🇵🇸 30-Day Hope Challenge

For the past few weeks, my heart has been bleeding watching the news covering the ongoing war. I’ve shed tears of pain and frustration at my helplessness. Somebody told me than when you feel this way, it means that your values have been hurt. And that taking action is the best way to fight back.

So I’ve decided to embark on a 30-day challenge, by sharing knowledge and showcasing what I love about Palestine, one item at a time. The hope is that, way before this challenge ends, the conflict will be over, more people will know about this nation’s beauty, and we’ll regain positive energy to keep going. Let’s go!

For the full experience with details of each thumbnail, please check my instagram.

#1 The Keffiyeh

🌞 Also called ghutrah (غُترَة), shemagh (شمَاغ), or ḥaṭṭah (حَطَّة) in Arabic, the keffiyeh’s origin traces back to Mesopotamia’s Sumerians around 3100BC, where it was worn by priests as a symbol of high rank or honour. It was adopted afterwards by peasants who wore it when working in the fields to shield them from the sun, the rain, the cold and the sand.

🇮🇶 The name “keffiyeh” originated from the Iraqi city of Kufa. The Iraqi scarf has more black than white, while the Palestinian one has more white than black. It reached Palestine during the British Mandate, when there were no borders or barriers between the countries.

🐐 Usually made of silk, cotton, or wool, it is square in shape – 120 cm x 120 cm –, decorated with fringes, and should be worn on the head or shoulders. Some wrap it around their head with an agal, a black piece of rope traditionally made of goat hair.

🫒 It is assumed that the shape of the embroidery represents the fishing net – a symbol of unity –, while the lines on the other side refer to the olive leaf – a symbol of Palestinian authenticity. The only factory that produces the Palestinian keffiyeh is the Hirbawi Keffiyeh Weavery, founded in 1961 and located outside Hebron.

💪 During the Arab revolt during the British Mandate & Zionist organisations in the 1930s, Palestinian rebels donned the keffiyeh to hide their identity and avoid getting arrested. When it was banned, all Palestinian started wearing it to make it harder to identify the rebels, making it a symbol of resistance especially during the Intifadas of 1987 and 2000. Two important Palestinian figures are deeply associated with the keffiyeh: President Yasser Arafat and PFLP member Leila Khaled.

🗓️ Did you know? 11 May is World Keffiyeh Day, and the Palestinian Ministry of Education set a national keffiyeh day on 16 November, to coincide with the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

#2 The Dead Sea

🌊 The Dead Sea is actually a lake with the lowest elevation (-427m) and is the lowest body of water on Earth. Its 3 shores border Jordan, Israel and the West Bank. The Jordan River, from which the Dead Sea receives nearly all its water, flows from the north into the lake.

💧 In the 1960s, Israel and Jordan began diverting much of the Jordan River’s flow and increased the use of the lake’s water itself for commercial purposes, causing a massive and continuous drop in the Dead Sea’s water level.

🧂 Much of its salt comes from rocks eroding on its shores. Acids in rainwater dissolve these rocks, creating ions — charged atomic particles — that runoff carries into the Dead Sea. The most common of these ions are sodium and chloride, which accumulate as salt.

💡 Did you know? In a 2011 expedition, researchers with specialised diving equipment descended to previously unreachable depths in the salty water, finding freshwater springs surrounded by colonies of microbes. The Dead Sea might not be so dead after all!

#3 Al-Aqsa Mosque

🕌 Located in the Old City of #Jerusalem, Masjid Al-Aqsa – Arabic for “the Furthest Mosque” – is the 3rd holiest site in #Islam, after the grand mosques in Mecca and Medina. It is also the holiest site in #Judaism, known as “Temple Mount”.

☪️ 🕎 Muslims believe that prophet #Muhammad was transported from the Sacred Mosque in Mecca to Al-Aqsa during the Night Journey, from where he ascended to the heavens. Jews believe it to be the place where #Abraham was to sacrifice his son.

📖 The term Al-Aqṣā Mosque is often used to denote the entirety of the plaza on which the mosque and the Dome of the Rock – the golden cupola shrine shown in illustration – stand, although the plaza is known formally as Al-Ḥaram al-Sharīf (“the Noble Sanctuary”).

