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Last summer I traveled to Palestine with a group of sixteen
librarians and archivists in order to connect with Palestinian colleagues in
libraries, archives, and related projects and institutions and to gain mutual
benefit through information exchange and skill-sharing. For the past ten years,
I have been working in Palestine in various capacities, including with many
delegations, but this was the first time I was fortunate enough to be able to
merge my two worlds – Palestine and librarianship. What I’d like to share with
you is some of what I learned from Palestinian school librarians and youth
services librarians in particular, both in the West Bank and inside Israel.
Near Ramallah, in the central West Bank, we spoke with staff
from Al Bireh Public Library and from the Tamer Institute about the obstacles
to obtaining quality children’s literature in Arabic. Much of the best Arabic
kids’ literature these days is published in Beirut, and the Israeli government
(which controls all borders of the West Bank) does not let books in from Lebanon.
Even when libraries try to obtain Arabic-language books through third parties, the
books are often held up in Customs for months. Whether they’re ultimately
allowed in or not seems somewhat arbitrary, and the libraries are required to
pay for the costs of holding them in Customs. A Swedish librarian who was on
our delegation commented that at the Madaa Silwan Creative Center in Jerusalem,
she saw more books translated from Swedish into Arabic than originally written
in Arabic, and she has more books originally written in Arabic in her library
in Stockholm than they do at the center! The Tamer Institute for Community
Education has tried to mitigate the negative effects of these Israeli
restrictions by co-publishing a few titles with publishers in Beirut, and by
publishing a few of their own as well, but their efforts are not adequate to
meet the needs of the children they’re serving.
In Haifa, the situation is even more difficult. Although
supposedly a “mixed city” of Jewish and Palestinian citizens of Israel, Haifa
has 22 public library branches that primarily serve the Jewish community, and
only one that serves the Palestinian community. Even this one branch is
privately funded by an NGO, rather than by the Israeli government. We spoke to
a number of Palestinian school and public librarians in Haifa who, because of
difficulty traveling between Israel and the West Bank, are largely unable to
supplement their collections with books put out by the Tamer Institute.
Instead, most of their Arabic language books are low-quality translations of
Hebrew books, effectively denying Palestinian citizens of Israel their literary
heritage. This must be seen in its larger context, librarians told us, in which
the Israeli government has for decades tried to erase Palestinian identity by
calling Palestinians inside Israel “Israeli Arabs” or “Arab Israelis.” So
whereas the availability of quality Arabic children’s literature could be a
powerful way to preserve Palestinian identity and culture, the lack of
availability further demoralizes the community.
I’ve shared these stories with a few people upon return from
Palestine, and they’ve been moved to try to organize book deliveries to
Palestine. Our delegation has had similar thoughts, but we must be careful how
we approach this. Librarians in Palestine made it clear to us that they are not
looking for a charity model. Not only can charity easily be accompanied by a
colonialist attitude, but it simply won’t work. Large shipments of books would
be held up at Customs for months, and smaller deliveries would do more to make
us feel good about ourselves than make any significant dent in a system
designed to prevent such a project. Palestinian libraries in the West Bank and
inside Israel face a political problem that is at the core of any economic or
humanitarian problems we might more easily address. But this should not stall
our work. We are beginning conversations about effective follow-up, and we hope
others will join us in these efforts. In the meantime, we can support some of
the amazing organizations that are doing such important work on the ground.
Here are a few:
Lajee Center in Aida
refugee camp, Bethlehem – youth center that has, among other things, conducted
workshops with children in which they have written and illustrated their own
children’s books
To keep in touch with the delegation:
Our
website – Here you can read more and see the statement we put out shortly
after we returned.
AND, we’re having a delegation reportback at
Bluestockings bookstore at 7 pm on Thursday, October 24. Come on by!
Looking forward to any questions or comments you have. All
questions welcome!
