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Danny Thomas: Founder of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital

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Danny Thomas: Founder of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital

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Founder of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital and ALSAC

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Help me find my way in life, and I will build you a shrine.

Danny Thomas

His career took a turn for the better, and soon he moved his family to Chicago to pursue career offers. A few years later, at another turning point in his life, Danny visited a church and remembered his pledge to St. Jude. Again he prayed to St. Jude and repeated his pledge to build a shrine to the saint if he would show him the way.

In the years that followed, Danny's career flourished through films and television, and he became an internationally known entertainer. He was on Make Room for Daddy, later known as The Danny Thomas Show, and he remembered his pledge to build a shrine to St. Jude.

In the early 1950s, Danny began discussing with friends what concrete form his vow might take. Gradually, the idea of a children's hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, where it would be the first fully integrated hospital in the South, took shape. In 1955, Danny Thomas and a group of Memphis business people who had agreed to help support his dream seized on the idea of creating a unique research hospital devoted to curing catastrophic diseases in children. More than just a treatment facility, this would be a research center for the children of the world, regardless of race, religion or financial status.

Danny started raising money for his vision of St. Jude in the early 1950s. By 1955, the local business leaders who had joined his cause began area fundraising efforts, supplementing Danny's benefit shows that brought scores of major entertainment stars to Memphis. Often accompanied by his wife, Rose Marie, Danny crisscrossed the United States by car, sharing his dream and raising funds at meetings and benefits. The pace was so hectic that Danny Thomas and his wife once visited 28 cities in 32 days. Although Danny Thomas and his friends raised the money to build the hospital, they now faced the daunting task of funding its annual operation.

To solve this problem, Danny, of Lebanese descent, turned to his fellow Americans of Arabic-speaking heritage. Believing deeply that these Americans should, as a group, thank the United States for the gifts of freedom given their parents, Danny also felt the support of St. Jude would be a noble way of honoring his immigrant forefathers who had come to America.

Danny's request struck a responsive chord. In 1957, 100 representatives of the Arab-American community met in Chicago to form with a sole purpose of raising funds for the support of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.

Since that time, with national headquarters in Memphis and regional offices throughout the United States, ALSAC has assumed full responsibility for all the hospital's fundraising efforts, raising hundreds of millions annually through benefits and solicitation drives among Americans of all ethnic, religious and racial backgrounds. Today, ALSAC is the nation's largest health-care charity and is supported by the efforts of more than 1 million volunteers nationwide.

Through striking improvements in the care of pediatric leukemias and numerous forms of solid tumors, St. Jude has brought about improved health care for children all over the world. St. Jude physicians and scientists have pioneered treatments that have helped push the overall survival rates for childhood cancers from 20 percent when the hospital opened in 1962 to 80 percent today.

From a promise of "Help me find my way in life, and I will build you a shrine" to the fulfillment of his dream, Danny lived to see his little hospital become an international beacon of hope for the catastrophically ill children of the world. The founder of St. Jude and ALSAC died on February 6, 1991, just two days after joining patients, parents and employees to celebrate the hospital's 29th anniversary. He was laid to rest in a family burial crypt at the Danny Thomas/ALSAC Pavilion on the grounds of the hospital. On July 12, 2000, his wife, Rose Marie, passed away and now lies with her beloved husband in the Danny and Rose Marie Thomas Memorial Garden. Today, their daughters, Marlo and Terre, and son, Tony, carry on their parents' work and remain a driving force in fulfilling their father's mission. Danny Thomas is gone, but his dream lives on.

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Danny Thomas His career took a turn for the better, and soon he moved his family to Chicago to pursue career offers. A few years later, at another turning point in his life, Danny visited a church and remembered his pledge to St. Jude. Again he prayed to St.

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Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha : Pediatrician & Environmental Advocate

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Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha : Pediatrician & Environmental Advocate

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By the crusading pediatrician who brought the fight for justice in Flint to the national spotlight, WHAT THE EYES DON'T SEE is a powerful first-hand account of the Flint water crisis, the signature environmental disaster of our time, and a riveting narrative of personal advocacy.