👮 The mosque was originally a small prayer house built by caliph Umar but was rebuilt and expanded by the Umayyad caliph Abd al-Malik and finished by his son Al-Walid in 705 CE. Today, it is administered by the Jordanian/Palestinian-led Islamic Waqf.

 

#4 Mar Saba Monastery

🏰 Located east of Bethlehem, Mar Saba ranks with St Catherine’s Monastery in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula as one of the oldest inhabited monasteries in the world, currently hosting around 20 monks.

☦️ This Orthodox monastery was established in the 5th century by Saint Sabbas (“Mar Saba” in Arabic), a Georgian monk who was crucial in the development of the Christian Orthodox church and Eastern monasticism in general. It is administered by the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem.

⛔ Only men are allowed to tour Mar Saba, women may only look over the complex from a vantage point named the Women’s Tower — built by St Sabbas’ mother, who was also forbidden to enter.

💡 Did you know? For several centuries, Mar Saba housed the Archimedes Palimpsest: a 13th century prayer book containing erased texts written earlier – including two treatises by Archimedes that can be found nowhere else, The Method and Stomachion.

#5 Camels in Jericho

🔎 Jericho is one of the earliest continuous settlements in the world, dating from about 9000 BCE. The city’s site is of great archaeological importance, providing evidence of the first steps toward civilisation. Jericho’s Arabic name, Arīḥā, means ‘fragrant’ and has its roots in Canaanite “Reah”.

🏆 The Bible’s Jericho has been identified in the mound known as Tall Al-Sulṭān; the site was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2023. It is mentioned as the first town attacked by the Israelites under Joshua after they crossed the Jordan River, and where Herod the Great established a winter residence.

🏰 Located a few kilometers away, Khirbat al-Mafjar, an 8th-century building is a remarkable remnant from Umayyad rule, with delicate mosaic panels and pavements for which the complex is renowned.

🐪 There are camel rides available near the cable car leading up to the Mount of Temptation – “Jebel Qarantal”. This site is identified in ancient Christian tradition as the “high place” where, according to New Testament gospels, #Jesus was offered to rule over all the kingdoms of the world by the Devil.

#6 Nabulsi Soap

🧼 For over 1000 years, Nablus has been the historical centre of soapmaking throughout the region. The industry declined following the destruction caused by an earthquake in 1927, and later from the ongoing Israeli occupation.

🗝️ Today only 2 soap factories survive. The Tuqan family factory in Nablus – with its emblematic al-Muftaheen (“two keys”) logo – is the oldest survivor and continues to maintain this traditional craft.

🫒 The formula for the soap is simple: virgin olive oil, water, locally supplied lime, and a basic sodium compound made by mixing the powdered ash of barilla – a plant that grows along the banks of the Jordan river.

🌬️ The final stage of drying – lasting approximately 1 month – and storage process involves stacking individual bars into the large conical towers, allowing air to circulate between each bar.

 

#7 Sliman Mansour

👨‍🎨 Born in 1947 in Birzeit, Palestine, Sliman Mansour is a painter, sculptor, author and cartoonist. He studied fine art at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem. He has focused on the theme of land and the Palestinian struggle, depicting peasants and women in traditional outfits in his early work.

🐘 His work captures to the cultural concept of “sumud” (steadfast perseverance): a Palestinian cultural value and political strategy born in the wake the 1967 Six-Day War as a consequence of oppression and the resistance it inspired.

⛔ During the first intifada against Israeli occupation (1987 – 1993) he and other artists in the ‘New Vision’ art movement boycotted Israeli supplies: he used local materials like mud and henna in his work.

🐪 Sliman is particularly known for his 1973 work ‘Camel of Hardship’ depicting an old porter carrying Jerusalem on his back.

🌍 He has held solo exhibitions from New York to Norway and his work can be found in collections including Guggenheim Museum, Mathaf Gallery Limited and Institut du monde arabe.

#8 Le Trio Joubran

🪕 Le Trio Joubran is composed of 3 brothers from Nazareth: Samir, Wissam and Adnan Joubran. Virtuoso players of the oud — Arabic #lute —, they are descendants of 3 generations of oud makers and players.

