With the recent news of the death-in-action in Gaza of Hamas’s Secretary-General Yahya Sinwar, it became even more important than previously for global publics to gain a rich understanding of the history and political development of this notable Palestinian resistance movement, and the ways it makes its decisions and chooses a new leader. Hence the extreme timeliness of Understanding Hamas And Why That Matters, the book that Just World Ed and our partners at OR Books in New York released earlier this month.
The formal publication date of the book was October 8. That was the day on which major online and bricks-and-mortar book retailers in North America released the book to their customers. But even before that date, Just World Ed and OR books held two initial launch events for the book– one in New York and one in DC, as we reported here, earlier.
Then, October 7, JWE president Helena Cobban, who had co-authored the book with fellow board member Rami G. Khouri, traveled to the San Francisco Bay Area to headline a series of other book events. Over the week that followed she spoke at six very well-attended public events, including gigs in Marin County, Oakland, Saratoga, Santa Cruz, downtown SF, and Sacramento.
More book events next week!
Helena Cobban’s book-launch schedule continues next week with a hybrid (live + online) event at Georgetown University at 4 pm ET on Wednesday, 10/23, and a virtual-only event hosted by Scotland’s ‘Balfour Project’ at 3 pm UK Time on Thursday, 10/24.
Find more details of these events, here.
New videos!
We now have new videos available of two of the book events thus far:
- This one (120 minutes) captures the intriguing discussion that Helena Cobban held in Washington DC on the theme of the book, with renowned Israeli-American justice activist Miko Peled.
- This one (90 minutes) shows the conversation that Prof. Omar Zahzah held with Helena in downtown SF’s Eric Quezada Center– including the video message that Ramii Khouri had sent to attendees.
And we’re also delighted to share with you this 75-minute video record of our initial event, at the OR Books space in NYC, which was shot and edited by the talented videographer Cindy Chwe.
More on our Bay Area events
Two of our great Bay Area board members– Rick Sterling and Nora Barrows-Friedman— had worked with numerous other local social-justice leaders to plan and present the six very educational gatherings we held in the (Greater) Bay Area. We were thrilled that the following orgs co-sponsored one or more of our events:
- The Center for Political Education
- The Palestinian Youth Movement
- Eastside Arts Alliance
- JVP-Bay Area
- JVP-Sacramento
- NorCal Sabeel
- Santa Cruz Palestine Justice Coalition
- Bandung Books (Oakland)
- Beers Books (Sacramento).
Here’s a (poorly organized) gallery of photos from the tour:
