Join us for our fourth RCF Gaza Committee Meeting where we will be working with New Image Theater and Seattle Mideast Awareness Campaign (SeaMAC) to present the play Seven Days from a Gaza Diary. We will be meeting at the home of our Board Member, Farihan Bushnaq for dinner and to share stories of Palestinian struggle for recognition and homeland.

Arrive 6:30 pm for Dinner. Farihan will be making Mujedara, a delicious Middle Eastern dish of chicken, rice, and lentils.

Performance: 7:00 pm with discussion to follow

Seven Days from a Gaza Diary 

On December 27, 2008, a 27-year-old woman, Khulood Ghanem, was in Gaza City when Israel launched its massive, three-week military assault on Gaza known as Operation Cast Lead. Khulood kept a diary, making an entry about her experience every day of the assault. The first seven days of her diary have been adapted for a reading performance.

This event open to the public and we ask for a suggested donation of $20 for dinner and to help support our Gaza Projects. Spaces are limited. Please RSVP to [email protected] so we can provide you with the address to the event.

Current Situation: The people of Gaza are facing one of the most difficult periods since the Israeli military siege began ten years ago. Electricity provision is at an all-time low as a result of political calculations made by Israel and supported by the Palestinian Authority. As of July, the average Gazan’s access to daily electricity dropped from four to six to as little as two to three hours a day.De-development of the Gaza Strip is making it unlivable. For more resources about Gaza head over to our Gaza Resource Page.

In order to devote needed and sustained attention to the deteriorating situation in Gaza, the Gaza Committee will support RCF’s work in Gaza as well as emerging issues in Gaza.

Let’s come together to celebrate our achievements, honor our supporters, and rededicate ourselves to the critical work of shifting public opinion and growing support for Palestinian rights! Now in our second decade, IMEU (Institute for Middle East Understanding) is as committed as ever to engaging the mainstream media to ensure that Palestinian voices and perspectives are heard. And we are thrilled to honor Seattle Seahawk Michael Bennett who courageously declined a propaganda tour meant to stifle such voices. It’s going to be an amazing evening and we can’t wait to see you there!

Olympia Poetry Network presents their monthly poet and open mic!

Wednesday, September 20, 2017
6:30–8pm
Traditions Fair Trade Café
5th Ave & Water Street, downtown Olympia

Lena Khalaf Tuffaha is an American writer of Palestinian, Syrian, and Jordanian heritage. She holds a BA in Comparative Literature from the University of Washington, and an MFA from Pacific Lutheran University. Her first book of poems, Water & Salt, was published by Red Hen Press. She is the winner of the 2016 Two Sylvias Prize for her chapbook Arab in Newsland. She writes poetry, essays and literary translations, and her poems have been translated into Arabic, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Norwegian, and Spanish. She has been published in International and American journals, including Kenyon Review Online, diode, Al-Ahram Weekly, Barrow Street, Hermeneutic Chaos, Black Warrior Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, Massachusetts Review, and Winter Tangerine. Her poems have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net, and anthologized in books including Letters to Palestine, and the forthcoming Halal If You Hear Me and Bettering American Poetry, Vol.2. Lena is a Hedgebrook alum and a proud member of RAWI (Radius of Arab American Writers).

In Case of Emergency
This is how you open the box
when I am no longer here.
One of these might be the combination:
1975
The year you were born
1967
The year we lost the rest of our country
1936
The year your grandmother swallowed her gold coins
to hide them from the soldiers
This is how you keep yourself
safe, keep parts
of yourself in different boxes
Trust no one
with everything
1949
The year my father died
1977
The year the checkpoint taught you
the difference between your name and your passport
1999
The year the last of our olives were uprooted
and the wall obscured Jerusalem
This is how you know it will end:
At night the windows of the city become mirrors,
a key recalls the shape of its doorway,
the stones of this earth nestle in young hands.