🎶 Forming in 2004, they quickly became the world’s best-known Palestinian musicians, combining their technical mastery with deep knowledge of maqam — the melodic, modal traditions of Arab classical music. In 2007, with their song “Masâr”, the group’s popularity exploded. To date, it has been listened to over 6 million times on Spotify.

🕊️ They collaborated with Roger Waters, the founding member of Pink Floyd, on the title “Supremacy”, where he recites a poem by Mahmoud Darwish in his distinctive voice.

#9 Nabil Anani

👨‍🎨 Nabil Anani (1943, Halhul) is one of the founders of the contemporary Palestinian art movement. He experiments with different media and uses vibrant colours: a tribute to and a representation of Palestinian #heritage, especially his hometown.

🖌️ Nabil was 12 years old when he discovered his passion for art. At school, he used to sketch and doodle in notebook margins with a pencil or a pen. He was deeply inspired by Italian Renaissance artists such as Michelangelo and Raphael. In the 1960s he moved to Egypt to study art, the major centre of culture and education at the time.

 

#10 Malak Mattar

🧑‍🎨 Born and raised in Gaza, Malak Mattar is a young artist who creates strikingly expressionist faces and abstract works inspired by her early life. She grew up in an artistic family, with a poet grandfather and an uncle who was a painter and art professor. When she scored Gaza’s highest grade point average, she was offered the opportunity to attend university abroad and went to Turkey. She is currently based in London.

🎨 Malak started painting at age 13, during Israel’s 51-day military attack on Gaza in 2014 where 25% of her neighbourhood was destroyed by missiles. She felt the need to unleash her fear and anxiety as she was forced to hide home for her own safety. She began painting with watercolour on paper and art supplies from her school.

🗣️ “I don’t paint despite war and #occupation. I paint because of it. Living through this era of war, there’s a big part of me that wants to document. I have this feeling that everything I do will live longer than me, than everyone.”

#11 Maysa Daw

👩‍🎤 Born in Haifa in the 1990s, Maysa Daw is a musician and a singer, active in the indie scene. Her father, Salim Daw, is an established actor, and she found herself singing on stage at 10 years old. She moved to Jaffa to study in Tel Aviv.

💿 She released her debut album ‘Between City Walls’ in 2017. She has collaborated with artists from the Levant such as The Synaptik, TootArd and Ministry of Dub-key. Recently, she has integrated the Swiss-Palestinian collaboration called Kallemi.

♀️ Her breakthrough song with Palestinian hip-hop band DAM is called ‘#Who_You_R’: a poignant feminist track on gender inequality, supported by the United Nations Population Fund and the Danish government. She became an official member of the band in 2019.

👁️ Her work touches on issues that are close to her heart, such as equality, politics, a want for freedom and love under occupation. ‘Jasadik-hom’ (your -female- body is theirs) is a striking spoken-word song in which she addresses the dual oppression she experiences as an Arab woman living under occupation.

#12 Samia Zaru 

👩‍🎨 Samia Zaru (1938, Nablus, Palestine) is a multimedia artist, a scholar and an educator. She studied Fine Arts at the American University of Beirut and pursued her graduate studies in Washington. In the 1980s, she was the first artist in Jordan to create installations for public spaces.

⚙️ In her works, Samia pursues identity by addressing the Arab heritage in decoration, fashion, and embroidery. Her art includes paintings, sculptures, book illustrations, murals, engravings, and design. She mixes media and material using local dyes, wood, and ropes – and even casts her metal sculptures and produces her own embroidery!

📜 She said: “The beauty of nature attracts me, and tragedy touches me, the injustice of man to man upsets me, all this I can absorb and store in my memory. In moments, emotions explode, and memories come back.”

👩‍🎓 Samia is one of seven international experts with UNESCO to set the policy for the enhancement of arts in education and a founding member of The Jordan National Gallery of Fine Arts. In 2012 she received the TAKREEM Foundation award for cultural excellence.

🖼️ Her murals and urban art can be found in various locations across Amman. She has held several solo exhibitions in Beirut, Amman, London and Washington DC, winning medals and awards in Iraq, Egypt and Kuwait.

 

#13 Mahmoud Darwish

👓 Mahmoud Darwish (1941-2008) is considered Palestine’s national poet. Over his lifetime, he published more than 30 volumes of poetry and 8 books of prose, giving voice to the struggles of his people. “Identity Card” is arguably one of his most well-known poems, causing much controversy when published.

