Nora Lester Murad - The View From My Window in Palestine

My first published book!

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Got ya all excited, didn’t I? You thought I had published my picture book, “Because it is Also Your Story” (co-authored with Danna Massad) or my upper middle grade novel, “Amina and the Green Olives.” Actually, neither is published yet, in fact, both are are still seeking representation. And my women’s literary fiction novel, “One Year in Beit Hanina” is still several months away from being a completed first draft.

So why am I announcing my first published book? Because when I was in Pasadena, California this summer, helping my mother move out of her home of 41 years, I found (drum roll) “The Three Fishes.” “The Three Fishes” was my first published book. (Scroll to the end of this post to see it!)

The publisher? Mrs. Paula Rao, a creative, energetic, loving teacher that I had the pleasure of studying with in the first, second and third grades at San Rafael Elementary. She published several of my books, all in hard cover, all with fancy title lettering.

Don’t laugh at my excitement. When you’re seven years old and you don’t know how to write a story (but you also don’t know that you don’t know how to write a story) and a teacher like Paula Rao publishes your book, it matters. You turn a corner. You can imagine yourself as a writer. You can imagine yourself doing anything that you can imagine.

Amidst piles of decades-old memorabilia, I also found a book I wrote that was illustrated by my best friend from those years, Desiree Larsuel (now Rollins). I found another book that I wrote which listed her as editor! I showed the books to Des one night when I took a break from sorting and packing. She laughed and laughed. She remembered those books as clearly as I did. They mattered to her too.

Before the end of the night, Desiree and I (seen in the photo on the left, taken around 1971) were talking about writing a movie, a kind of memoir of our experiences during the early years of integration in Pasadena. You see, my first grade year was the first year of busing — I had attended a segregated kindergarten class in the very same school the year before.

We have many stories yet to tell. Thanks, Mrs. Rao, for helping me to find my voice. I’m using it to give people insight into life in Palestine.

Interview on WZBC Radio

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During my recent visit to the United States, I had the honor of being interviewed on a weekly radio program called This Week in Palestine (no relation to the Palestinian print publication This Week in Palestine). “This Week in Palestine” is a 45-minute weekly program which airs every Sunday from 8:00 am to 8:45 am EST on WZBC 90.3 FM Boston College Radio Newton MA. The program is an integral part of Truth and Justice radio,  a weekly news program which airs between 6-10 am EST every Sunday.

You can listen to my segment at http://archive.org/details/ThisWeekInPalestineInterviewWithNoraLesterMurad. I talked a bit about why I moved to Palestine, the founding of Dalia Association, and problems with the international aid system.

Despina and Stan at BZBC Radio

“This Week in Palestine” (TWIP) provides news, opinions and interviews from a Palestinian perspective. The program is a direct outgrowth of  participation in the Boston Social Forum in 2004 at UMASS Boston. The program has been on the air for over eight years with local Boston activist Sherif Fam as the host until his untimely death in 2010.  The program continues in his loving memory with a team of four co-hosts: Salma Abu Ayash, John Roberts, Chadi Salamoun and Despina Moutsouris. On May 15, 2011 the Community Church of Boston honored TWIP and Truth and Justice Radio with their annual Sacco and Vanzetti Award for promoting truth with justice in the local community. TWIP proudly supports Palestinian self determination, refugee rights, and the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. The archive of past radio shows can be found on the following website: www.tinyurl.com/twiplist2. The radio station website is www.wzbc.org

Guest post: How Ramadan Made Me a Better Christian by Vicki Tamoush

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Vicki Tamoush, Interfaith Activist

Vicki Tamoush is a second-generation Arab American who lives in Tustin, California.  She holds a Bachelor’s degree in English from the University of California, Irvine and is founder of Interfaith Witnesses. More importantly, Vicki  is one of my dearest and longest friends, and one of the most inspirational peace activists  I’ve ever met. Her faith is palpable , including her interfaith work, but there’s not a judgmental or self-righteous bone in her body. So, it is a HUGE honor to me that she wrote this guest post, partly in response to my post about Ramadan and mothering.

Please chime in with your thoughts and experiences by leaving a comment here.

