'Like throwing stones'

“The atrocities of tens of thousands of Palestinians being wiped out and killed by American weapons dropped by the Israeli military on Gaza has meant not only so many people dying, but it's also been shown to have been a very deliberate attempt to erase Palestinian identity in Gaza,” said University of Southern California professor Sandy Tolan, author of “Children of the Stone: The Power of Music in a Hard Land.”

Throughout history, Palestinians in occupied territories have faced obstacles surrounding land ownership rights.

People of Palestinian heritage — and beyond — have become cultural practitioners in culinary, literary, musical and visual arts, and have important roles in preserving a heritage threatened by erasure. Amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, these artists view their craft as a form of activism.

Food is a focal point in the preservation of culture. Layla Mohammad and her husband Aref Mohammad of Al Baraka Restaurant in Anaheim, California have been working for years to ensure their restaurant matches their heritage.

Head chef Layla Mohammad’s traditional Middle Eastern menu reflects the intersecting cultural influences of the Middle East. It includes many foods associated with Palestine such as: stuffed grape leaves, mansaf (a dish made of lamb cooked in a sauce of fermented dried yogurt and served with rice) and knafeh (a dessert pastry made of shredded filo dough and sweet filling) that vary in style in each Middle Eastern country. For example, in Nablus, Palestine, knafeh filling consists of goat cheese, in Turkey, the filling is rich with nutella or pistachios and in Jordan, the filling consists of a sweeter cheese called Akkawi.

Though the dessert may have many variations, knafeh is a central dessert to Palestine. Fatmah Muhammad, known as the "Knafeh Queen," highlights the importance of knafeh and community. Fatmah told us her two motivations throughout her business have been community and change.

Since starting her business in 2018, Muhammad has served knafeh to customers from all walks of life, including celebrities such as Dua Lipa, Macklemore and Alana and Mohammed Hadid. Throughout her journey she has not wavered in her support for Palestine, partnering with businesses such as Qamaria Coffee Co. to raise over $15,000 for Palestinian aid as well as speaking out with Saint Levant at the UCLA encampments.

“I saw how the knafeh was able to build bridges,” she said, “I wanted to be part of the change and bring about change. Knafeh was going to be the product to help me bring change to the world.”

Knafeh, a Palestinian dessert made of shredded filo dough and goat cheese

Muhammad shares her knafeh with the world with a mission to “serve royal happiness and unity with every bite.”

Muhammad and kids pose with music artist Mackelmore.

Pieces of knafeh can be broken up to be shared.

Also one to support her community through food, Layla Mohammad hosts pop ups at her restaurant Al Baraka featuring other Palestinian chefs. Kimo Maloh, who grew up in Khan Younis, a city in southern Gaza, earns money by preparing and selling chicken Shawarma to support his family in the United States, and to fundraise for his family in Palestine.

Mohammad hosts him at her restaurant every weekend. Maloh’s brother, Yasser, is currently in Khan Younis and is trying to survive the war. He spreads awareness through his Instagram, primarily by showing the destruction from the war firsthand.

Ramzi Aburedwan, the subject of prof. Tolan’s book, is a Palestinian classical composer from Ramallah in the central West Bank, who said he's used music as a form of resistance throughout his life.

“Throwing stones [at the occupation] at the time, it was a need for me to express myself,” he said.

Aburedwan founded the non-profit Al-Kamandjâti," which manages a diverse music conservatory in France, Palestinian territories and Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon. Al-Kamandjâti also establishes introductory music programs in Palestinian schools, organizes events and festivals and develops locally-based orchestras and ensembles.

Aburedwan released his debut album on Spotify titled, “Reflections Of Palestine” in 2012.

Aburedwan has also worked with a number of musical artists from all over the world, some closer to home than others. In 2006, Daniel Barenboim, an Israeli conductor, invited Ramzi to join his West Eastern Divan Orchestra, which he founded with the late Palestinian intellectual Edward Said, under whom Aburedwan studied.

Baronbeim approached Aburedwan claiming the project aimed to promote peace for Palestine. However, Abduredawn said he soon learned that all 41 members of the orchestra did not believe in the cause. He decided to try to convince them to support the cause with a proposal, which included three conditions: Israeli Occupations be dismantled from the West Bank and Gaza; Jerusalem be named the capital of Palestine; and Palestinians be granted the right to return to their homeland while also acknowledging the state of Israel. Aburedwan said the members rejected this proposal. He left in the middle of the orchestra’s tour.

Music’s power also lies in its lyricism. Ghada Morad is a Muslim-American activist and poet from the San Fernando Valley. She was one of three students of Palestinian descent, as well as Egyptian, in her elementary school.

Morad’s call to activism began at age 16 when her brother, Feras Morad,was killed by Long Beach police in 2015 when he was 20 years old. The Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey, published a memorandum investigating Feras' death, which said that Feras fell from a two story building. Shortly after, LBPD officer Matthew Hernandez fired multiple rounds from his service weapon at Feras, resulting in his death. Feras, though intoxicated, was unarmed. Hernandez was charged with voluntary manslaughter.