🏚️ During the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, his village was destroyed, causing his family to flee to Lebanon. They returned a year later clandestinely. Darwish faced house arrest and imprisonment for his political activism and for publicly reading his poetry.

❤️ In the 1960s, he fell in love with a Jewish woman. In his poem “Rita and the Rifle”, he describes both his love for his girlfriend, and the pain of the political conflict. In 1970, he left for Russia, attending the University of Moscow, and then moved to Cairo. He lived in exile for 26 years, between Beirut, Paris, London and Tunis.

#14 Edward Said

✍️ Edward Said (1935, Jerusalem -2003, New York) was a Palestinian-American author and scholar. He was an outspoken advocate of the political rights of Palestinians and the creation of an independent Palestinian state – and was also an accomplished musician and pianist.

🎓 He was 12 years old when he fled Jerusalem with his family in 1947 to Cairo, following the annexation of the neighbourhood in which he lived by what would become the State of Israel. He attended Princeton and Harvard Universities, where he specialised in English literature. He then became a professor at Columbia University.

📕 In 1978, he published “Orientalism”, his best-known work and one of the most influential scholarly books of the 20th century. It examined the Western construction of the “Orient,” specifically of the Arab Islamic world, which he argues was biased and projected a false and stereotyped vision of “otherness”, preparing the way for Western colonial policy.

🎼 In 1999, along with Daniel Barenboïm, his friend and an Argentinian-Israeli conductor, he founded the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra: a symphony orchestra composed of Israelis and Arabs, aimed at promoting peace in the Middle East through classical music. The Orchestra regularly performs worldwide to this day.

#15 Elia Suleiman

🎥 Born in Nazareth in 1960, Elia Suleiman is a Palestinian filmmaker and actor, best known for his award-winning 2002 film “Divine Intervention”, a modern tragicomedy about the Israeli occupation of Palestine. His cinematic style is often compared to that of Jacques Tati and Buster Keaton, for its poetic interplay between burlesque and sobriety.

🗼 He was not a cinephile to start with. He was drawn to cinema through one movie – Ozu’s “Tokyo Story” – which he watched in New York during a year he went to as many movie retrospectives as possible to educate himself. He felt Tokyo’s atmosphere was close to his hometown’s and made him want to write his own movies.

⚔️ The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is central to his artistic sensibility and the subject matter of many of his films. But in his view, the situation in Palestine is symptomatic of something bigger: movies do not have a nationality and experiences such as regression, pollution, economic crises, and globalisation are universal.

🗺️ Elia Suleiman lived in New York City for a decade (1982–93) before moving back to Palestine. As a professor teaching film and media at Birzeit University, he developed a new Department of Film and Media, which was funded by the European Commission. He is currently a professor of film at European Graduate School and a guest lecturer at various universities around the world.

📺 Watch snippets of his work here.

 

#16 Widad Kawar

👗 Known as “Umm l’ibas al-falastini” – the mother of Palestinian dress – Widad Kawar (1931, Tulkarem) is an internationally renowned collector of Jordanian and Palestinian ethnic and cultural #arts, and writer.

🪡 During childhood holidays in Aboud, her mother’s hometown, Widad started to learn about costumes and embroidery. After studying at the American University of Beirut, she got married and settled in Jordan, where she volunteered in Hussein and Wihdat refugee camps.

⛑️ After the 1967 war, she began to collect original Palestinian pieces – wedding dresses, head covers, jewellery – lest they be lost or influenced by life in refugee camps. She interviewed women all over Palestine to understand the way their roles had changed with the occupation, how they kept their heritage alive and their families together. These stories can be found in her book “Threads of Identity”.

🏠 In 2014, she opened Tiraz: Widad Kawar Home for Arab Dress museum. Located in Amman, Jordan, it contains the largest collection of Arab dresses: over 3,000 costumes and weavings from Palestinian, Jordanian, Syrian, Bedouin and other Arab cultures, from the 19th and 20th centuries. Widad received many accolades, including the Heritage Prize from the Sharjah government (2014), the Prince Claus International Prize (2012) and the King Hussein Medal (1993).

