On Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced his inability to form a new government. BBC reported that since Netanyahu failed, his opponent Benny Gantz will have the opportunity to build a government. The results of the September election showed that Gantz’s Blue and White party won 33 seats; just 28 seats shy of being […]

On social media sites and in chat rooms, Arabic-speaking populations could suddenly speak to and entertain each other in their own dialects. But bringing Arabic online wasn’t easy: not only were these dialects spoken, not written, many websites weren’t able to accommodate Arabic script (most social media sites only added Arabic-supported versions in the late 2000s). The solution Arabic-speaking youth developed was Arabizi, a method of transliterating Arabic with Latin letters and numerals to represent letters not present in English.

Written by Aline Batarseh on March 14, 2019 Misrepresentations of the Arab world, especially Palestine, in school textbooks is a widespread problem that has contributed to anti-Arab racism, Islamophobia and fear of “the other” over at least the past two decades in the U.S. In September 2018, the National Arab American Women’s Association (NAAWA), a social […]

What are the marriage trends among American Muslims? Marriage is a constant topic in American Muslim circles. Islamic texts encourage marriage. But, given that a majority of American Muslims are first-, second-, or third-generation immigrants, the concept of marriage can take on heightened significance as the community continues to establish itself in the US while […]

In this republished article by journalists William Booth and Hazem Balousha, educated and unemployed Palestinians in their 20s discuss lives bereft of opportunity and hope. Nearly 60 percent of young Gazans are unemployed and most would leave if it were possible. With few stable job prospects and no escape, many have resorted to occasional odd […]

Filmmakers Julia Meltzer and Laura Nix profiled Houda al-Kabash and her Qur’an school for women and girls in Damascus, Syria, for the New York Times. Houda al-Habash, a conservative Muslim preacher, founded the Qur’an school 30 years ago. Every summer, her female students immerse themselves in a rigorous study of Islam. A surprising cultural shift […]

This in-depth profile looks at key participants in the 2011 Egyptian uprisings as well as the first post-Mubarak presidential election candidates. In addition, you will find a few contemporaneous articles that demonstrate the impassioned atmosphere at that time. Asmaa Mahfouz Asmaa Mahfouz was born on February 1st, 1985. She graduated from Cairo University with a BA [...]
Two years and a day after being shot by Taliban gunmen for defying their proscription of girls' education in the Swat Valley of northern Pakistan, 16-year old Malala Yousafzai has been awarded the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize for her advocacy of educational access for all, regardless of gender or religion. She shares the award with [...]
Bridges of Understanding is a non-profit organization that engages in educational, outreach, and special events programming to bridge the divide between the people of the United States and the Middle East.  Bridges at School is a topical curriculum developed for American middle school classrooms. Contextualizing the Arab World and providing a unique series of both critical [...]