“How Ramadan Made Me a Better Christian” by Vicki Tamoush

I’m one of those people who always tries to do the right thing.  I drive under the speed limit and recycle my aluminums and love my neighbor as myself and you can find me in church on Sundays.  My friends are doing the right thing, too, but bad stuff keeps happening all around us and I just couldn’t stand it anymore.  So I fasted.

I don’t remember the first time I fasted for a specific intention, but I must have been in my early teens.  I suspect it was in solidarity with Cesar Chavez’ fast or in commemoration of the anniversary of one of Gandhi’s fasts….  What I do remember is that it felt different than any other act I’d ever engaged in: I felt like I was praying with my whole body.  I loved the feeling of engaging my entire being in prayer.

Growing up Arab American, I was always the only Arab at my church, often the only Christian among a group of Arab friends.  I had a unique point of view wherever I went, and I was lucky enough to be exposed to a lot of things that other Christians and other Arab American’s weren’t.  During Ramadan, my Muslim friends fasted from before dawn until the moment of sunset.  It looked impossibly hard, especially when Ramadan fell in the summertime.  The idea of fasting even from water made me look at my Muslim friends as superheroes.

When I was about 22, I moved to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where my father worked for two years on contract with a large American corporation.  I found myself not only the only Christian among my group of friends but one of only a few hundred in the entire country.   It was here that I first experienced fasting on a nation-wide level.  It was phenomenal, a cross between Lent and Advent.  There were decorations and flowers everywhere.  People were kinder than ever, greeting strangers as if they were family, and I saw so many Bedouin families gathering to serve huge communal meals to people in poverty.  I came to love the sound of the cannon being shot to signal far and wide the moment of the sun’s setting.  Cold water and dates were consumed, followed immediately by prayer before anyone engaged in a meal.  For centuries, these faithful Muslims had fasted out here in the desert where it was scorchingly hot even when Ramadan did not fall in the summer.

Now, three decades later, I find myself immersed in the interfaith community in Orange County, California, known primarily for its proliferation of conservative politics and yuppie mega-churches.  My circle of friends is comprised of people of every faith you can think of, many of whom fast for various reasons based on their religious beliefs.  My Muslim friends are now in the final week of Ramadan which, again, fell in the hottest part of the summer.

These past few years, I’ve been blessed with numerous invitations both from mosque and individual Muslim friends to share the meal to break the fast at sunset.  I’ve attended many of these in my life, and the rhythm of these ritual meals, the cadence of the evening, the precisely timed corporate worship are somehow comforting to me.  Iftar feels the same to me as the communal meals we share at my church during Lent.  It’s a time when everyone allows themselves to be loved.  Everyone is focused on the group gathered together, rather than on any individual.  Things are mostly the same at each iftar and each Lenten supper.  Little kids run among the tables while old friends cluster to chat.  The fast is never a topic of conversation; it’s all about community.

To experience Ramadan more deeply, some of us non-Muslims decided that whenever we were invited to an iftar, we would fast that day, a sort of solidarity fast.  I personally chose a specific intention for my fasts: one time, I prayed for a healthy pregnancy for my cousin.  Another time, I focused on the huge number of people in my church who were looking for employment.  Last year, I was invited to 8 iftars and this year 10, a mix of those held in mosques and more intimate in-home meals.  Again this year, the cadence of Ramadan was comforting and familiar; I found that the past two years, I’ve looked forward anxiously to this month.  On its surface, it’s a month of denial from one new moon to the next, but I find it to be a month overflowing with an abundance of fellowship and love, of needs being met.  There is charity of every sort, including charity of spirit.  No harsh words are spoken; people are quick to forgive what would normally rise to a conflict.

When my Muslim hosts learn that I’ve fasted when accepting an invitation to iftar, they are more than gracious and more than curious.  Some expect that I allowed myself to drink water (I didn’t) and some thought I felt deprived (I didn’t) but all were, without exception, more impressed than I deserved.  To me, it is natural to do this.  How could I accept an invitation to break a fast I hadn’t participated in?  How could such an iftar hold any meaning for me?