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ADC has launched the Arab American Business Advisory Council, a collection of Arab and MENA American business owners and entrepreneurs from diverse industries dedicated to uplifting and empowering our community nationwide. Representing a unified Arab and MENA leadership, council members will provide expert advice on the needs of, serve as the public face for, and expand investments to the Arab and MENA American business community. Join today by clicking the button below.

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Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee - ADC

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ADC is a civil rights organization committed to defending the rights of people of Arab descent and promoting their rich cultural heritage.

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Arab America Foundation: Promoting Arab Heritage & Identity 

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Arab America Foundation: Promoting Arab Heritage & Identity 

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Welcome to Yalla! Let’s Talk., where self-growth meets culture. Hosted by Hani Dajani, this podcast features authentic conversations with inspiring creatives, thought-leaders, and disruptors. Some episodes are powerful. Others are just fun. And some will teach you something new — or introduce you to voices you didn’t know you needed. The goal? To help you grow, reflect, and feel a little more connected. Join our movement and subscribe! 💻 Official Site | www.yallaletstalk.com 📷 Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/yallaletstalk/?hl=en
🎞️ TikTok | https://www.tiktok.com/@yallaletstalk
👻 Snapchat | @yallaletstalk inquiries: hello@yalla.co

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Alliance for California Traditional Arts

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Arab Cultural & Community Center - Alliance for California Traditional Arts

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The Arab Cultural and Community Center (ACCC) of San Francisco is a nonprofit organization devoted to promoting Arab art and culture and enriching the lives of the Arab American community. The ACCC achieves this by providing culturally focused social services and promoting cross-cultural events to all residents of the Bay Area and beyond, drawing upon […]

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Arab American Heritage Month: Academy of American Poets

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Arab American Heritage Month: Academy of American Poets

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Arab American Heritage Month has been observed nationally since 2017. According to the Arab American Institute, Arab Americans have ancestries from twenty-two countries in the Middle East and North Africa: Algeria, Bahrain, Comoros, Djibouti, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen.

Celebrate the rich culture and contributions of Arabs and Arab Americans with this selection of poems, essays, and artwork.

Contemporary Poems for Arab American Heritage Month

" name/s" by Andrea Abi-Karam
" Searching for a Palestinian Necropastoral (Eve)" by George Abraham
" Heritage Emissary" by Threa Almontasar
" Letter to al-Mutanabbi" by Sinan Antoon
" Nine Spice Mix" by Zeina Azzam
" Ode on an Abandoned House" by Hayan Charara
" I Belong There" by Mahmoud Darwish
" Punctum / Metaphor" by Carolina Ebeid
" Ode to Sudanese-Americans" by Safia Elhillo
" Interrogation of an Alternate Timeline" by Hazem Fahmy
" WHO REAL؟" by Marwa Helal
" It's Not Really about Them, It's about Us" by Safia Jama
" Raising a Glass with an Arab Nationalist" by Iman Mersal
" The Iraqi Nights" by Dunya Mikhail
" Conventional Wisdom (Arabic Saying Translated Twenty Ways)" by Yasmin Seale
" Migrant Earth" by Deema K. Shehabi
" Displaced" by Mosab Abu Toha
" Gloria" by Lena Khalaf Tuffaha
" In the ن of it all" by Kamelya Omayma Youssef
" Freedom " by Saadi Youssef, translated by Khaled Mattawa

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Arab American Heritage Month - Arab American Heritage Month has been observed nationally since 2017.

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Arab Resource and Organizing Center (AROC)

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Arab Resource and Organizing Center (AROC)

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The Arab Resource and Organizing Center (AROC) envisions powerful and liberated Arab communities living with freedom and self-determination from the Bay Area to our homelands.

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Arab American Civic Council: Organizing Little Arabia (Anaheim)

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Arab American Civic Council: Organizing Little Arabia (Anaheim)

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Leadership Development — Arab American Institute

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AAI offers internships in Washington, DC for Arab Americans, college students, recent graduates, and graduate students interested in public affairs, and advocacy. The program is part of the Arab American Institute Foundation (AAIF)’s commitment to youth leadership, along with scholarships and awards for public and community service.

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History, Ethnicity, Culture: AASA facilitates communication, promotes cooperation, stimulates research, and explores intersections between Arab American, Arab, and diasporic Arab experiences.

