Facing the Nakba offers educational resources to U.S. Jews and a general U.S. audience about the history of the Nakba (“Catastrophe” in Arabic) and its implications in Palestine/Israel today. The Nakba refers to the forced displacement of Palestinians that began with Israel’s establishment, and that continues to this day.

Based upon the study guide published by Israeli NGO Zochrot, entitled “How do you say Nakba in Hebrew?,” Facing the Nakba has developed a curriculum and teaching guide about the Nakba for use in workshops and classrooms across the U.S. As educators and activists, we have seen how acknowledgment of the Nakba can deepen discussions of the history of Palestine, Israel, and the occupation. We have seen how silence about the Nakba in American Jewish communities and institutions has enabled a massive ignoring of history and sidelining of Palestinian voices. With this curriculum, we hope to shift and enrich conversations in the U.S. about the history of and possibility for justice in Palestine/Israel.

This gallery includes some of the images, videos, and poems used in our curriculum. The curriculum takes participants through an exploration of the historical events leading up to 1948, an examination of the meaning of testimony, an analysis of the right of return for Palestinian refugees, and a reflection on art and resistance today. Many of these pieces are used to illustrate how the Nakba continues to impact Palestinian life now, and how art is used as an act of peaceful resistance. We place different versions of history in conversation with “official history,” to see where they differ and how we can interpret that conflict.

We ask participants and those viewing this gallery to consider: How do these pieces reflect on memory, loss, staying, forgetting? Where have you seen, heard, experienced myths collapsing through art? In what ways can art and storytelling erase, make visible, or change narratives and memory? In what way and through what language do these pieces seem to be universal or particular? What can we learn from them about the historical record?

Featured

I Belong There

"I Belong There," 1986.

Mahmoud Darwish (1941-2008) and his family were forced to leave their village in 1948 and head to Lebanon. This poem is found in Unfortunately, It Was Paradise, translated and edited by Munir Akash and Carolyn Forché with Sinan Antoon and Amira El-Zein.

Remembering Our Village

"Remembering Our Village," Bashir Sinwar, 1985. From the Palestine Poster Project Archives.

There Was No Farewell

"There Was No Farewell, "1988.

Taha Muhammad Ali (1931-2011) was from the village of Saffurriyya in the Galilee, which was destroyed in 1948. This poem is found in So What: New & Selected Poems, 1971–2005. Translated from the Arabic by Peter Cole, Yahya Hijazi, and Gabriel Levin.

Tomorrow We Will Return

Publisher: Badil Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights. "Tomorrow We Will Return," 2007. On the annual commemoration of the Nakba. From the Palestine Poster Project Archives.

Trailer: Past Tense Continuous

"Past Tense Continuous,"Dima Hourani, 2015.

In the words of artist Dima Hourani: "Three Palestinian refugee families, with different ages, regions, and fears, carrying their basic and personal belongings along with them in an old truck, through a continuous journey that started 66 years ago. An intervention artwork performing and re-interpreting the Black and White shaded gradients in the Palestinian collective memory and photography archives about Al-Nakba; the 1948 Palestinian catastrophe." For more information about how this piece was brought to life and to see additional photos, click here.

Nation Estate (fragment) / BIEFF 2013

"Nation Estate," Larissa Sansour, 2012.

In the words of artist Larissa Sansour: "The Nation Estate project consists of a 9-minute sci-fi short film and a photo series offering a clinically dystopian, yet humorous approach to the deadlock in the Middle East. With its glossy mixture of computer generated imagery, live actors and an arabesque electronica soundtrack, the Nation Estate film explores a vertical solution to Palestinian statehood. Palestinians have their state in the form of a single skyscraper: the Nation Estate. One colossal high-rise houses the entire Palestinian population - now finally living the high life." For more information about the piece, click here.

Udna - al-Ghabisiyya

"Welcome to al-Ghabsia," 2015. A model for the return to their village, created by descendents of those displaced during the Nakba.

About the creators: "Udna (Our Return) is a political-educational project started in 2012. It is a joint project of the Arab Association for Human Rights, the Association for the Defence of the Rights of the Internally Displaced, Baladna - Association for Arab Youth, and Zochrot. The aim of the project is to visualize Return to the displaced villages through workshops with youth groups made up of internally displaced young people."