#17 Hind al Husseini

👩‍⚕️ Hind al Husseini (1916-1994) was a pioneer in education and volunteer social service in Palestine, dedicating her life to the care of orphans, education of girls and women, and preservation of Palestinian culture.

🏠 She founded “Dar al-Tifl al-Arabi” (the House of the Arab Child) in Jerusalem in 1948, to shelter 55 young children who survived the Massacre of the Palestinian village of Deir Yassin, during Israel’s war of independence. Over the years, more children were rescued; the orphanage expanded to include a school, a museum and a cultural centre.

🎓 As Hind was convinced that women had a right to proper education, she founded the Hind Al-Husseini College for Women in 1982 as a branch of Al Quds (Jerusalem) University. She was a coordinator of the Arab Women’s Union in the 1940s and a Palestinian National Council member.

🏅 She was awarded the Jordan Globe Medallion for social work in 1983 and for education in 1985. Hind also received the First Degree Medallion by the German government in 1989.

#18 Fadwa Touqan

✍️ Fadwa Tuqan (1917-2003, Nablus) was a Palestinian poet known throughout the Arab world as the “poetess of Palestine”, for her three-fold rebellion against her conservative upbringing, a repressive society, and traditional genre in Arabic poetry.

📝 Fadwa was raised as an unwanted child in an influential and traditional family and had to abruptly stop her education at age 13. Later, she was able to get away from her harsh home environment moving to Jerusalem to live with her brother Ibrahim, who taught her to write poetry.

♀️ Fadwa was the first female Palestinian poet to dedicate her life to writing poetry, and never married. She rose to become an early Arab feminist icon, addressing women’s issues publicly through her work. She has written about the restrictive nature of the patriarchy and its effect on her life, most notably in her memoir “A Mountainous Journey”.

🏆 Her writings range from feminine strength to human suffering and resistance against Israeli occupation, adding a human dimension to the Palestinian struggle. Selections of her poetry have been translated into many languages and she was awarded several international prizes.

 

#19 The Oud

👑 The oud has been considered the king of instruments in the Arab world. ‘Oud’ literally means ‘from wood’ or ‘stick’ in Arabic. It is known to be the father of the lute and the grandfather of the guitar and is over 5,000 years old.

🪵 Amongst the most used woods for the bowl body are maple, walnut, South American rosewood and African coral wood. High-quality ouds will generally use ebony for both their tuning pegs and fingerboard and the top will be made of two pieces of spruce fixed together.

🎶 Le trio Joubran is a famous Palestinian band composed of three brothers, descending from a 4-generation family of oud makers and players. Their mastery, harmony and synchronisation are mesmerising, creating a unique atmosphere they share all around the world.

🪕 Lebanese musician Marcel Khalife regularly collaborated with Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish. He composed and sang Darwish’s poetry on nationalism and revolution, while echoing the struggle of the Palestinian people worldwide.

#20 Dabke

🥁 Dabke is a folk dance which originated in the Levant and is now found in Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and parts of Iraq, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia. Dabke is derived from dabaka (دبكة), meaning “stamping of the feet” in Arabic. It is widely performed at weddings and festive events.

🌿 This line dance seems to date back to the 15th century when people made the roof of their houses with tree branches and mud. With weather changes, the mud would crack. Family members and neighbours would come help patch it by forming a line, joining hands, and stomping the mud into place.

📿 The dance leader – called raas (“head”) or lawweeh (“waver”) – heads the line twirling a small stick, a handkerchief or a string of beads (“misbaha”), similar to a rosary. The leader directs dancers to slow down or speed up, improvises and performs more difficult moves.

💃🕺 A basic dabke pattern has 6 steps and dancers usually move to the right. There are 6 main types of dabke: al sha’rawaiyya, al karadiyya, al farah, al ghazal, al sahja, and al shamaliyya. The latter is the most common and is danced by both men and women joining hands in a line or circle.

🎬 Watch it in action here! 

#21 Tatreez

🪡 Tatreez (تطريز), “embroidery” in Arabic, is a centuries-old art form preserved and passed on to from mother to daughter through oral history. Originally made and worn in rural areas, the social practice is now common in all Palestine & its diaspora and taught through formal training courses.