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National Network for Arab American Communities (NNAAC)

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National Network for Arab American Communities (NNAAC)

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NNAAC Discover Why We Are One of The Leading Organizations Advocating for Arab American Equality

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At NNAAC, we are building a movement that puts the needs of our communities at the core of everything we do and elevates our members.

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Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)- CA

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Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)- CA

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Empowering American Muslims, Protecting Civil Rights, Promoting Justice Latest news Our impact by the Numbers Legal Intakes 0 Government Meetings 0 Media Interviews 0 Outreach Engagements & Workshops 0 What we do Legal Services Protecting civil rights and liberties through legal representation, advocacy, and education. Learn More Advocacy Championing justice through legislative action, coalition building, […]

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The Three Abrahamic (Monotheistic) Religions

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The Three Abrahamic (Monotheistic) Religions

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Calendars for school years of 2024-2025,2025-2026, & 2026-2027

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Check out this Presentation designed by Nora Hourani-Farraj.

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Arab American Heritage Month: Uplifting Arab American voices

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Arab American Heritage Month: Uplifting Arab American voices

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Arab American National Museum Lessons and Resources

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Arab American National Museum Lessons and Resources

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REEL BAD ARABS | FREE FILMS FOR CONTEXT ON ISRAEL'S WAR ON GAZA

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April is National Arab American Heritage Month, dedicated to recognizing the contributions of this invisible underrepresented community since the 1880s.

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Supporting Arab American Students in the Classroom

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Supporting Arab American Students in the Classroom

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Arab Women Say They Experience Erasure at Work...

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Arab Women Say They Experience Erasure at Work...

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Learn more about Anti-Palestinian Racism

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A helpful and accessible English-language resource for those looking to learn more about Anti-Palestinian Racism (APR), its manifestations, and how to respond in order to combat it and other oppressions.

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Jewish Voice for Peace is the largest progressive Jewish anti-Zionist organization in the world.

We're organizing a grassroots, multiracial, cross-class, intergenerational movement of U.S. Jews into solidarity with Palestinian freedom struggle.

If you've been looking for a political home for Jews on the left in this perilous moment; if you've been wanting a Jewish community with justice at the center; if you've been looking to turn your rage and grief into meaningful, strategic action:

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Join Us NEWS FEED Read More WE HAVE A PLAN TO END U.S. SUPPORT FOR ISRAEL'S OPPRESSION OF PALESTINIANS Jewish Voice for Peace is the largest progressive Jewish anti-Zionist organization in the world. We're organizing a grassroots, multiracial, cross-class, intergenerational movement of U.S. Jews into solidarity with Palestinian freedom struggle.

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Mission
The Middle East Children’s Alliance (MECA) works to protect the rights and improve the lives of children in the Middle East through aid, empowerment and education. In the Middle East, MECA provides humanitarian aid, partners

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A morning, afternoon and night of Ramadan in the Bay Area

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For three area families, rituals of prayer and fasting take place this month inside…

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Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People

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Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People

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Contemporary Arab American Identity and Experiences

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Contemporary Arab American Identity and Experiences

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Book — Non-fiction. Edited by Arjun Singh Sethi. 2018. 192 pages. Testimonials from people impacted by hate before and after the 2016 presidential election.

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Race  religion and identity  Arab Christians in the United States

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Understanding Ramadan and Student Accommodations

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Understanding Ramadan and Student Accommodations

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Understanding Ramadan and student accommodations

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California is home to approximately 500,000 Muslims, who every year observe a holy month of worship called Ramadan.

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Your Rights at School and Work in Ramadan - CAIR California

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This Ramadan civil rights primer from CAIR gives you the information you need to take full advantage of this blessed month. Please share it with your family and friends to ensure they too are empowered to assert their rights! AT SCHOOL Students should be accommodated for prayers, iftars and Eid. Requests for these accommodations should […]

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Arab Americans: History, Culture, & Contributions

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Arab Americans: History, Culture, & Contributions

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Voices from the past: Arab American oral histories

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In 1962 Dr. Alixa Naff set out to tell the story of Arab immigrants from Syria and Lebanon. In addition to investigating an area that had received little scholarly attention, her use of oral history as the basis of the research was innovative. Oral history was a relatively new field in the early 1960s and, primarily, was used to document the life stories of famous people, predominantly men. Naff’s proposed study of the everyday men and women who left their homes and traveled to the United States to make new lives combined oral history practices with the techniques of folklore fieldwork. The resulting interviews recorded the experiences of the immigrant generation in their own words.

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Together We Rise: Palestine as a Model of Resistance is a political education curriculum providing critical voices, context, and resources that make clear the connections between the struggle for Palestinian rights and the struggles of Indigenous, Black, and brown communities, and other marginalized groups impacted by US policies, both within and outside of US borders. With the three tracks broken out below-Not That Complicated, Freedom Bound, and Trainings and Resources- Together We Rise has something for everyone. From those who know little about the issue to seasoned organizers, we hope this curriculum will help deepen analysis, build relationships, and sharpen skills to work for justice from the US to Palestine.

Together We Rise is an articulation of our vision for freedom, justice, and equality for the Palestinian people in a world without racism and oppression. In order to achieve that, it is necessary to understand that all forms of oppression are interconnected and reinforce each other, and that none can be fought in isolation. Work for justice for one community must be part of a vision of justice for all.

Through Together We Rise, we share the history of the Palestinian struggle, as well as the long histories of joint struggle and lessons learned across movements. We do this in order to draw connections and articulate dissimilarities between struggles, identify opportunities for solidarity and the refinement of our organizing principles and practices, and highlight how Israel's Zionist project, while most directly impacting Palestinians, has also played a role in the oppression of people across the region and world.

Not That Complicated provides a 101 overview to the root of the problem and the Palestinian struggle for liberation from the refugee crisis to the Israeli occupation to Palestinian political prisoners.

TheFreedom Bound track explores how US and Israeli colonialism and racism are connected, what we can learn from Palestinian, Black, Latinx, Indigenous, and other freedom struggles, and how we can apply those lessons in this political moment.

The global systems of oppression bearing down on Indigenous, Black, brown, queer, and other marginalized communities from the US to Palestine include white supremacy, settler colonialism, imperialism, capitalism, dictatorships, sexism, and heteropatriarchy. They manifest daily through police brutality; mass incarceration and torture; gentrification and forced displacement; surveillance and repression; denial of access to basic needs; militarized borders and refugee bans; airstrikes and military incursions; and the ability of corporations to profit off of all of this suffering.

The Trainings and Resources track offers skills-building, know your rights trainings, resources on how to start your own BDS campaigns, a suggested speakers list, and more tools to fight for justice from the US to Palestine.

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Together We Rise: Palestine as a Model of Resistance - US Campaign for Palestinian Rights

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Together We Rise: Palestine as a Model of Resistance is a political education curriculum providing critical voices, context, and resources that make clear the connections between the struggle for Palestinian rights and the struggles of Indigenous, Black, and brown communities, and other marginalized groups impacted by US policies, both within and outside of US borders.

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Research Guides: Arab American Heritage: Arab American Stories

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Research Guides: Arab American Heritage: Arab American Stories

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Click on "World" for more information about each country

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Check out this design designed by Nora Hourani-Farraj.

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Tatreez & Tea: The Art of Palestinian, Jordanian, & Syrian Embroidery

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Tatreez & Tea: The Art of Palestinian, Jordanian, & Syrian Embroidery

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Tatreez & Tea’s mission is to provide educational resources, namely through classes, lectures and publications, to preserve Palestinian embroidery, dressmaking and storytelling traditions in the diaspora.

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Check out this Presentation designed by Nora Hourani-Farraj.

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Bridging a Cultural Divide: Arab American Literature

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Bridging a Cultural Divide: Arab American Literature

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Youth

Steven Paul Jobs was born on February 24, 1955 in San Francisco, California. His unwed biological parents, Joanne Schieble and Abdulfattah Jandali, put him up for adoption. Steve was adopted by Paul and Clara Jobs, a lower-middle-class couple, who moved to the suburban city of Mountain View a couple of years later.

The Santa Clara county, south of the Bay Area, became known as Silicon Valley in the early 1950s after the sprouting of myriads of semi-conductor companies in the area. As a result, young Steve Jobs grew up in a neighborhood filled with engineers working on electronics and other gizmos in their garages on weekends. This shaped his interest in the field as he grew up. At age 13, he met one the most important persons in his life: 18-year-old Stephen Wozniak, an electronics whiz-kid -and an incorrigible prankster, much like Steve himself.

Five years later, when Steve Jobs reached college age, he told his parents he wanted to enroll in Reed College - an expensive liberal arts college up in Oregon. Even though the tuition fees were astronomical for the poor couple, they had promised their son's biological parents he would get a college education, so they relented. Steve spent only one semester at Reed, then dropped out, as he was more interested in eastern philosophy, fruitarian diets, and LSD than in the classes he took. He moved to a hippie commune in Oregon where his main activity was cultivating apples.

A few months later, Steve returned to California to look for a job. He was hired at the young video game maker Atari, and used his wages to make a trip to India with one of his college friends, Dan Kottke, in order to 'seek enlightenment'. He came back a little disillusioned and started to take more interest in his friend Woz's new activities.

Apple's origins

Woz, whose interest in electronics had grown stronger, was regularly attending meetings of a group of early computer hobbyists called the Homebrew Computer Club. They were the real pioneers of personal computing, a collection of radio jammers, computer professionals and enlightened amateurs who gathered to show off their latest prowess in building their own personal computer or writing software. The club started to gain popularity after the Altair 8800 personal computer kit came out in 1975.

The knowledge that Woz gathered at the Homebrew meetings, as well as his exceptional talent, allowed him to build his own computer board - simply because he wanted a personal computer for himself. Steve Jobs took interest, and he quickly understood that his friend's brilliant invention could be sold to software hobbyists, who wanted to write software without the hassle of assembling a computer kit. Jobs convinced Wozniak to start a company for that purpose: Apple Computer was born on April 1, 1976.

The following months were spent assembling boards of Apple I computers in the Jobses' garage, and selling them to independent computer dealers in the area. However, Wozniak had started work on a much better computer, the Apple II - an expandable and more powerful system that even supported color graphics. Jobs and Wozniak knew deep down it could be hugely successful, and therefore Jobs started to seek venture capital. He eventually convinced former Intel executive turned business angel Mike Markkula to invest in Apple to the tune of $250,000 (roughly equivalent to $1 million in today's dollars) in January 1977. Markkula was a big believer in the personal computing revolution, and he said to the young founders that, thanks to the Apple II, their company would join the Fortune 500 in less than two years.

Apple II Forever

Although Markkula was a bit too optimistic (it actually took 7 years for Apple to make it), he was right that the company would become an overnight success. Because of its beautiful package, ease of use, and nifty features, the Apple II crushed most of its competition, and its sales made the Apple founders millionaires. The biggest surge in sales came after the introduction of VisiCalc, the first commercially successful spreadsheet program: hundreds of thousands of Americans, whether they be accountants, small business owners, or just obsessed with money, bought Apple IIs to make calculations at home.

In the wake of Apple's success, its leadership decided it was time to go public. The IPO took place in December 1980, only four years after the company was founded. Steve Jobs's net worth increased to over $200 million, at age 25.

Apple's success attracted the attention of the computer giant IBM, which until then was still only selling mainframe computers to large companies. A crash project was started and in August 1981, the IBM PC entered the personal computer market. It was the biggest threat yet to Apple, whose reputation was being put into question after the flop of the Apple III in 1980. Most hopes rested on a business computer project, called the Lisa.

Lisa & Xerox PARC

Steve Jobs was a big believer in the Lisa computer initially. It was he who came up with the name. Indeed, in 1978, his ex-girlfriend from high school Chrisann Brennan gave birth to a little girl, who she named Lisa. Steve denied paternity, although it was obvious to everyone who knew him that he was the father, given the on-and-off relationship he still had with Chrisann at the time. Jobs refused to give any money to Chrisann, despite the millions he had accumulated at Apple. While in denial, he came up with the name "LISA" for the new computer Apple was building...

The following year, a tour of the computer research lab Xerox PARC made a huge impression on him. The scientists who worked there had invented a number of breakthrough technologies that would mark the industry for the coming decades, including the graphical user interface (GUI) and the mouse, Ethernet, laser printing and object oriented programming. Jobs became obsessed with the GUI which was a lot easier to use than the command-line interfaces of the day. Instead of learning a computer language, you only had to point at pictures to use it. He insisted the Lisa should have a GUI and a mouse, too.

