Determining Our Own Destiny in Palestine and Beyond
by Gene Zaid
Dec 10, 2018
From the Refugee Camp to the United States I was born in Jalazone Refugee Camp in 1951 (north of Ramallah in the West Bank). My parents came from a village near Lod called Beit Nabala but became refugees along with my grandparents, uncles and aunts after the 1948 war. My family now lives in refugee…
Read MoreI have never forgotten this humane and creative organization
Nov 1, 2018
I was born in Rochester, Minnesota, where my father was a staff doctor at the Mayo Clinic. My mother was from a Navy family. As a young woman she joined the Red Cross at the start of WWII. She was sent to a Naval hospital in Algeria, where she met my father. Her unit followed…
Read MoreHonoring my parents by giving back
by Awad Da’Mes
Oct 4, 2018
Born in a Jerusalem hospital in 1935, the circumstances were not without drama. The region was then under British rule and it was a time of great upheaval and continuous revolt. My mother went into labor with me in the midst of an outbreak of fighting between Palestinians on one side, and British and Haganah…
Read MoreBlessed in My Activism
by Elaine Kinch
Sep 6, 2018
I’ve been concerned about justice and human rights since I was young. I became an activist after I began raising my children. For me, if people’s rights are violated, if they are systematically impoverished, then there can be no sustainable peace. One of my professors at the University of Wisconsin saw me at a demonstration…
Read MoreThree Generations of Support: Our Family & Anera
by Betty Sams
Aug 9, 2018
In August of 1967, 50 people from all over the U.S. came to our home in Bethesda, Maryland for dinner. It was two months after the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, and they represented the many different committees that had mobilized to raise and send aid to the Palestinians, both those who were suffering under occupation and…
Read MoreThe Plight of Palestinian Refugees Was Imprinted on My Mind
by Ann Kerr
Jul 5, 2018
Seeing the world has been my lifelong passion. I started travelling when I was a college student. For some unknown reason, I thought about studying in India but my parents tried to steer me toward Europe. Our minister talked about Lebanon and my parents agreed to let me study at the American University of Beirut….
Read MoreGaza Block Parties Bring Minnesotans Together to Help Palestinians
by Karmel Sabri
Jun 7, 2018
I am a Minnesota native but my family comes from Qalqilya in the West Bank. And, though I live 6,000 miles from Palestine, the terrible situation there is real to me. I suspect that all of us who support Anera have this feeling in common. In the wake of the 2014 war on Gaza, I…
Read MoreTo Whom Much is Given, Much is Asked
by Murad Siam
Apr 5, 2018
A little over 15 years ago, my parents’ home in California burned to the ground. I drove up as the rubble was being cleared away and asked the workers to stop so I could rummage through and see what was salvageable. In a small frayed pouch I found all of my deceased father’s documents from…
Read MoreI’ve never left that hospital room in Burj El Barajneh
by Ellen Siegel
Mar 1, 2018
I was born toward the end of the Holocaust. I went to Hebrew school, marked all the Jewish holidays, and then went to a Jewish school of nursing. In 1967, I was asked to go volunteer in Israel. I didn’t know much about the politics there, but I heard there were Palestinians who were living…
Read MorePalestine is always close to my heart even if I’m far away
by Zeina Azzam
Jan 31, 2018
When I was a teenager, my father planted a fig tree in our backyard. Each morning he would go out to his garden, his small bustan, to check on his shajarat teen. This was in New York. As you might expect, the poor tree struggled to survive through cold winters and short summers. Yet my father…
Read More