Recent Stories

Lebanon Still Overshadowed by Oblivion As Port Blast Aftermath Enters Fourth Year
 
Art has played an influential role in making sense of the loss felt after the August 4 explosion. Tom Young’s “Strong Angels” and other paintings show a human dimension of the tragedy and its civilian heroes, who “join forces to lift the city’s grief,” writes Darine Houmani of Diffah Three (The New Arab). “Despite all its devastation, the August 4 explosion brought greater impetus to preserve our heritage and brought about a database of our historical buildings that hadn’t been done before,” states Mona Hallak, an architect, heritage activist, and director of the American University of Beirut’s Neighborhood Initiative, as cited in The New Arab. Several weighed in on the rebuilding efforts, including Lebanese architect Jad Tabet, who proposed “rehabilitation” rather than “reconstruction,” focusing on preserving the city’s existing social fabric and inhabitants alongside the architecture (for further reading on Jad Tabet and architectural heritage, see Al Jadid, Vol. 4, No, 25, Fall 1998; Vol. 5, No. 26, Winter 1999; and Vol. 24, No. 79, 2020). As art historian and gallery owner Andrée Sfeir-Semler says, “You need to nourish people with art and culture because that is what feeds their souls.”

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Our Current Issue

Not a Kafer, Just a Critic:

How Ziad Rahbani Challenged Religious and Political Orthodoxy with Wit, Sorrow, and Song
By Sami Asmar
 
On 26 July 2025, the Lebanese composer, pianist, playwright, and polemicist Ziad Rahbani passed away from cirrhosis of the liver in Beirut at the age of 69. Since he started composing as a teenager, the son of the legendary Fairuz (now 90 years old) and the late Assi Rahbani of the celebrated Rahbani Brothers, the musical prodigies who defined the shape of the modern Lebanese short song, Ziad leaves us a multi-decade-long legacy that reshaped Arab music and Lebanese politics. The genius and enigmatic Ziad will be remembered by his countless fans worldwide, but likely happily forgotten by the authorities he challenged and ridiculed. 
Essays and Features

Aftermath of the Mar Elias Church Bombing:

Abeer Dagher Esber on the ‘Sectarianization of Blood’ in Syria’s Long Continuum of Collapse
By Naomi Pham
 
The recent attacks on the Church of Mar Elias in Al-Dweilaa on June 22, 2025 during Divine Liturgy left at least 25 dead and 63 injured. Perhaps Syrians have become accustomed to hearing such tragedy in the news, for every month a new story of blood, violence, and climbing death tolls appears, the massacres on the Syrian coast still a fresh wound on top of the losses suffered in Al-Dweilaa. Abeer Dagher Esber’s impassioned response to the attacks in her essay, “A Prophet of Fire… Consumed by Our Zero-Sum Conflicts,”* is an unflinching criticism of Syria’s problems. The attack on the Church of Mar Elias is a "wound to the spiritual memory of Syria and to the symbolism of the saint whose name the church bears," she writes, adding, "It is a bloody irony that the place named after the ‘one who raised the dead’ should be blown up by someone who worships death, sees the Other as heresy, and life as merely a path toward a delusional glory."
Essays and Features

In Sickness and Silence: Arab Writers and Artists Between Pain and Power

By Elie Chalala
 
I grew up in Hazmièh, a small town east of Beirut, Lebanon's capital, during the early 1960s. Our rented apartment was situated near a modest multi-unit residential building, known as the Wadih El Safi building, named after the celebrated Lebanese singer who owned it. At the time, Wadih El Safi (1921-2013) was renowned for his wealth and fame, a reputation that endured after I immigrated to and settled in the United States. Wadih El Safi's later life is notable for his declaration of bankruptcy just a year before his death. He attributes his financial troubles to a monopoly contract he signed with Rotana, a Saudi Arabian record label and the music division of the Rotana Media Group.
Essays and Features

A Syrian Surgeon and Novelist Returns to a 'Country Once Called Syria'

Khalil al-Neimi Exposes What Tyranny Has Done to His Homeland
By Elie Chalala
 
I feel an affinity with Khalil al-Neimi, the author and novelist. Like him, I left my country, Lebanon, in 1972, and often thought about what I left behind. I gradually lost the desire to return, and later, after making a short visit back, I gave up on the idea altogether after being away for 38 years. Neimi and I differ on why it took us a long time to return (for me, 38 years, and for him, 50 years). It has been 53 years now since I departed Lebanon.
Essays and Features

Life Suspended Between Sorrow and Loss:

Nesrine Akram Khoury on the Trauma of Displacement in ‘A Room Between Two Massacres’
By Naomi Pham
 
“We were surprised by the other, the room, and me. I took a small space from it, just enough to open my laptop and resume the life I had left behind, hungry and afraid. The room, in turn, took two years of my life.” In this poetic portrait of life caught between war, displacement, and cyclical violence, Nesrine Akram Khoury’s “A Room Between Two Massacres”* dredges up painful memories that may resonate with many despite their intensely personal nature. 
Essays and Features

