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Story Archives of 'Israel'
Palestine, The Play
By Virginia Prescott on Thursday, February 18, 2010.
Growing up in privilege in New York City, Najla Said attended good schools, battled anorexia, and didn't really know from Muslim or Christian or Jew. In fact, she hung out with Jewish friends and passed for Jewish. Not so remarkable, except when considering that her father was Edward Said.
Said was one of the most distinguished literary critics of the latter 20th century; a trenchant advocate for the Palestinian cause and a staunch critic of Israeli government policy. Said taught English and comparative literature at Columbia for many years, was widely regarded by the left, and was dubbed "Professor of Terror" by the right wing American magazine Commentary.
Said’s daughter Najla mostly stayed out his political orbit until her travels to the middle east brought her face-to-face with war, poverty, and her own identity as an Arab-American. An accomplished actress and playwright, Najla Said is now performing "Palestine" off-broadway at the 4th Street Theater in New York City. The memoir in monologue opened last night, and she joined us today from New York.
NY Times: Identity Found- On West Side via West Bank
Dawn: Palestine– One-Woman Show
(Photo by dlisbona via Flickr/CreativeCommons)
BBC's World Challenge 2009
By Virginia Prescott on Monday, October 5, 2009.
Here’s an update on a story we brought you last month. We spoke with Yossi Mossel from Comet ME. The Israeli-based NGO is using portable solar and wind technology to bring power to Palestinian Bedouins living in disputed areas of the West Bank.
Off the Grid in the Middle East
By Virginia Prescott on Thursday, September 17, 2009.
My mother often says that it is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness. A landmark project in the occupied territories of the West Bank is doing one better: turning on the lights.
The Israeli Comet project is using solar and wind generators to provide electricity to Palestinian Bedouins in Susiya, in the south Hebron hills. It’s a desperately poor area, where high voltage lines supply electricity to Jewish settlers, but not to thousands of nomadic Palestinians. Comet-ME believes that empowering off-the-grid communities will build social and economic capacity, and may be one small step towards plugging into peace.
Yossi Mossel is visiting the US to tell the story of Comet-ME and raise funds for the project. We’re catching up with him for our Next Green Thing series.
The Independent: "Out of the Stone Age: Empowering a West Bank village"
Comet-ME is a finalist in the BBC World Challenge
(Photo courtesy Comet-ME)
Here's What's Awesome: Tweeting the Western Wall, Prosthetics for Elephants
By Brady Carlson on Sunday, August 23, 2009.With Hurricane Bill sending torrents of rain down upon us, I wanted to start this week's column by reassuring you, dear reader, that no amount of rain can keep your weekly complement of awesome links from being delivered. Here's What's Awesome: we're like the Post Office, except we don't actually go out in the rain, we just work at a desk like we do when it's not raining. Forget I brought this up.
@god pls help me out kthx
Combatants for Peace
By Deb Baker on Thursday, March 26, 2009.Combatants for Peace is a nonprofit whose members are former Israeli and Palestinian fighters. The group advocates nonviolence as the path to lasting peace in the region. The group's “Courage of Conscience Speaking Tour” is helping Americans learn about the former enemies’ peacemaking efforts. I caught the tour in Concord.
Global Voices: Crisis in Gaza
By Virginia Prescott on Tuesday, January 6, 2009.
A crisis continues in the middle east; Israel’s assault on Hamas-controlled Gaza is now in its eleventh day. Rockets fired by Hamas militants are still falling on Israeli towns, while Israeli ground troops move closer to population centers in the dense Palestinian territory. Hamas and Jerusalem show little interest in international calls for a truce, despite intense diplomatic efforts by Arab and European leaders. More than 550 Palestinians have been killed in the violence. Israel has lost four civilians.
It’s difficult for those of us who’ve never experienced war first-hand to imagine the scene in Gaza right now. The reports we get are mostly filtered through mainstream news sources, but the folks at Global Voices Online keep track of what local and regional bloggers are writing about the conflict as it unfolds. Deborah Dilly joins us on Word of mouth – as she often does – to give us a sense of what people are saying across the world’s informal news network on the blogosphere. Deborah is a writer and editor for Global Voices.
Israel's New Media War
By Avishay Artsy on Tuesday, December 30, 2008.While Israeli aircraft strike at Hamas militants in Gaza, the government is waging a different kind of campaign: on the blogosphere, as Nathan Hodge reports for WIRED.com's Danger Room blog.
Granite Staters Reflect on the Sixtieth Birthday of Israel
By Laura Knoy on Wednesday, May 14, 2008.On May 14th. 1948, Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion publicly pronounced the new nation of Israel. The country has had a history of tremendous success but also conflict, border disputes and war. We’ll talk with a roundtable of Israeli-born Granite Staters, hear their stories of their home country, get their comments on the sixty year journey of Israel and their thoughts on the state of the state of Israel today.
Guests
- Ruth Harris, music teacher living in Hollis who was born in Palestine and then lived in Richon Letzion after Israel’s independence; she moved to Amsterdam and then to the United States in 1973
- Moshe Shpindler, resident of Nashua and owner of Caesario’s Pizza in Manchester. He was also born in Richon Letzion in 1950 and lived there until he moved to the United States in 1983
- Amalia Flaisher, graphic designer living in Litchfield; Amalia was born in Romania but moved to Ashkelon and later to Netanya in Israel before moving to the US ten years ago
We'll also hear from
- Isaiah Artsy, computer consultant living in Nashua; he was born in Poland, emigrated to Israel in 1957 and then to the US in 1982, and has spent the last week with family in Israel for the anniversary celebrations
An Israeli Soldier from New Hampshire
By Shay Zeller on Tuesday, August 1, 2006.Manchester native Adam Harmon visited Israel as a teenager in 1984. Six years later, he moved to the country and joined its Army. He served at a time of escalating violence in the region. He writes about his experiences in his new book, Lonely Soldier: The Memoir of an American in the Israeli Army. Harmon is back in the U.S. now, but as a reservist, he could still be called back to serve at any time. We'll talk with him about his experience in the Israeli military and get his take on the current hostility in the Middle East.
Israel and Lebanon: The Granite State Perspective
By Laura Knoy on Thursday, July 27, 2006.We invite a roundtable of Lebanese and Israelis currently living in New Hampshire… to get their thoughts on the war, their families abroad, and the heartache of watching fighting unfold while living a half a world away. Laura's guests are Yeshayahu Artsy, An independent computer consultant living in Nashua, NH. Yeshayahu, was born in occupied Poland and lived for 25 years in Ashkelon, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, Israel. Joseph Hitti, Translator and Founder of the New England Americans for Lebanon. Joseph was born in Damour, Lebanon and raised in Beirut, he currently lives in the Boston area. Talia Greenblatt, a 23 year old woman living for the past year in Manchester. Talia was born and raised in Jerusalem, she’s been in New Hampshire this year serving as a Shaliach, educating people in schools, synagogues and churches about the Israeli society outside of the conflict. Zach Bazzi, Psychology student at UNH who served for the New Hampshire National Guard in Iraq. Zach lived for the first 10 years of his life in Sidon, Lebanon and most recently was featured in the documentary "The War Tapes".
