Join us Saturday March 2nd, The People’s Forum, 6-9pm for A Fundraiser for Gaza with Sarah Aziza, George Abraham, Amira al-Dasouqi, Farah Barqawi, Cathy Linh Che, Ladan Osman, La La Lil Jidar Collective, and Omar Ahmad , hosted by Denice Frohman & Jess X. Snow
Doors Open at 5:15pm | In Person and on Zoom | Light refreshments will be provided.
Advance Tickets Available on Eventbrite | Tickets at the Door
Join us for our second community activation—threading together the voices of Palestinian writers, allies, and musicians from NYC, West Philly, and New Orleans. As we embroider a cultural front of solidarity for the liberation of Palestine, we gather for a poetry reading by Farah Barqawi, Amira al-Dasouqi, Cathy Linh Che, and Ladan Osman(?), with a special collaborative feature by Sarah Aziza and George Abraham reading letter correspondences they’ve shared since October 7th. The evening also includes: an artist talk from the La La Lil Jidar Collective discussing their photography exhibit (“20 Years Behind The Apartheid Wall”), live music from Omar Ahmad, a guided meditation, and tabling with art and services for sale from several community groups:
Inspired by Sarah and George’s letters of kinship in a time of crisis, guests will be invited to participate in a letter writing booth where they may write letters to Palestinian political prisoners (via Writers Against the War on Gaza), and to children in a free Palestine in the future.
“Gaza for me, means… one of the world’s densest points of human love.” — Sarah Aziza
All proceeds benefit Gazans and their families in Palestine.
Co-sponsored by Poets and Writers, Birds LLC, Asian American Writers Workshop, the Asian/Pacific/American Institute at NYU, and The Latinx Project.
Masks are strongly encouraged. The venue is located in a street level building with wheelchair access. If people have access needs, you can email info@ligaiya.com .
BIOS
George Abraham (they/هو) is a Palestinian American poet. Their debut poetry collection Birthright (Button Poetry, 2020) won the Arab American Book Award and was a Lambda Literary Award finalist. They are the executive editor of Mizna, and co-editor of HEAVEN LOOKS LIKE US: Palestinian Poetry (Haymarket Books, 2025). They are currently a Litowitz MFA+MA candidate at Northwestern University, and will be joining Amherst College’s English faculty as a Writer-in-Residence this fall.
Sarah Aziza is a Palestinian American writer who splits her time between New York City and the Middle East. She has lived and worked in Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Jordan, South Africa, and the West Bank, in addition to the United States. Her journalism, poetry, essays, and experimental nonfiction have appeared in the New Yorker, the Baffler, Harper’s Magazine, the New York Times, the Atlantic, Lux Magazine, the Intercept, the Rumpus, NPR, the Koukash Review, the Washington Post, the Asian American Writers’ Workshop, and the Nation, among others. Previously a Fulbright fellow in Jordan, she is the recipient of numerous Pulitzer Center grants for Crisis Reporting, a 2022 resident at Tin House Writer’s Workshop, and a 2023 Margins Fellow at the Asian American Writers Workshop. Her first book is a hybrid work of memoir, lyricism, and oral history exploring the intertwined legacies of diaspora, colonialism, and the American dream. It will be published in 2025.
Omar Ahmad is a Palestinian American composer, producer, and sound artist. His compositions are inspired by the balance between sets of distinct feelings that are paired in the world: empathy and disconnection, loss and discovery, longing and isolation.
Cathy Linh Che is a Vietnamese American writer and multidisciplinary artist. She is the author of Split (Alice James Books) and co-author, with Kyle Lucia Wu, of the children’s book An Asian American A to Z: a Children’s Guide to Our History (Haymarket Books). She is working on a poetry manuscript, a creative nonfiction manuscript, and a short documentary on her parents’ experiences as refugees who played extras on Apocalypse Now. Her video installation Appocalips is an Open Call commission with The Shed NY. She works as Executive Director at Kundiman, a national nonprofit organization dedicated to nurturing writers and readers of Asian American literature.
Denice Frohman is a poet and performer from New York City. A Pew Fellow and former Women of the World Poetry Slam Champion, she’s received support from CantoMundo, Headlands Center for the Arts and the National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures. Recently, she debuted her one-woman show, Esto No Tiene Nombre, which centers the oral histories of Latina lesbian elders. She lives in Philadelphia. @denicefrohman
Jess X. Snow (they/them/他) is a non-binary filmmaker, muralist, poet and community organizer of the JiangXi Chinese diaspora whose body of work explores migration, queer asian experiences, kinships across cultures and species, and abolitionist futures.
Amira A. is a queer Palestinian organizer and poet based in New Orleans by way of Memphis and Beit Jubreen. Her work is at the intersection of Palestine, Southern liberation, and labor organizing, abolition, and Black liberation. She has organized locally, regionally, and nationally within the Palestinian liberation movement, specifically within the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Movement against Israeli apartheid. She was one of the lead organizers of the New Orleans Palestine Solidarity Committee (NOPSC) and their efforts to pass a human rights ordinance in New Orleans City Council in 2018, becoming the first US city in the South to pass a BDS ordinance. She has since founded an organization called the Palestine Labor Network, and on the steering committee of the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights. Her family is originally from Beit Jubreen, though they have remained in exile in refugee camps in Gaza and Jordan. She was the first person in her family to return in over 50 years.
Farah Barqawi is a Palestinian author, performer, educator and a feminist organizer. Her poetry and essays have appeared in multiple languages on online platforms and different anthologies. In 2019, she produced and hosted a season of the Arabic podcast “Eib (Taboo)”. She wrote and performed her solo piece, “Baba, Come to Me.”She is a MFA candidate in Creative Writing at NYU where she teaches creative writing to undergraduates as well. @farah_barqawi_
Tablers La La Lil Jidar – a chest-hitting exhibit at the intersection of art, activism, and archive that brings together the powerful narratives of Aisha Mershani’s archival photography that documents two decades of the Apartheid Wall in Palestine, Tracy Chahwan’s graphic renditions derived from Aisha’s photos for a street-art campaign, and an enriching, fortifying program of events aimed at keeping Gaza alive in our eyes, and in our minds. @lalaliljidar
cinemóvil nyc‘s screenings are radical sites of encounter often presented in non-theatrical spaces. We show a diverse array of films variously intended to agitate, enlighten, and spark rich dialogue. @cinemovil.nyc
Justseeds Artist Cooperative is a decentralized network of 41 artists committed to social, environmental, and political engagement. We believe in the transformative power of personal expression in concert with collective action. We have assembled hundreds of free graphics to use for Palestine solidarity work available on our website. @justseeds
