PALESTINE - ISRAEL - JORDAN - SINAI

Off the beaten track tours • Visit sites • Meet locals • Discuss Human Rights & Politics

Yom HaZikaron / Memorial Day

– by Alexander Jones, Green Olive VP –  April 28, 2020, the annual Memorial Day in Israel. Usually big crowds form across the country to commemorate those killed in war and terror attacks. But as with so many other large gatherings, this year’s version looked very different. The TV footage of a sparsely filled Western […]

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Encounters in the Holy Land

2019 Writing Competition  – by Sue Beardon – Rutie Atsmon, an Israeli, brings together young Jewish Israelis with Palestinians, to talk peace, produce newsletters, organise workshops. She asked “Have you been to Israel?” I replied that I hadn’t, never wanted to, hadn’t felt it was anything to do with me. “You should come,” she said. […]

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Introducing Echoing Yafa – An Audio Walk through Manshiyyah

By Miri –  During the celebrations for the 64th anniversary of Israel’s independence in 2012, a number of left wing activists from the Israeli non-profit organisation “Zochrot” were prevented by the police to hold an alternative event to commemorate the conquest and destruction of more than 400 Palestinian villages and towns through Israeli forces. One […]

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More than just a Relic of the Past – Yiddish in Israel

By Miri –  Yiddish refers to a primarily Germanic language containing elements of Romance, Slavic, as well as a mixture of Hebrew and Aramaic, which is written in the Hebrew alphabet. The language is thought of as having originated in the tenth century in the German Rhineland and from there spread through Bavaria towards the […]

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Palestinian Music – Beyond the “World Music” Label

By Miri –  The iconic Fairuz Music from Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East is commonly subsumed under the label “world music”, a category created by media and record industries to diversify the Euro-American market in order to sell more music. In recent years, the Western music market was in fact at least […]

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Rising from the Margins: Musika Mizrahit

By Miri – In a previous article on this blog we already outlined the historical roots of the socio-economic marginalisation of the Mizrahi (lit. “Eastern” Jews, stemming from Middle East, North Africa and the Caucasus) communities by the dominant Ashkenazi (usually understood as European Jews) elite. The subordination of the Mizrahim also included the forced erasure […]

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Leila Mourad – A Jewish Egyptian Diva

By Miri – The singer and actress Leila Mourad appeared in 27 films and sang over 1,000 songs, many of which became classics and reserved her a space among the greatest Arab vocalists of the golden age of the 20th century. Until today she is considered to be one of the greatest Egyptian singers, second […]

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Palestinian Bagpipes?!

By Miri – One day I went out to show some friends from abroad the place I live in: Jaffa. That same day the Muslim community was celebrating one of their most important holidays, Eid el-Adha, usually translated as the Feast of Sacrifice. As we were approaching one of Jaffa’s main roads we suddenly heard […]

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Dance the Dabke!

By Miri – It is always a challenge to write about music or sound in general. Are there words at all to describe what you perceive through your ears, what vibrates through your body and frequently triggers strong emotional responses?In failing to truly put into words what we hear when talking about a sound event […]

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Culture and Art in 21st Century Amman

–> By Miri –  Travel guides to Middle Eastern countries tend to either reduce local artistic expression to antique artefacts, usually found at historical or archaeological sites, thereby situating the apex of creation in the past, or, to emphasise what is commonly referred to as “authentic” or “folkloric” culture, such as Bedouin tents and belly […]

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