By Sarah Burke

Sadder Than Water: poems by Samih al-QasimMaps

Several years ago I traveled in Tunisia with a friend. We felt pretty cool: we avoided the resorts, took local transport, ate local food, practiced our languages. One day we rolled into a town by the edge of the Sahara that is the starting point of many coordinated journeys into the desert—camels, sunset over the dunes, dinner cooked on a fire, etc. We had compared the reviews of several tour agencies in Lonely Planet and Rough Guide, volumes stored like talismans in our respective backpacks. As we emerged from the shared van into this new town, a man approached us and began talking about the agency he represented. It was the best, he said, the number one agency for trips into the desert.

Descent: an installation by Joyce DallalJoyce Dallal's breathtaking installation Descent—made of hundreds of paper airplanes printed with the articles of the Geneva Conventions—will be featured in an exhibition entitled "Flight" at the United Nations in New York, Jan 16-Feb 20, 2009, along with African artist Samuel Komlan Olou's installation "Ese." The show will be in the North East Gallery of the Visitors Lobby, entrance is on First Avenue at East 46th Street.

The exhibition presents two installations connected by the theme of war and its impact on human beings. Dallal's piece focuses on the texts of the Geneva Conventions and Sam Komlan Olou's on the theme of migration. Descent was first installed last summer at the Barnsdall Art Gallery in C.O.L.A. 2007/2008, prompting the essay below by Doris Bittar.

Since the tragic events of 9/11, there has been an upsurge in ethnic comedy by Arabs/Muslims in America. More and more Arab/Muslim individuals and groups such as "Allah Made Me Funny," the "Sultans of Satire" and "Axis of Evil" are appearing on stage with comic routines and they are attracting larger and larger non-Muslim audiences. Paradoxically, a tragedy that triggered widespread Islamophobia in American society seems also to have opened the field for Arab/Muslim comedy.

This panel discussion and lecture series, sponsored by The Middle East Center at the University of Pennsylvania, will explore the landscape of American Middle Eastern ethnic comedy and its intricate relationship with Islamophobia.

Panel Members: Mucahit Bilici (Professor of Sociology at John Jay College-CUNY), Jordan Elgrably (Founder of Levantine Cultural Center, and the Sultans of Satire: Middle East Comic Relief) and Rahim Armat (of Kodoom.com, Cultural Events Search Engine).

Contact Rahim Armat: 302.521.6606
or Jordan Elgrably: 310.402.8866




[Philadelphia, December 26, 2008]—The Sultans of Satire show features some of the best stand-up comedians today who happen to be of Arab, Iranian, Turkish, Greek, Armenian and Middle Eastern Jewish heritage. In “West Meets East: The Inauguration Tour,” Sultans regulars Mike Batayeh, Noel Elgrably and Elham Jazab, plus special surprise guests, will perform live in Philadelphia on January 16, 2009 and in Washington DC on January 18, when they’ll offer their own brand of outrageous comedy, along with satirical insights on the inauguration of Barack Hussein Obama.

Sultans of Satire Inauguration Tour

The Sultans of Satire show features some of the best stand-up comedians today who happen to be of Arab, Iranian, Turkish, Greek, Armenian and Middle Eastern Jewish heritage. In “West Meets East: The Inauguration Tour,” Sultans regulars Mike Batayeh, Noel Elgrably and Elham Jazab, plus special surprise guests, will perform live in Philadelphia on January 16, 2009 and in Washington DC on January 18, when they’ll offer their own brand of outrageous comedy, along with satirical insights on the inauguration of Barack Hussein Obama.

By Cecile Sarruf

What causes land to be hilly, lumpy and unkempt; for weeds to grow wildly and one small cat to roam freely amongst the bones of the Jews? Despite the deconstruction and abandon of war and the near annihilation of what was once a population of 20,000 Jewish people in Lebanon, Mother Nature has willfully broken through the earth’s crust as if to make mockery of man’s religious zeal and plight to divide.

By Alfred Madain

I was recently enlightened about the idea of collective guilt while watching a documentary on people who are attempting to make peace between Israelis and Palestinians. A former Israeli hardliner mentions in the documentary that he had always felt the burden of having to carry the weight of the persecution of all Jews throughout history and that is the reason that he felt that he had to protect Israel at any cost.

I very much empathized with these words for as I was growing up in Jordan the ideals of Arab nationalism had seeped into me. I later learned that most Arabs, from Morocco to Iraq, feel the same guilt and sense of responsibility for the oppression of all Arabs through Turkish and European colonialism and of course dealing with the immediate persecution of our fellow Arabs, the Palestinians. It was clear to me as a child to feel united with a collective Arab identity for two specific reasons: my dislike of Israel and my Arab nationalistic identity through my dislike for nations like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait where it is felt “Arab money” is being wasted instead of being used to help the Palestinians.

Fez: Queen of Cities

An evening of live music and dance at UCLA's Royce Hall

Divahn: Jewish music of the Middle East in Persian, Arabic, Turkish, Aramaic, Hebrew and Judeo-SpanishAnyone who thinks Jewish music equals klezmer needs to hear Divahn's Middle Eastern and Sephardic grooves. Fans first heard Divahn's energetic music deep in the heart of Texas. Today, this dynamic New York City-based quintet delights audiences throughout the country and has made numerous live radio appearances. Divahn infuses traditional songs with sophisticated harmonies and arrangements using tabla, cello, rabel, doumbek, violin and other acoustic instruments, plus vocals in Hebrew, Judeo-Spanish, Persian, Arabic, Aramaic and Turkish.

Their beautiful lyricism flows through an intense rhythmic drive. The group distinguishes itself as the only all-female ensemble performing Mizrakhi-influenced music (Jewish music from

the Middle East and North Africa) in the US, and has performed with some of the world's most renowned master musicians, including Glen Velez and Anindo Chatterjee.

By Rachel Donadio

From the war in Iraq to the rumblings in Iran to the heightening tensions between Israelis and Palestinians, there are few bright spots in the Middle East these days. But one boutique Jerusalem press has cleared a space for conversation in a contentious region. Started in 1998 by a husband-and-wife team, Ibis Editions has published English translations of works in Hebrew, Arabic, Greek, French, German and Judeo-Spanish—all relating to the Levant.