This Resource Center presents the video records and all the other multi-media products of a webinar-based project that Just World Educational presented between late November 2020 and August 2021, in conjunction with the release by Just World Books of the 3rd edition of Laila El-Haddad and Maggie Schmitt's documentary cookbook The Gaza Kitchen: A Palestinian Culinary Journey.

This project aimed to explore the food sovereignty challenges faced at that time by the 2.3 million Palestinian residents of Gaza, and to connect those challenges with the similar challenges faced by endangered societies and cultures in other parts of the world.

Of particular relevance as Israel continues its 2023-24 genocide in Gaza are the three short videos we had commissioned for this project in late 2020 from Al-Ain Media of Gaza. Al-Ain head Roshdi Sarraj and his team took great care, under very trying circumstances, to shoot these short pieces which featured different participants in Gaza's food system: A woman farmer, an organic farmer, and a tahineh-production factory. In early November 2023 we were saddened to learn that in late October the Israeli military had killed Roshdi while he was in his home with his family.

Scroll down to find the records of our 2020-21 webinars and all the other resources produced during this project.

• “Eating the Other: Food Sovereignty in Palestine and the US” a webinar that JWE presented on November 28, 2020, jointly with Grassroots International. This dialogue session featured a panel moderated by Grassroots International Executive Director Chung-Wha Hong , in which Maggie Schmitt and Laila El-Haddad were joined by U.S.-based food justice/ food sovereignty activists Brit Reed and Jonathan Wilson. Scroll on down to see the video of this session, the participants' bios, and other materials.
• "Living and Eating in Gaza" a webinar that JWE presented on December 12, 2020, in collaboration with the Museum of the Palestinian People. This session centered around the release of three short videos that JWE had commissioned from Gaza-based Ain Media, in which two Palestinian farmers and the manager of a tahina factory discussed their lives, their hopes, and the challenges they faced. In this session, moderated by Nora Barrows-Friedman of Electronic Intifada, El-Haddad and Schmitt discussed the issues raised by the videos from Gaza alongside Palestinian-American farming activist Mohammed Abujayyab. Bios, videos, and all other materials are below.
• "The Gaza Kitchen: Palestinian Culinary Resilience" hosted by Just World Books on June 15th, 2021 to mark the launch of the third edition of The Gaza Kitchen. This session highlighted lessons on survival, dignity and resistance from the kitchens of the Gaza Strip as co-authors Laila El-Haddad and Maggie Schmitt reflected on the ten-year Gaza Kitchen journey.
• "The Gaza Kitchen: Food, Culture, Resistance and Life in Gaza" a cooking class and discussion JWB presented jointly with Extinction Rebellion Wordsmiths on July 14th, 2021. In this vegan cookalong, co-authors Laila El-Haddad and Maggie Schmitt explore the rich history that shaped Gaza's flavors and the richly intense, underrepresented wonder that is Gaza's cuisine.
• "From Bethlehem to Gaza: Palestinian Culinary Resilience & Liberation" a discussion and cooking demonstration JWE presented in collaboration with the Middle East Children's Alliance on August 16th, 2021.In this exclusive seasonal cooking demonstration, Vivien Sansour (Founder of the Palestine Heirloom Seed Library) and Laila El-Haddad discussed resilience against both the physical and culinary partitions of the occupation – as well as its attempts to destroy diversity of food.

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All materials are published here under a Creative Commons license, which means you are free to re-use any of them for non-commercial purposes, provided you give due attribution to Just World Educational and the individual speakers. If you want to use any of these materials for commercial purposes, please contact Rights@justworldeducational.org to ask about terms.