PALESTINE - ISRAEL - JORDAN - SINAI

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

In Between

Welcome to the third in a series of film reviews which will highlight some of the most interesting issues facing our region. Watching movies and reading books about somewhere you visited is a great way to reminisce and avoid forgetting the places you went, the things you saw and the people you met. It’s also […]

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The Ancient Goddesses of Palestine

By Miri – As a child I was fascinated by Greek mythology; the stories about fighting and raging goddesses appealed to me much more than those about the one and only (male) god commanding a guard of mainly male prophets. At the time, I was not familiar with the predecessors of the monotheistic system, that, […]

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“Be Careful of Arab Women, Who Have Lately Proved as Dangerous as Men”

By Miri – Highlighting the participation of Palestinian women in the struggle for national self-determination is important, but also often misleading. Overemphasising and celebrating their role can obscure the challenges that they face within their own society. Applying gendered theories which solely focus on their position within Palestinian society on the other hand too often […]

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The Manifold Burdens of Palestinian Female Prisoners

By Miri –  During Israel’s assault on Gaza in 2008 and 2009 a large group of Israeli activists was arrested for blocking the entrance to a military airport north of Tel Aviv. I was one of them. At the end of our first court hearing the judge decided to send us to jail for a […]

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Melisende – Queen of Jerusalem

By Miri – His/tory is by and large written by men, and as such, many important female figures are being omitted or not given the credit that they actually deserve. This is especially the case if we are talking about women who dared to challenge the authority of men. One such example is Queen Melisende […]

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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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Women in the IDF – Debunking the Myth of Equality

By Miri –  “The army is the supreme symbol of duty and as long as women are not equal to men in performing this duty, they have not yet obtained true equality. If the daughters of Israel are absent from the army, then the character of the Yishuv will be distorted.”  David Ben Gurion The […]

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The Palestinian Costume – Embroidered HerStories

By Miri – One thing that keeps on impressing me about Palestine is its endless local variety, its heterogeneity. You can be in one village in the West Bank and hear people making jokes about the particular accent of the neighbouring village, which is not even a kilometre away. As someone whose Arabic is far […]

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Purim – Different Lessons to Be Learned

By Miri – Growing up in Germany mainly amongst non-Jewish friends, together we developed a pattern of translating Jewish holidays into Christian ones. “So when is your Jewish Christmas?” my friends would ask me, referring to Hanukka, which obviously has absolutely nothing to do with the Christian holiday except for its similar timing around December. […]

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On Route to Rediscover the Great Women of the Holy Scriptures

By Miri – A lot of people would agree that the three Abrahamic religions, Islam, Christianity and Judaism, if not read in a new and progressive way, are very patriarchal in character, and women are usually minor characters in the stories of men.The Old Testament, the very basis of all three religions for instance features […]

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Safety and Risk: Some Recommendations for Women Solo Travellers in Palestine and Israel

By Miri –  We have already addressed the topic of general safety and risk when travelling in Palestine and Israel in a number of posts on this blog. What we have not written about yet, are the specific concerns of women solo travellers, a lacunae that we want to fill now. We will mainly be […]

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Review of Sahar Khalifeh’s book, “The End of Spring”

by Yahav Zohar – “The End of Spring” is the only book I’ve read by prolific novelist Sahar Khalifeh. I’ve heard and read that it is not her best, and I am inclined to agree that as a novel it is far from perfect. Characters tend to be roughly sketched and bordering on stereotype, the […]

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