Welcome to the Forward’s coverage of the Nakba (Arabic for “Catastrophe”), the forced expulsion of Palestinians from Israel after the country was established in 1948.
Nakba
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Culture Why does everyone want Jerusalem? CNN investigates in a new docuseries
Sunday night, after Jews around the world mourn the destruction of the Temples in Jerusalem on Tisha B’av, CNN will premiere a series that — in so many words — traces 3,000 years’ worth of conflict to the laying of those structures’ cornerstones. Solomon’s Temple, author Susan Wise Bauer argues in “Jerusalem: City of Faith…
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Opinion It’s Time For American Jews To Recognize The Nakba
In a beautifully written column last week, the Israeli journalist Anshel Pfeffer explicated the contradiction at the heart of hasbara: by aggressively advocating for Israel’s right to exist, it implicitly grants that Israel’s legitimacy is actually a matter of debate. After all, he writes, “real countries don’t have to argue they are legitimate.” As we…
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Fast Forward Street Near Paris Named For Nakba, Dubbing Israel A ‘Catastrophe’
Update, 1:15 p.m.: On Tuesday afternoon, the signs for Nabka Alley were ordered removed by the mayor of the Bezons municipality in the northwestern Paris region. Dominique Lesparre made the order at the request of the top central government official for the Val-d’Oise region, who said they could “seriously disrupt public order,” according to reports….
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Community Why is Normalization Of Israel Stigmatized In Palestinian Society?
While Zionists around the world celebrated Israeli Independence Day, Yom Ha’atzmaut, on May 2, Palestinians commemorated the Nakba, the resulting “catastrophe” on May 15. On June 5, Palestinians will also commemorate the 50th year of living under occupation, while for some Israelis it is the 50th year of the unification of what they describe as…
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Opinion Memories Of The Six-Day War Still Haunt Many Palestinians
Leila Awawdeh felt like a mother to me. Yes, she is Palestinian, a devout Muslim woman in her late 50s. And when I met her, I was a 22-year-old Jewish New Yorker, traveling around the region to interview locals for a book project. But on the streets of Hebron’s Old City, her calm, quiet voice…
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Community What We Talk About When We Don’t Talk About The Nakba
In recent weeks, I have been paying particular attention to the arguments in favor of Zionism from those who call themselves progressive Zionists and call for a two-state solution, support Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, and express criticism of some of Israel’s policies and actions. More precisely, I have been paying attention…
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Opinion Why We Flouted Hillel Rules To Hold Nakba Event at Brown University
On May 11, more than 70 students crowded into the Hillel meeting room at Brown University/Rhode Island School of Design for a screening of three short films produced by the Israeli NGO Zochrot, and for a discussion about the Nakba (“catastrophe” in Arabic, referring to the 1948 Palestinian expulsion), the politicization of memory, and the…
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Opinion 4 Stories from Zochrot Truth Commission On 1948
Palestinians mark the anniversary of the 1948 Nakba or ‘Day of Catastrophe’ / Getty Images Is Israeli society ready to reckon with 1948? On Wednesday, Zochrot, an Israeli organization devoted to raising awareness about the Nakba — when 700,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled by Jewish forces during Israel’s founding war — held its first…
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