🧵 Women’s village clothing usually consists of a long dress, trousers, a jacket, a headdress, and a veil. Each of these garments is embroidered with a variety of symbols including birds, trees and flowers. The embroidery is sewn with silk thread on wool, linen, or cotton.

♀️ Tatreez is woven storytelling. It was a way for illiterate women to communicate with each other, passing stories of their lives from one generation to another. The choice of #colours and #designs indicates the woman’s regional identity as well as marital and economic status.

🪙 Palestinian embroidery was inscribed on UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2021.

 

#22 Dibis

🍯 Dibis is a date syrup and a nutritious natural sweetener. It means “molasses” in Arabic. Usually any syrup, especially fruit extract, has the prefix “dibis” in its name.

🍇 Extracting from fruits has been very common in the Levant since ancient times. Commonly used fruits are grapes, pomegranates, carobs and dates. Sometimes, sugar beet, figs, mulberry and juniper figs are also used in making fruit extracts.

🫓 How to savour it? Drizzle the syrup over tahini (sesame paste) and enjoy it for breakfast. My favourite way is spreading it over flat bread.

#23 Shisha

🫧 Arguile — also known as shisha, hookah, hubbly bubbly, or narghile — is a glass-based waterpipe used for smoking tobacco or molasses. It operates by water filtration and indirect heat and makes a fun bubbly noise when smoke is absorbed.

🥥 The first Indian water pipes were made of coconut shells from Narcil palm, which grows in India, giving it the name “narghile” in some countries. This coconut base was combined with a bamboo tube that played the role of the mouthpiece.

⏳ Where does it come from originally? This remains a mystery.
Some argue that it was used with narcotics by the Persians & Indians as an anaesthetic. However, during archaeological expeditions in Tanzania, Kenya, and Zambia, scientists found hashish pipes dating back to the 14th century, considered as prototypes of modern arguiles. Finally, American researchers have found that American Indians used pumpkin as a water base, passing the smoke through it.

🍉 This centuries-old tradition has become a very popular social activity in Palestine, generally practiced among same-gender groups of friends, or at family gatherings. There are many flavours to choose from: watermelon, mint, grapes, apple, bubble gum… You’ll quickly find your favourite!

#24 Arabic Coffee

☕ Coffee is more than a drink: it’s an everyday necessity integral to Arab hospitality. To guests, it is traditionally served with fresh and dried fruits, dates, and nuts. Arabic coffee was inscribed in 2015 on UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

⏳ The coffee industry in Palestine traces back to before 1948, when merchants enjoyed unrestricted mobility to cultivate, export, and import their coffee production. In Gaza, tools for grinding coffee beans dating back to the Ottoman era can be found.

✍🏼 The cultural significance of coffee comes to life in Palestinian writer Mahmoud Darwish’s poetry: “Conquerors can do anything. They can aim the sea, sky, and earth at me, but they cannot root the aroma of coffee out of me.”

🔎 Within the community, there is strong preference for the authentic Palestinian style Arabic coffee known as “qahwah arabiyya”, with no sugar. Its preparation begins with a long metal frying pan, filled with green coffee beans, and placed over a wooden stove. The pan is carefully moved around for approximately 10 minutes until the beans turn dark and release their aromatic essence. They are then transferred into a large clay pot and ground using a wooden crank, and a handful of cardamom seeds is added to the pot.

 

#25 Gaza Strawberries

🍓 Did you know that Gaza produced strawberries, also referred to as “red gold”? About 3,600 hectares of land are planted with strawberries, producing at least 8,000 tons of fruits every season. One of the most fertile regions is Beit Lahia, in the north of Gaza.

🧺 The strawberry harvesting season takes place from November to the end of March. It is widely sold in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Farming under a land, sea, and air blockade since 2007 is challenging: strawberries are subject to Israeli approval for export to Europe, and the use of some fertilisers is restricted, as they are considered “dual usage items”.

🪜 A few years ago, some farmers started implementing vertical farming, in greenhouses. This gives them 3 times more yield than traditional ground farming, while reducing the use of water, fertilisers and space.

#26 Mloukhiye

🍵 Also spelled mulukhiyah or molokhia, it refers to both a dish and to its main ingredient: the leaves of Corchorus olitorius, as known as jute mallow or bush okra. They are rather bitter and when boiled, the resulting liquid is a thick, gelatinous broth, often described as “slimy”.