It’s not inconceivable that next Ramadan I may find myself fasting the entire month, new moon to new moon.  Having now discussed fasting traditions with so many Muslim friends, I’m wondering if anyone will want to participate in my “Lenten Promises” as we Christians refer to our commitments.  I don’t see these experiences as the dilution of our faiths; I see them as intimate acts of sharing, of connecting spiritually.  It’s been amazing to learn how much I’ve received by giving something up.

 

Ramadan and Mothering

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Everyone around me seemed to be irrationally angry. I felt my neck tighten – a defensive reaction – but tried to stay calm and think logically. Why is everyone freaking out because my daughters, who are Muslim, are fasting for Ramadan?

This is not the first time we’ve been in the United States during Ramadan. And it’s not the first time that people we know get concerned and even embarrassed that we fast (e.g., “how can you come to the party if you aren’t going to eat?”). But it is the first time I’ve had an organized children’s program threaten to kick my daughters out if they refused water during the sunlit hours.

They do have a point: It’s terribly hot. The girls are engaged in extensive physical activity. If they don’t drink, they could get dehydrated. They could get headaches, feel tired, even faint.

My daughters don’t agree: “It’s our religion. No one else has the right to tell us if we can follow our religion or not.” True, I tell them, but the children’s program isn’t saying they can’t fast. They are saying the girls can’t participate in the program’s physical activities if they are fasting.

From a strictly legal perspective, I see two sides. On the one hand, the program doesn’t want liability for any short- or long-term harm caused to them by not drinking during physical activity. That’s understandable. But on the other hand, they aren’t forcing other children to drink. They offer liquids and encourage drinking, but they don’t watch the children, measure their intake, and pull them out of activities if they don’t drink a predetermined minimum amount. How can they enforce their “must drink” policy (never before articulated) only on my children, the only Muslims in the program?

But the legal perspective isn’t the interesting one to me. The interesting (and painful) question concerns mothering. Every single reaction to my daughters’ fasting implied that a good mother would not allow her children to fast, and especially not when they are at camp during a hot summer.

Am I a bad mother?

On a normal summer day, I do require my children to drink lots. I mandate massive amounts of sunscreen. And I’m known on more than one continent as the “bedtime police” because I’m so inflexible about getting enough sleep. So why am I lax about eating and drinking during Ramadan? It’s not because I’m a blind follower of religion. There are lots of aspects of Islam and all organized religions that I don’t accept and would have difficulty tolerating. Believe me, I’m not the type to accept anything just because it’s written in a book.

I support my daughters’ observance of Ramadan because I believe it has value. I realize it even more now as I contemplate all the criticism I’m getting. It seems that many people in the US take things for granted, for example, that people are entitled to be comfortable even when others around them aren’t and that personal freedom is more important that collective obligation.

How can I explain this to a person who has never fasted for Ramadan, Lent, Yom Kippur, or any other voluntary reason? How can I put into words that on the other side of the pain in your stomach that moves to your head and makes your knees weak is a state of deep calm in which you realize that physical comfort enables certain kinds of understanding but denies other kinds of understanding? How can I help them understand that when you’re fasting, and nearly everyone around you is fasting, there is a profound sense of togetherness that you can’t reach when daily disparities between the well-fed and the hungry define everything else? And how can I convince them that after the first few, hard days, you begin to appreciate how strong you are in ways you never knew?

So I take a deep breath and say to my critics: “There are one billion Muslims in the world.” Most of them fast for Ramadan and they go on living.”

“They don’t do hard, physical activity all day in the heat,” they answer back.

“Some of them do. Some Muslims are farmers and construction workers and traffic cops.”

“But they don’t work as hard as Americans!”

Ouch. That hurt, though I can see some truth in it. People do slow down a lot during Ramadan. They do reschedule their days to sleep more and stay out of the heat. So I wonder why the camp can’t just let my kids fast, but let them take it a bit easier when they need to?

The critics: “In California, you’d get fired if you didn’t drink water at work.”

“What? You mean employers can fire Muslims for fasting?”

“The employer will get fined if workers health is at risk.”

(I am getting angry.) “Really? Then have they banned fast food, which is a known risk to health? Smoking? Stress?

Them: “I would NEVER allow my child to play even one soccer game without drinking.”

