2019 North America Nakba Tour: 71 Years of Exile
In 2016 the Nakba Tour brought 21-year-old Amena ElAshkar and 86-year-old Nakba survivor Mariam Fathalla to 26 venues in North America. In 2017, Amena journeyed with 85-year-old Khawla Ibrahim to another 29 venues.
This year, Amena is returning with Umm Akram (Mariam Fathalla), now 89, to share her personal story of the most tragic event in Palestinian history.
On May 14, 1948, as Zionist leader David Ben Gurion was proclaiming a Jewish state in Palestine, his troops drove out the inhabitants of the ancient Palestinian town of al-Zeeb. 18-year-old Mariam Fathalla (Umm Akram) was one of them. She and her young husband fled to Lebanon. By year’s end the 4,000-year-old community had been leveled. More than half of all Palestinians were killed or expelled and more than half the cities, towns and villages disappeared, a crime that Palestinians call al-Nakba (the Catastrophe). Now 89 years old, Mariam has spent the last 71 years in crowded, makeshift refugee camps in Lebanon. She has raised three generations, all waiting to return to Palestine. She has seen five Israeli invasions of Lebanon, as well as the 1976 Tel al-Zaatar camp massacre that killed more than 2000 refugees there.
Amena ElAshkar, 24, is a Palestinian journalist and translator. the granddaughter and great granddaughter of Nakba survivors and has known no home other than a refugee camp.
Invite these two stateless Palestinian refugees to speak in your community.
The tour will begin in Washington DC on March 3, 2019, and will travel by car south toward New Orleans, then north through the Midwest to Minnesota before ending in Chicago and Southern California in early May.
We need your help to tell their story.
- Book a spot along the Nakba Tour route (included below).
The local sponsors of the event will be the primary organizers, but we will help and advise you with protocol, advice, logistics and outreach, including advertising. We will make sure the speakers and field coordinator / tour driver / videographer Samir Salem are able to travel to your venue.
- If you do not see your city or town on the route, but are interested
in sponsoring an event please contact us to see if we can find a way to
reach your destination. - If you do not live along the route, contact us about hosting a live-streaming event.
- Donate!
- Contact us to help organize! We are always in need of volunteers.
- And, most importantly: forward this announcement to all of your lists and follow us on Facebook!
Costs for hosting an event:
Our costs are estimated to be $1500 per event. We need to raise these funds to make the tour possible, but we are asking each host of an event along the Tour to provide a minimum payment of $500. If you, your organization or institution can afford more, there is no doubt that we will need it.We want to ensure the event affordable for student groups and others that cannot afford to pay the total cost. We also hope to raise much of the cost from generous donors that may or may not be on the tour route. We will need $200 in advance to reserve your event and at the remaining balance at the event itself. We also ask you to provide lodging and meals for the speakers and field coordinator during their visit to your community (homestays and shared rooms are very acceptable).
Universities are asked to provide a minimum of $500 honorarium and make similar housing and meal arrangements. We will also make informational materials available for use along the Tour.
Go to nakbatour.com for more information or email us at info@nakbatour.com.
Projected 2019 Nakba Tour approximate event dates (to be filled with your events)
March 4-5 Washington, DC
March 7-8 Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill
March 9 Charlotte
March 12 Atlanta
March 14 Tupelo/Birmingham/Tuscaloosa
March 16 Mobile
March 17 New Orleans
March 20 Houston
March 22-23 Austin/San Antonio/College Station
March 25 Dallas
March 26-27 Tulsa/Oklahoma City/Norman/Stillwater
March 28 Arkansas Ozarks
March 30-31 Memphis/Nashville
April 3-4 Louisville/Indianapolis
April 5-6 Champaign/University of Illinois
April 7-8 Midwest college towns
April 10-11 St. Louis
April 13 Columbia, MO
April 15-16 Lawrence/Kansas City
April 17 Omaha/Des Moines
April 18-19 Sioux City/Sioux Falls
April 20-21 Minneapolis
April 22-24 Madison/Milwaukee
April 26-27 Chicago
April 29-May 3 Southern California
Watch a previous Nakba Tour event!
Watch Amena and Mariam Fathallah discussing their experiences, histories and struggles: