[act-ma] (Wed.) 3/5 Cambridge Forum Presents Close-ups of Life in Occupied Palestinian Territories

[Cambridge Forum]

Cambridge Forum
 3 Church Street ● Cambridge, MA 02138
617-495-2727                                    
email: director at cambridgeforum.org
www.cambridgeforum.org

Release                                                                                                        February 24, 2014

FRAMING MILITARY OCCUPATION: Close-ups of Daily Life in the Occupied Palestinian Territories

On Wednesday, March 5, 2014  at 7:00 p.m. Cambridge Forum hosts a discussion on living under military occupation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.  Our media give us views of Israel/Palestine influenced by politics, international law, and distance.  But what does life in the Occupied Palestinian Territories feel like on the ground?  Physician Alice Rothchild of American Jews for a Just Peace Boston leads panelists from the AJJP Health and Human Rights Project in presenting their observations of daily life in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Made during their visits as part of human rights delegations over the past decade, these close-ups provide a very different view of the impacts of the Israeli occupation on the local Palestinian population and raise serious questions about the effects on education, health care, legal rights, mobility, family life and future political solutions. Do the extensive permitting and check point systems really improve Israeli security? How does bearing witness to the on the ground realities help reframe public understanding of life under military occupation?

Dr. Alice Rothchild is an obstetrician-gynecologist who has worked in health care reform and women's movements for many years.  She contributed to the first edition of Our Bodies, Our Selves, worked for health care reform on the grassroots level, and co-founded Urban Woman and Child Health, Inc. in Jamaica Plain (MA). Dr. Rothchild was an Assistant Professor of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Biology at Harvard Medical School until November 2013 and is currently retired from clinical medicine, serving as a Corresponding Member of the Faculty of the medical school.

Since 1997, she has focused on understanding and writing about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and its relationship to US foreign policy and American Jewry. She co-founded and co-chairs American Jews for a Just Peace Boston, co-organizes the AJJP Health and Human Rights Project, and is on the coordinating committee of Jewish Voice for Peace Boston.  Her 2007 book, Broken Promises, Broken Dreams: Stories of Jewish and Palestinian Trauma and Resilience, has been translated into German and Hebrew. In 2013 she released a documentary film, Voices Across the Divide, which explores the Israeli/Palestinian conflict through rarely heard personal stories.

Dr. Alan Meyers is a Co-Principal Investigator for Children’s HealthWatch Boston site. He has a special interest in the nutritional problems of low-income children, and has worked with a number of state and local initiatives to improve the diet and health of school-age children in Massachusetts. He is co-chair of the Massachusetts Chapter, American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Obesity. Dr. Meyers is also a Professor at Boston University School of Medicine.  He has been a staff pediatrician in primary care at Boston City Hospital/Boston Medical Center since 1986 and has been active in medical solidarity work for nearly 40 years. 

Dr. Meyers is a member of the Steering Committee of the Boston Chapter of AJJP and coordinates the Health and Human Rights Project with Alice Rothchild.

Tali Ruskin is Education Chair of Jewish Voice for Peace-Boston’s Coordinating Committee, serves on the Steering Committee of American Jews for a Just Peace, and will be co-leading this summer's Health and Human Rights delegation to Israel/Palestine. She has spent a great deal of time traveling and living in Israel/Palestine, gaining a deep understanding of the politics, cultures, languages, and peoples. She holds a masters degree in public health and in social work from Boston University, and works at the Boston Public Health Commission under the Division of Violence Prevention.
Laila Bernstein, MPP, LCSW, works in the fields of housing, homelessness and public health. When Laila was 10 years old, her family hosted a Palestinian high school student to live with them for a year and he became part of their extended family. Laila has been on the Steering Committee for American Jews for a Just Peace since 2010 and traveled to Israel/Palestine with a delegation of the Health and Human Rights Project in June 2013.

This program is co-sponsored by the Middle East Education Group of First Parish in Cambridge.

Cambridge Forum is recorded and edited for public radio broadcast.  Select forums can also be viewed in their entirety on YouTube, hosted by the WGBH Forum Network.

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Cambridge Forum
3 Church Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
Phone:  617-495-2727
email:  mailto:director at cambridgeforum.org
website:  http://www.cambridgeforum.org

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