Ouch again. They are saying plainly that I am a bad mother. Does that mean that something like one half billion Muslims are “bad parents” because they respect the obligation to fast for Ramadan and consider it normal for their children to fast? Would I be a better mother if I pulled my girls out of a valuable camp experience so they could sleep all day?

For Muslims, fasting during Ramadan is an obligation, not a choice, but I don’t force my children to fast. They choose to fast, and I believe they are mature enough to make that decision. Even my youngest daughter, only 8 years old, often chooses to fast half the day and sometimes the whole day. By letting her decide, she learns the limitations of her own body, and she reaps the benefit of making her own decisions. Like the youngest, the older two have found there were days when they couldn’t fast, and they “made up” those fast days later in the year. Islam accounts for the fact that people get sick, travel, etc.

As my physician, who is also a sheikh, says: “Islam isn’t trying to harm you.”

Faithful people believe that God protects those who are fasting. Even people who don’t believe in God must be able to see how faithful people are strengthened by their faith.

As I write this, I have just served my girls their “suhur” meal (the meal before the sunrise, before the day’s fast starts) and I made them drink lots and lots of water. Later, I will send them to the program and they will decide if they can fast today or not. I will speak to my daughters at noon and again in the late afternoon to see how they are feeling. I will speak with the program’s staff to see if there are any behavioral alarm signals that warrant my intervention.

Most importantly, I will continue to talk to the girls about their right to practice their faith the way they choose to (based on informed and thoughtful consideration of various perspectives) and to not blindly follow what others believe is right for them– not religious officials and not camp officials either.

 

Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Another Chapter of Palestinian Olympic History

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Amani Awartani, coach of the Palestinian Olympic Swim Team, told me this story with all the drama and intrigue of a Turkish soap opera, and it is my pleasure to share the inside story with you.

Amani:

“I left Palestine for Portugal on the sixth of June for the pre-Olympic open water contest. It was the first time Palestinians participated in such an event, because we don’t have access to our sea, so we can’t train in open water. It was very exciting.

I had asked a friend to look for people in Portugal to cheer for Palestine, and was thrilled when the Palestinian ambassador to Portugal, Mufid Shami, called me. He even came to the airport when I arrived, and the next day he came to my hotel and said how great it was to have Palestinians competing in Portugal.

At the beginning, I was frustrated. I am a very social person. I like to talk to people of different backgrounds. But the other teams don’t even say ‘hello’ – even if they’re sitting right next to you. The Russians stay together. The Spanish speakers stay together. There were some Arabs, but once you overcome the language and culture, there are still personality differences. I think some of the coldness was cultural differences, but some was the competitive environment. I tried to be nice, but in the end, you can’t care too much about the others.

FINA (the Fédération Internationale de Natation – the world governing body for the five Aquatic Disciplines of swimming, diving, water polo, synchronized swimming and open water swimming) delivered technical information about the swimming course. It was very nice meeting. Then, every day there were two rounds of training: morning in the pool and afternoon in the sea so the swimmers could learn the routes.

At one point, I met the Egyptians, who were very friendly and helpful. It was my first time in such a huge event. They told me I would have to get on the pontoon (a floating dock) with a feeding stick in order to feed Ahmed as he swam. I had no idea! The Egyptians kept saying, “They didn’t tell you about the rules?” I did read the rules, but didn’t see the feeding stick. It wasn’t mentioned. I guess they thought it was our 20th time, but it was our first time in open water. Everyone else had previous experience so they thought it was known. But I didn’t know the trainer had to be on the pontoon to feed the swimmer! Thank goodness the Egyptians told me!

I was panicking a lot because I didn’t know what I was supposed to be doing. I didn’t have a feeding stick. I had never heard of a feeding stick before. So Ahmed Gebrel, my swimmer, and I went downtown and were very inventive. I bought a fishing pole and attached a bottle with water tape to the stick part. We were very inventive.

