Knowledge Share Description
Bread is sacred, bread is holy, bread is life. In Palestine, and in Islamic society in general, bread is treated with reverence. Much of the world’s population relies upon wheat as a core element of their diets, and so, throughout history, many horrors have been linked to wheat and more specifically, bread. This has significant global implications as wheat fields occupy more land than any other food crop; life or death waits for whichever population is given access to or deprived of it. The most recent ongoing “Israeli” campaign against Gazan civilians has included the systematic targeting and destruction of all of Gaza’s bakeries, mills, farmland, and the UNRWA food storage facilities that provide 2 out of every 3 bags of flour, and has extended to include at least 6 official “Flour Massacres” of civilians murdered as they have been waiting to receive aid. The now eradicated bread infrastructure was previously the backbone of sustenance and life for the 2.2 million people who have lived under a siege and blockade by “Israel” for almost 2 decades. In this knowledge share, we will learn about the history of wheat in the Levant, its connection to current global food systems, and the use of land and food as a weapon against colonized peoples. We will learn how people have shaped the wheat, and in turn the wheat shaped the dough, the land and the people, far beyond the imaginary borders imposed by colonizers.
We will explore:
How food has been wielded as a weapon in and outside of Palestine.
How many of the traditions and practices of Palestinian ancestors from several time periods prior to the present, are manifest in the beliefs, mannerisms, and phrases still used around bread today.
What Palestinian bread practices teaches us about the commons, and the impulse towards shared resources, historically and through resistance.
The tabun (clay oven), as a microcosmic manifestation of these larger structures of communality.
How “Israeli” settler colonial policies have been enacted to degrade Palestinian food sovereignty.
Cost
$35 - low income
$50 - standard
$75 - pay-it-forward (if you have financial abundance, this is our pay-it-forward option to fund our full tuition scholarships)
For more information on sliding scale please check out this amazing work!
The zoom link will be sent upon registration. Recording will be available for 30 days.
Please apply here for a scholarship.
FREE for Palestinian community. You can either use the scholarship form or email us at connect@herbancura.com to receive code
Accessibility Information
Virtual Gathering
*ASR (automated) captioning provided
The knowledge share zoom link will be sent out immediately upon purchase, along with any other necessary information.
Sunday April 14, 2024
3:00pm - 5:00pm Eastern Standard Time
Class will be recorded and available for 30 days.
Facilitator
amanny ahmad is a palestinian-american artist, cook, land worker, and folk herbalist, currently based in the high altitude desert of the land of the taos pueblo people. in her research-based practice, she studies things small & large: whole systems design, food as language, land as life, historical & contemporary relationships between humans & non-humans, botany, mycology, indigenous culinary traditions & plant use, histories of resistance; and how those things can teach us about preservation, survival, and world-making. her research culminates in a variety of forms: writing, photographs, objects, garden design, fermentation, herbal preparations, and most publicly, large scale meals, often cooked over live fire, incorporating local wild ingredients. being in, on, of, and with the land is her main priority & joy. To connect to her work subscribe to her substack and instagram.