New Orange County Chapter Takes Shape, Seeks Volunteers & Supporters

Several Levantine stakeholders have recently joined together with plans to enliven a new chapter in Orange County. Barbara Al-Bayati, Bana Hilal, Diane Shammas and Suad Brandt sealed the deal during lunch on Jan. 30 in Newport Beach. These Levantine “fantastic four" are eagerly seeking additional Orange County supporters and volunteers, who can work with them as the new OC chapter coordinates with our Los Angeles HQ to bring an increasing number of pan-cultural Middle East arts programs to OC.

The first such program is “Memorial for Mutanabbi Street,” an afternoon of music, film and literary readings, devoted to Baghdad’s famed neighborhood of booksellers and cafés, which suffered from a bomb attack in March 2007. This event takes place on Saturday, March 29, 2008, from 3-6 pm, at the Newport Beach Library. It will feature the Saadoun Al-Bayati Ensemble, and readings by poets Beau Beausoleil, Dima Hilal, Sam Hamod, Janet Sternburg and others. (An earlier version took place on Nov. 19, 2007 at the Los Angeles Public Library.) A Middle East reception will follow. RSVPs and details, 310.657.5511.

Interested in volunteering with the Orange County chapter of Levantine Cultural Center? Contact LCC for details at the above number.

Author, Activist and Former California State Senator Tom Hayden Joins Advisory Board

Levantine Cultural Center is pleased to welcome Tom Hayden to our national advisory board. Tom has devoted his life to peace, social justice and progressive politics. After forty years of activism, politics and writing, he still is a leading voice for ending the war in Iraq, erasing sweatshops, saving the environment, and reforming politics through greater citizen participation.

Currently he is writing and advocating for US Congressional hearings on exiting Iraq. This year he drafted and lobbied successfully for Los Angeles and San Francisco ordinances to end all taxpayer subsidies for sweatshops.

He recently has taught at Pitzer College, Occidental College, and Harvard's Institute of Politics.

He has written eyewitness accounts for The Nation, where he serves on the editorial board, about the global justice movements in Brazil, Chile, Bolivia, Chiapas, and India.

He is the author or editor of thirteen books, including most recently:
Reunion (Random House, 1988), reissued as Rebel (2002): "a brilliant book, political autobiography at its most effective"[Christian Science Monitor]. One of the New York Times 200 best books of the year.

The Lost Gospel of the Earth (Sierra Club, 1996, reissue 2006): "His understanding of the basic religious issues involved in human-earth relations is clearly better than that of many theologians that I am acquainted with" [Thomas Berry] "A call for engagement in the transformative"[Joan Halifax]

Irish on the Inside (Verso, 2001): "a work of the poetic imagination, lovely, imagistic prose"[New York Times] "this book is history over amnesia" [Frank McCourt]

Street Wars (New Press, 2004) "an honest and gripping frontline account of America's young urban untouchables" [Danny Glover] "a remarkable job of putting together the vital realities of street violence" [Luis Rodriguez]

The Port Huron Statement (Thunders Mouth, 2005) "Tom Hayden's introductory essay is a brilliant exposition on how those words of 1962 have critical meaning for the world we live in now" [Howard Zinn]

Read more about Tom Hayden.

What is Levantine Cultural Center? Who are we; what do we stand for? And how do we do what we do?

We are an independent, nonprofit organization, devoted to the dream of peaceful coexistence in the Middle East and North Africa—and among our diverse communities in diaspora. Rather than performing social work or lobbying in Washington, we serve this dream by creating public programs of art, music, film, literature, theatre and other cultural explorations. These programs help create communitas and esprit de corps among people whose nationalities or religious identities are sometimes in conflict.

We serve as a bridge between academia and the community at large, and we’re also a reliable resource for the media seeking quality information on the Middle East.

Our long-term vision is the creation of a landmark Middle Eastern arts complex with theatres for film and the performing arts, as well as a comprehensive library, art galleries, conference spaces and classrooms. The center will feature a courtyard café-restaurant and offices with subsidized rent, where a wide range of social and cultural organizations connected to the Middle East and North Africa can be headquartered. In this way we will have created a true “center,” where the facilities will be shared, offering the widest imaginable range of programs and opportunities to learn.

Levantine Cultural Center will offer instruction in most of the region’s languages—Arabic, Armenian, Farsi, Greek, Hebrew, Turkish etc. (currently we offer conversational Arabic classes and hope to launch Farsi soon). The center and its participating organizations will present music and dance concerts, film screenings, theatrical performances, literary readings, debates and public conversations, and so much more.

The heart and soul of Levantine Cultural Center is only as vital as the people who make it real—its founders, the members of our Board of Directors and Advisory Board, our numerous volunteers, our diverse body of dues-paying members, and our donors. We view everyone as a stakeholder in our dream of peaceful coexistence and our ambitious plans to create the permanent Middle East arts center here in Southern California.

$20,000 For Levantine Cultural Center: A Matching-Grant Challenge

The other day, we received a pledge of $10,000 from a Los Angeles donor and are working to match it in February.

This means that any contribution you or any one you know might make will be worth double to us at this time.

Three important expenditures we will be able to make with this $20,000 are:

1. a complete revamp of our web site that will enable greater functionality, including podcasting and steaming video, plus putting into play an Amazon Associates program, whereby people discovering new Arab/Middle Eastern books, movies and music through our site will click through to purchase those cultural wares, resulting in 5-8% to us from Amazon—thus, for the first time, our web site will provide income for the center;

2. purchase of an invaluable nonprofit software database (Exceed Premiere), enabling us to track donors, membership and events, which we do now in the most primitive way using Excel;

3. rehiring a contract grant writer to file new grant applications on our behalf!

During our first years, 2001-2004, our average annual income was well below $25,000. In 2006 we reached $40,000 and in 2007 our gross was $127,000—quite modest by any measure, but still it represents growth.

Our goal in 2008 is to raise $250,000 or more so that we can, for the first time, hire paid staff, as well as acquire a new performing arts space of our own, 6,000-8,000 square feet. Our objective is to work in this space for five years, with the end goal being a capital campaign to create a permanent Levantine Cultural Center.

We’re ambitious enough to imagine that we can convince the visionary Iraqi-born/London-based Zaha Hadid to be our architect. And why not believe that Los Angeles merits such a project?

Recently we've added new advisory board members, who have made financial contributions, and we're developing a new Board of Trustees.

We have observed that many Arab, Iranian and Jewish Americans have come together to our programs (more than 260 so far!), along with Armenians, Turks—and many Americans who aren’t of Middle Eastern heritage. Levantine Cultural Center works! More than 25,000 people have attended our programs, and we are getting more than 200,000 visitors each month to our web site. Our monthly calendar (which often promotes events of other organizations and individuals, without charge) is a main attraction. We survive mainly on memberships, event income and small contributions from as little as $25 and ranging up to $2,500.

This year is the first time that someone in the community is stepping up with a $10,000 contribution, so this is a wonderful growth opportunity. Remember, your donation is worth double to the center. To make your contribution, send a check to Levantine Cultural Center, 1012 S. Robertson Blvd., Los Angeles CA 90035. You will receive a receipt within two weeks with our 501(c)(3) i.d. n. 91-2156607. Or if you prefer, you can call us to make a contribution via credit card: 310.657.5511.