🐔 Widespread and with many variations from Africa to Asia, in Palestine mloukhiye is generally consumed cooked with chicken, served with white rice, and a squeeze of fresh lemon on top.

⚕️ Mloukhiye contains potassium, iron, dietary fibre, magnesium, omega-3 fatty acids, as well as vitamins A, C and E. Among its many benefits, it improves blood circulation, lowers blood pressure, aids digestion, relieves insomnia, and boosts the immune system.

🏺 In 1005 AD, the Fatimid ruler of Egypt, Caliph Al-Hakim Bi Amr Allah, issued a decree which prohibited his subjects from eating mloukhiye, thought to be an aphrodisiac. The Druze, an ethnoreligious group found in the Levant, for whom Al-Hakim is a central figure, continue to observe the ban to this day.

#27 Maamool

🍪 Ma’amoul is a filled shortbread cookie made with wheat and/or semolina flour, stuffed with dried dates or nuts – and a touch of rosewater or orange blossom. The dough is pressed into molds traditionally carved in wood.

🙏 It’s an inclusive sweet, catering to all 3 religions present in Palestine: approximately 93% of the population is Sunni Muslim, 6% is Christian, and as surprising as it seems, a small proportion is Jewish. There are Samaritan Jews residing on Mount Gerizim, in the West Bank.

☪️ Muslims have it during Eid-al-Fitr, to celebrate the end of the dawn-to-sunset fasting month of Ramadan. Ma’amouls traditionally come with Arabic coffee and chocolate.

✝️ For Christians, it is for Easter: a welcome reward after the 40-day observance of Lent – recognising the time Jesus spent in the desert fasting – during which animal products and alcohol are traditionally forgone.

🕎 Jews eat it during Purim, to commemorate the salvation of the Jewish people in ancient Persia. It is said that as Queen Esther, heroine of the Purim story, had to hide her Jewish origin, “so the dainty pastry hides the rich nut filling inside”.

#28 Zaatar

🌿 Za’atar refers to both a spice blend, and to its key ingredient: hyssop, a Levantine species of oregano. The mixture – our topic – also includes toasted sesame seeds, dried sumac and salt.

👩‍🍳 Traditionally, housewives throughout West Asia make their own variations. That’s why it is hard to find very good za’atar in shops, as the best blends are homemade.

🧠 Za’atar contains vitamins A, C, E, and K: it increases energy, boosts the immune system, and fights depression! In Palestine, there is a folk belief that za’atar makes the mind alert, and children are sometimes encouraged to eat it at breakfast before school.

🫓 Za’atar is commonly eaten with pita, dipped in olive oil and then za’atar. There is also a delicious pastry called “manaesh”: spreading a pasty mix of olive oil and za’atar on flat breads, best served straight out of the oven.

#29 Dates

🌴 Date palm cultivation has been known in Palestine for 5,000 years in the regions of Jericho & the Jordan Valley in the West Bank (Medjool type) and in the Gaza Strip (Hayani type).

⚡ Dates are healthy in many ways:
– improved bone health: as they contain phosphorus, potassium, calcium, and magnesium.
– blood sugar control: thanks to their fibres, antioxidants and low glycemic index.

🙏🏼 Dates are a staple food during Ramadan, the Islamic holy month of fasting. They are eaten as part of “Iftar”, the evening meal taking place after the sun sets, and Muslims start breaking their daily fast by eating one.

#30 The Olive Tree

🌳 Palestine has some of the world’s oldest olive trees, dating back to 5,000 years. Around 48% of the agricultural land in the West Bank and Gaza is planted with olive trees and they account for 70% of fruit production.

💧 The olive tree is a national symbol, relating to rootedness and ability to survive in a land where water is scarce.

🎨 Olive trees are very present in Palestinian art, check out Nabil Anani,  Sliman Mansour and Nada Esmaeel.

 

A couple of resources to get more info on Gaza & Palestine:
📺 Watch list: https://www.afikra.com/blog/palestinian-films 
📕 Reading list: https://www.pinkjinn.com/2023/11/03/reading-list-gaza-palestine/