The rules are that if Ahmed touches the feeding stick while in the water, he is disqualified. If I bump into another swimmer, he and I are disqualified. If I fall into the sea, I disqualify him immediately. Since the pontoon is in the middle of the sea and the swimmers are swimming around it, it’s bumpy. There were 61 trainers on the pontoon! There are five rounds in the pre-Olympic open water contest. Each round, the swimmers swim to us on the pontoon to eat, but thank goodness, they didn’t come as a group so it was a little less pressure. One of the Egyptians was kind enough to offer to sit next to me and make sure that I didn’t fall into the sea. I was scared like hell that I get would disqualified.

On the day of the competition, the weather was terrible, of course. It was raining in the morning and freezing. In water it was about 17 degrees. Lots of swimmers dropped out of the second round because of the cold. But Ahmed completed all 5 rounds. He came in 48th of 61. He was 5th in Asia. China was behind us. Hong Kong was behind us. I was so relieved to see him get out of the water. But it’s a huge place, and when he finished, he went off with the swimmers to land, and the trainers went to land after them. I went to the tent where he was supposed to be and I waited. I started worrying after half hour. I searched for him and asked everyone ther, but nobody had seen him or knew where he was.

I told the FINA personnel and volunteers to search. After more than 90 minutes a volunteer asked for me. I was holding back tears. I felt sick. Then they told me Ahmed was in the recovery area with hypothermia and all his sugar had burned off. They had to give him 2 kilograms of glucose. After two hours of treatment, and after they put his clothes in the microwave, he felt better. And I felt better.

Some people may be disappointed that we came 41st of 61, but it was a success! Ahmed finished the entire five-round competition, and that’s amazing. So many swimmers couldn’t make it and dropped out. But Ahmed finished 10 kilometers in freezing water without any fault. That’s nothing to be disappointed about!

Unfortunately, some things did happen that pissed me off. One person tried to use influence to put his son in as an Olympic competitor in Ahmed’s place, but he didn’t get away with it. There was also a mix up between FINA and the Universality people, so Ahmed was taken out of the 50-meter race that he’s been training for, and he’ll be swimming in the 400-meter race instead. We even had to change flights because of that. But Sabine, our other swimmer, will still swim in the 50-meter.”

From the 21st to 27th of July they train twice a day in Olympic village pools. The Olympic Solidarity Committee funds both swimmers and the Palestinian National Olympic Committee funds Amani. Ahmed will swim directly after opening on July 28. Sabine swims on August 3.

I’ll be watching and cheering for the Palestinian team. Will you?

Interview with Amani Awartani, part two

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I have to be honest: I don’t like sports. I’m just not interested in watching other people play games. But Amani Awartani, coach of the Palestinian Olympic swim team, weaves a story of gender, international politics, cultural pride, and personal challenge. Through her eyes, I see the upcoming Olympics as a significant milestone for Palestinians and the rest of the world – and a lot of fun.

Did you know that Palestine was recognized by the International Olympic Committee in the 1930s? That Palestine is listed on the official website of the Olympic movement? That there is a Palestinian Olympic Committee?

In fact, this is the fifth time that Palestinians have taken part in the Olympics, the first being in 1998. Since Palestine isn’t a state, Palestinians have to compete in the World Championships that are held before the Olympics and win points that make them eligible as “participants.” Until now, all the Palestinian competitors have been swimmers.

Ahmed Gebrel, Olympic Swimmer

“This is the first year we have a ‘qualified’ competitor,” Amani explains. Maher Abu Rmaileh from Jerusalem competes in Judo. She adds quickly, “You can still win a medal if you participate by winning points and are not considered a qualified competitor.”

Since there are Palestinians all over the world, I asked Amani if Palestinians in the diaspora can swim with the Palestinian team. “Sometimes we are contacted by Palestinians in the US or elsewhere who want to swim with us. It is allowed as long as they aren’t registered as swimmers in another country But generally we refuse, even if they might bring us medals. We want to give local people a chance first.” Her voice trails off as she adds, “Maybe later we could include them in the national team, but how could we support them without funding?”

Although she is coach of the Palestinian Olympic swim team, Amani doesn’t actually train the Palestinian competitors for the Olympics. Ahmed Gebrel, a Palestinian refugee in his twenties who lives in Egypt and Sabine Hazboun, who is only eighteen years old, have been living and training in Barcelona. “Sabine missed her Tawjihi, the last year of high school, in order to train,” Amani said, clearly proud of Sabine’s commitment. Expenses, including funding for their coaches, were provided by the Olympic Solidarity Committee. But next year they’ll have to raise funds themselves.

