justice (JFREJ). Melanie played a pivotal role in the women’s movement and the movements for LGBT rights, against racism and antisemitism, and for Palestinian rights. Among her more galvanizing ideas was what she called, in her important book, The Colors of Jews (2007), “radical diasporism.”
Remi Kenazi is a Palestinian-American performance artist, poet, hip-hop artist, and organizer based in New York City. Recently, his commentary has been featured in news outlets throughout the world and streams widely on social media. He is the author of two collections of poetry, Poetic Injustice: Writings on Resistance and Palestine (2011), and Before the Next Bomb Drops: Rising Up from Brooklyn to Palestine (2015). remikanazi.com
Lama Khouri is a Palestinian who was born and raised in Jordan. She’s a resident of New York City, where she has a private psychotherapy practice. Lama is also a clinical supervisor at the Arab American Family Support Center in Brooklyn, where she works with immigrants, refugees, asylum seekers, and domestic violence survivors. Her many published essays have appeared in scholarly journals of psychoanalysis and clinical psychology.
Cara Levine is a recent graduate of Middlebury College, where she studied Arabic, Gender Studies, Art History, and French, and spent a lot of time thinking about Palestinian art, memory, and the Holocaust. Currently, she is a case manager working with survivors of gender-based violence, a sometimes substitute teacher, and an intern with the Jewish Women’s Archive. She is a member, educator, and leader with Jewish Voice for Peace-NYC.
Lynne Lopez-Salzedo is a British poet, author, and artist. She has exhibited her art in London and New York and published her poetry, art criticism, and political commentary in British and American magazines.
Aurora Levins Morales is a Puerto Rican Ashkenazi Jewish poet, storyteller, activist, historian, author, and healer. Her writings are widely used in progressive synagogues around the United States. A longtime member of JVP, she is an important voice within Latina and Jewish feminism and has been active in many social justice movements, including those for Puerto Rican independence, environmental justice, disability justice, and Palestinian liberation. auroralevinsmorales.com
Nader is a Palestinian Christian from Bethlehem who immigrated to the United States sixteen years ago. An avid cook and world traveler, he is passionate about Palestine and the Palestinian struggle and wishes to move back home at some point in the future.
Naomi Shihab Nye is a writer, editor, and educator, born to a Palestinian father and an American mother. She has written or edited more than thirty books of poetry, young-adult fiction, picture books, and essays. 19 Varieties of Gazelle was a finalist for the National Book Award. The Tiny Journalist won both Texas poetry prizes. She is Young People’s Poet Laureate for the Poetry Foundation and lives in San Antonio, Texas.
Rachel Packer is an LA-based Jewish lesbian culture worker dedicated to creating art that makes revolution irresistible. She has created motion graphics, billboards, pamphlets, and other media for radical organizations from LA to Detroit to Philadelphia to Palestine.
Rosalind Petchesky (co-editor) is Distinguished Professor Emerita of Political Science at Hunter College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York and recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship. Her research, writing, and advocacy for many years has engaged with transnational feminisms and sexual and reproductive rights. Since 2013, she has been an active member of Jewish Voice for Peace and part of the_New York City-chapter’s leadership team.
Mohammed Rafik Mhawesh is a Palestinian writer who has been interested in reading and books since his childhood. He is from Gaza City in occupied Palestine, but was born and grew up in the western part of the Gaza strip. He studied English-language literature and is now working in English, teaching and writing. Mohammed is also a storywriter with the We Are Not Numbers Organization and writes on social media about the political struggles of his homeland, Palestine.
Sara Abou Rashed is a young Palestinian poet, storyteller, and public speaker. Her works appear in over twelve publications, including a grades 9–12 language arts curriculum by McGraw-Hill. Some of Sara’s accolades include giving a TEDx Talk and getting nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Sara wrote and starred in her debut one-woman show, A Map of Myself, on immigration, hyphens, and finding home across borders. She lives in Columbus, Ohio, and recently graduated from Denison University. Currently, Sara is pursuing an MFA in poetry at the University of Michigan. saraabourashed.com
Eman Rashid is a mother to one child and two cats, and a teacher to many adorable children who constantly make her think, laugh, and smile.
Abir Saleh is a Palestinian-American born and raised in Brooklyn, keeping to traditional roots of her Palestinian homeland. She is a mother of two and a guidance counselor working with young adults. She is passionate about social justice issues, especially the plight of the Palestinian people, as well as all marginalized people.
Jay Saper is an artist, educator, translator, and organizer who lives in Brooklyn, New York, and in Michigan. Creator of Antifascist Yiddish for Beginners, Jay blends the teaching of language with history to fortify activist communities. Jay is a Yiddish Book Center Translation Fellow, focusing on partisan poetry. Jay’s papercuts of Jewish women in the resistance to the Nazis appear in the book There Is Nothing So Whole as a Broken Heart: Mending the World as Jewish Anarchists. Jay is a proud member of Jewish Voice for Peace-NYC.
Sarah Sills (co-editor) is a lifelong artist-activist, graphic designer, organizer, and event producer. Over the years she co-led a Teamsters trade union delegation to China, organized clerical workers at Columbia University, raised money for women’s cooperatives in El Salvador during the civil war in the 1980s and early 1990s, and worked at a pro-Aristide Haitian newspaper. In addition to being a Jewish Voice Peace-NYC chapter leader, she is currently involved with producing storytelling workshops and the Wrestling with Zionism Readers Theater.
Gabrielle Spear is a poet and history educator raised in northwest Arkansas. Her poetry has appeared in Anomaly, Fields Magazine, Lumina, Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, Sonora Review, Glass: a Journal of Poetry, and other publications. She is currently working on her first poetry collection.
Tzvia Thier, an Israeli American citizen born in Romania and a Holocaust survivor, lived in Israel most of her life. She was a Zionist educator. At the age of 65, she was exposed to the Palestinian reality and to the truth about Zionism. Tzvia became an anti-Zionist activist and has participated in JVP’s work in New York City and New Jersey.