Morad has become a stark advocate against police brutality and has been a vocal opponent to the attacks on Palestinians. Morad processes difficult emotions surrounding her brother’s death by channeling them into her poetry. In early July, Morad recited her poetry at a fundraiser sponsored by Beyond Baroque, an independent Literary Arts Center based in Los Angeles, to collect funds for medical care for refugees from Gaza.

“I started writing a lot more, because there is an erasure of our culture that has been going on for a long time," said Morad.

According to a 2024 Civil Rights Report from the Council on American-Islamic Relations, in early April, the U.S. saw a 56% rise in discrimination and attacks against Muslims and Palestinians last year. Morad experienced negative sentiments towards her ethnic identities from American classmates at a young age. She cites a diary entry from fourth grade that describes her best friend calling her a terrorist. During the fundraiser, Morad read the entry and poem describing the effect of assimilation on Muslim-Americans after 9/11.

In her poem “Seeds,” Morad alludes to feelings of longing for Palestine. For her, seeds are a symbol of hope in the physical re-growth of vegetation on the land and of Palestinian cultural resilience.

Morad is not the only person of Palestinian heritage in the United States who speaks to a feeling of responsibility towards her people back home, and of wanting to make a difference. Jordan Nassar, a second-generation Palestinian-American artist based in New York, had an exhibition at the Anat Egbi gallery in Los Angeles called “SURGE,” which closed on July 20.

Named after a poetry collection of the same name written by the late Etel Adnan, his work featured a Palestinian style of embroidery called tatreez, characterized by intricate geometric designs that signify the matrilineal line from which the wearer or craftsman come from.

Nassar’s “Where from life springs” is embroidered with traditional Palestinian weaving styles, to reflect his vision of looking at Palestine through a veil.

Amanda McMorran, sales director at Anat Egbi explained that Nassar’s intentions may be found within the motifs of his tapestry work. Soft pastel, pink, lavender, orange and sand-colored threading depict mountain ranges that McMorran said signifies a romanticized vision of his parents’ and grandparents’ homeland.

According to McMorran, Nassar’s relationship to Israel-Palestine is nuanced and complicated. His husband is Israeli, and his gallerists are Israeli. As such, he has close, personal ties to people on both cultural sides of the conflict.

Nassar vocalizes his support for Palestine on social media. In a January Instagram post Nassar writes, “All I want is freedom and safety for my people in Palestine.” He started a GoFundMe fundraiser to help his Arabic language teacher’s family in Gaza escape the war and start over as refugees in Cairo, raising over $50,000 for the cause.

Many Palestinian women wear thawbs, traditional floor-length embroidered garments adorned with tatreez style designs. Chef Layla, of Al Baraka, recently opened a boutique called Hendam that highlights Palestinian designers and gowns, both traditional and western. She has many different styles of thawbs in a variety of colors and designs.

Many thawb designs showcase the region they hail from; a red flower for Ramallah, branches for Hebron, a camel for Jenin and flowers for Beersheba. “With everything happening, I want to keep this clothing alive for future generations to pass this on. It is important. It is our culture,” Mohammad said.

Layla’s thawb boutique, Hendam, opened just a short stroll away from Al Baraka

Thawbs in Hendam

Lorrie Ivas, professor of fashion design at Santa Monica College, agrees with Mohammad’s sentiment. “The preservation of a culture is passed down through the current generation’s awareness of sustainability and keeping garments that are meaningful, while customizing some to communicate what they feel wasn’t communicated freely in the past,” she said. “Fashion IS the documentation of the times.”

Palestinian fashion distinguishes itself through its fabrics and textiles. According to Ivas, different fabrics can also be attributed to Palestinian cities of origin. For example, the Majdalawi textile, which Nassar also implements into his panels, originates from al-Majdal, an old city in Gaza. Traditionally, the fabric is woven by a male weaver, with tones of black, indigo, fuchsia, and turquoise silk thread. The word “gauze” is derived from “Gaza” and from a fine regional silk fabric called gazzatum.

“These textiles are sourced directly from the nation’s ecosystem,” Ivas said.

Jacqueline Hamati, founder of Jackie’s Middle Eastern, teaches Middle Eastern cooking classes through Airbnb and Traveling Spoon. This includes a diverse array of Middle Eastern countries from her own heritage in Lebanon to the flavors of Palestinian culture, where she once lived for over 17 years.

In Palestine, her husband’s family owns 23 donums (about 250,000 square feet) of land on which olive trees grow. “We used to go every year in November just to pick the olives from the trees, we spent like a week there every day from morning to evening,” Hamati said.

From Monday to Wednesday each week, Hamati hosts cooking classes in her home kitchen. Friday through Sunday she sells baklava at a farmers market in Topanga Canyon and Montrose. A dessert pastry adopted and changed based on different regions in the Middle East, baklava is traditionally prepared by layering filo dough with chopped nuts and clarified butter.

Amid decades of conflict, Palestinian people have been resilient in the face of cultural erasure, and the work of the diaspora abroad reinforces that. “It looks very, very, terribly bleak for Gaza and for Gazans, and there won't be recovery, probably for a generation, if there ever is,” prof. Tolan said. “But the idea that you're just going to wipe out the Palestinian spirit. Generations and generations of people who fought the Palestinians have all learned that that's not possible, and I don't think it's going to be possible this time, either.”