Sabine Hazboun, Olympic Swimmer

Amani tells the story with such enthusiasm, I nearly pulled out my wallet to make a contribution. In fact, I was so taken by her passion, I almost jumped onto the table at the Zaman Cafe in Ramallah where we were talking to do a little cheer.

“Although this is voluntary work, I want to do my job 100%. We’re a team. I want the team members to know I am always there for them. I tell them: ‘You swim, and I’ll take care of the rest,’” Amani says.

Amani’s own children enjoy swimming. Her son used to sneak into Jerusalem to swim, since he doesn’t have a permit, but he didn’t want to pursue it competitively. Her daughter enjoys recreational swimming, but is more serious about football and, more recently, ballet.

“Everybody has his own thing. As for me, I find it a tremendous honor for us to be standing in front of the world, recognized as Palestinians. It’s overwhelming.”

But the best part of this story is yet to come! Do you know what a feeding stick is? Check back here to find out.

Interview with Amani Awartani, Coach of the Palestinian Olympic Swim Team

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Amani Awartani, Coach of the Palestinian Olympic Swim Team, smiles triumphantly as she recalls her first swim competition. Although in those days it wasn’t considered appropriate for girls to swim in mixed-gender competitions, she swam anyway. Amani came in first in freestyle and second in breast stroke.

Then came the first Intifada. “There were curfews. Everything was upside down,” she remembers. Amani was not able to pursue her swimming ambitions. She never competed again.

But no one can doubt that Amani is still an athlete. Besides her tall, strong physique, she oozes an enthusiasm for sports that is infectious.

Amani Awartani, Coach, Palestinian Olympic Swim Team

“Swimming was new, then,” Amani reminisces. “There was a group of young men from Jerusalem who were instructors. They started teaching others how to train. For cultural reasons, men can’t train women, so that gave me an opportunity. I trained the women.”

Amani became a trainer when she was only eighteen. She also taught swimming to three and four-year-olds for two years. “They were sweet but exhausting,” Amani confesses.

Palestinian participation in the Olympics came later. A German man from FINA, the international governing body of swimming, visited the Palestinian Swim Federation, a post-Oslo volunteer organization that oversees swim training, the pools, sponsorships, and competitions. It was around 2007 or 2008. Amani joined the Palestinian Swim Federation.

Volunteers with the Palestinian Swim Federation learned how to put together a real training program. “Training is tailored for each race. For the 50 meter, you need speed, so you practice jumping, train for speed on land, speed in the pool. But for the 10K race, you need endurance. The training is different.”

According to Amani, people who swim for speed and people who swim for distance have different kinds of personalities. The speed swimmers have to deal with pain and the distance swimmers have to deal with exhaustion. Both have to be determined.

Even today, although the competitions are mixed, men and women train separately. And there are still many more boys than girls. “Overall, the sport of swimming still isn’t very popular in Palestine,” Amani laments. “One problem we have is that our pools are almost all outdoors. That means you can only train about three months each year. Even the few indoor pools—at the YMCA in Jerusalem and Bethlehem—aren’t good enough. They are only 25 meters long. There are no 50 meter pools anywhere in Palestine.”

There are rumors that the Palestinian Authority may build a 50 meter pool in Jericho and Amani hopes they’ll allow competitive swimmers to train there. Unfortunately, there isn’t very strong advocacy for swimmers in Palestine. The Palestinian Swim Federation was reorganized in 2012 and, due to some internal conflicts, they have to start to build their systems from scratch. They plan to hold competitions to record times for swimmers all over the West Bank and Gaza, to rebuild the database that is used to determine eligibility for competitions in the future. But even this simple activity has been scheduled and cancelled and rescheduled and is fraught with conflict and rumors of corruption. Moreover, although there have been many gains in the sport, Amani is still the only woman in the entire Palestinian Swim Federation.

Check back for the next part of this interview to learn about Palestinian participation in the Olympics. Meanwhile, leave your comments!

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