Chronicling Syrians’ Personal Stories of Struggle to Reach Safe Refuge

By 
Sarah Rogers
 
On Friday January 27, 2017, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that, for a 90-day period, suspended immigrant and nonimmigrant entry into the United States from Syria, Sudan, Iran, Somalia, Libya, and Yemen. It also, for a period of 120 days, suspended the Refugee Resettlement Program, placing an indefinite ban on Syrian refugees. “Leaving Syria: Seeking Refuge in Greece” makes clear the plight of Syrian refugees traces back to a much longer and tragic history.
 
Leaving Syria: Seeking Refuge in Greece
By Bill Dienst, MD and Madi Williamson
Cune Press, 2017
 
On Friday January 27, 2017, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that, for a 90-day period, suspended immigrant and nonimmigrant entry into the United States from Syria, Sudan, Iran, Somalia, Libya, and Yemen.

Little Time to Rest: 'Daughters' of Nomads

By 
Pamela Nice
 
Watching “Daughters of Anatolia,” a film documenting the nomadic lifestyle of goat herders in contemporary Turkey, makes one aware of the value of ethnographic filmography over its drier, academic prose cousin. Describing the migratory path from the Mediterranean Sea to the Taurus Mountains cannot compare with seeing the breath-taking beauty of mountains in bloom as goats scramble over them.
 
Daughters of Anatolia
Directed by Halé Sofia Schatz
Grasshopper Film, 2015
 
Watching “Daughters of Anatolia,” a film documenting the nomadic lifestyle of goat herders in contemporary Turkey, makes one aware of the value of ethnographic filmography over its drier, academic prose cousin.

Broadway’s ‘Oslo’ Highlights Human Drama of Famous Peace Accords

By 
Naomi Pham
 
With two nations at odds for more than half of a century, different major power players brought all types of peace attempts to the table, but to no avail, with two significant exceptions. The Egyptian-Israeli Peace Treaty of 1979 stands as a lonely, if successful peace attempt, while the 1993 Oslo Accords represent the second, partially successful and incomplete effort. As a result, Palestinians and Israelis formally recognized each other’s existence, and committed themselves to working together to resolve the conflict in a non-violent manner.
 
With two nations at odds for more than half of a century, different major power players brought all types of peace attempts to the table, but to no avail, with two significant exceptions. The Egyptian-Israeli Peace Treaty of 1979 stands as a lonely, if successful peace attempt, while the 1993 Oslo Accords represent the second, partially successful and incomplete effort.

Ancient Classic Expresses Modern Tragedy of Syria’s 'Trojan Women'

By 
Naomi Pham
 
Amidst the ruins of Troy, Queen Hecuba declares, “Lift up your head from the dust! Heave up from the earth the weight of your misery, you whom the Gods have cursed. Some agonies are beyond telling, and some must be told.” One of the acclaimed works of ancient Greek playwright Euripides tells the tale of Hecuba, Andromache, Cassandra and the other women of fallen Troy, who, after their husbands die in battle, now face being sold into slavery with their families. Although this war assuredly takes place in the past, director Zoe Lafferty’s reworking of the ancient play reveals a haunting similarity with the wars we wage today.
 
Amidst the ruins of Troy, Queen Hecuba declares, “Lift up your head from the dust! Heave up from the earth the weight of your misery, you whom the Gods have cursed. Some agonies are beyond telling, and some must be told.” One of the acclaimed works of ancient Greek playwright Euripides tells the tale of Hecuba, Andromache, Cassandra and the other women of fallen Troy, who, after their husbands die in battle, now face being sold into slavery with their families.

Syrian, Palestinian and Afghan Stage Artists Cross Oceans to Land in Maxim Gorki Theater in Berlin

By 
Al Jadid Staff
 
Despite being so far from their homes, a group of actors and actresses come together at Germany’s Maxim Gorki Theater to present a story near and dear to their hearts. “Winterreise” (or, “Winter Journey”), performed by the “Exil Ensemble,” tells of 24-year-old Syrian actress Kenda Hmeidan’s journey with her fellow six performers as they take a bus tour through Germany during the brittle cold weeks of January. Each an exile from Syria, Palestine, or Afghanistan, these actors have left their home countries in pursuit of their art, all while struggling with the transition from departure to settlement.
 
Despite being so far from their homes, a group of actors and actresses come together at Germany’s Maxim Gorki Theater to present a story near and dear to their hearts. “Winterreise” (or, “Winter Journey”), performed by the “Exil Ensemble,” tells of 24-year-old Syrian actress Kenda Hmeidan’s journey with her fellow six performers as they take a bus tour through Germany during the brittle cold weeks of January.

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