Macintosh

However, because of his hot temper and his relative inexperience in management, Steve Jobs grew at odds with the Lisa leadership team and was thrown out of the project. He felt absolutely crushed by this decision. As a revenge, he took over a small project called Macintosh, a personal computer that was supposed to be a cheap appliance, 'as easy to use as a toaster'. In 1981, Steve Jobs became head of the Macintosh project, and decided to make it a smaller and cheaper version of the Lisa, complete with a GUI of folders, icons and drop-down menus -and, of course, a mouse.

The three years it took to develop Macintosh were some of the most productive and intense in Steve Jobs' career. He formed a small group of dedicated, young, brilliant engineers who stood fully behind his vision of a 'computer for the rest of us'. They saw themselves as 'pirates' against the rest of Apple, which they dubbed 'the Navy'. The team antagonized both the Apple II group and the Lisa group, as they dismissed them as representing the past, while they were the future. Yet in 1983, after it became clear the Lisa was turning into another major flop for Apple, all of the company's hopes started to rest on the Macintosh. Steve was supported in his mission by John Sculley, Apple's new CEO whom he hired in 1983 to help him run the company and groom him into a future chief executive.

Leaving Apple

On January 24 1984, after Apple had run a very memorable TV commercial for the Super Bowl (1984), Steve Jobs introduced Macintosh at the company's annual shareholders meeting. The product was launched in great fanfare and for the first few months, it was quite successful.

However, by early 1985, as the whole PC industry fell into a slump, sales of the Mac started to plummet. Yes, Steve Jobs refused to acknowledge it and continued to behave as if he had saved Apple. This created a lot of tension within the company, especially between Steve and CEO John Sculley. While they used to be very close, they'd now stopped talking to one another.

In May 1985, Steve Jobs started trying to convince some directors and top executives at Apple that Sculley should go. Instead, many of them talked to Sculley, who took the matter to the board of directors. The board sided with Sculley and a few days later, announced a reorganization of the company where Steve Jobs had no operational duties whatsoever -he was only to remain chairman of the board.

Steve was aghast: Apple was his life, and he was effectively kicked out of it. After four months spent traveling and trying out new ideas, he came back in September with a plan: he would start a new computer company aimed at higher education, with a small group of other ex-Apple employees. When Apple learned of the plan, they declared they would sue him as he was taking valuable information about the company to compete with it. As a result, Steve Jobs resigned from Apple and sold all but one of his Apple shares in disgust. He went ahead with his plan anyway, and incorporated NeXT. Apple dropped its lawsuit a few months later.

The NeXT years

Steve aimed at the highest possible standards for his new NeXT machine: he wanted the best hardware, built in the world's most automated factory, and running the most advanced software possible. He decided that the computer's operating system, NeXTSTEP, would be based on UNIX, the most robust system in the world , used by the military and universities -but that it would also be as easy to use as a Macintosh, with its own GUI. NeXTSTEP would allow for object-oriented programming, another breakthrough from Xerox PARC, that made writing software much faster and more reliable. These ambitious plans put off the release date of the computer - called the NeXT Cube - to October 1988.

When it came out, the NeXT Cube was indeed a great machine. But it didn't sell - it was late, and way too overpriced: universities has asked for a $3,000 PC, and NeXT had built a $10,000 workstation. After two years of very low sales, the company launched the cheaper NeXTstation, and expanded its target to businesses, in addition to higher education. It didn't work: the number of NeXT computers sold each month remained in the hundreds. The company was bleeding money and all its co-founders left one after the other, as well as its most prominent investor, Texan billionaire Ross Perot. By 1993, NeXT had to give up its entire hardware business to become a niche software company. Steve Jobs had failed, and he was devastated. He started focusing less on work, and more on his wife Laurene (who he married in 1991) and his newborn son, Reed.

Pixar

To understand how Steve Jobs got out of his nadir, let's go back eight years earlier, in late 1985. At the time, George Lucas, who was in the middle of an expensive divorce, was selling the computer graphics division of his Lucasfilm empire. Steve Jobs had millions in the bank, after having sold all his Apple stock, and was interested. In early 1986, he bought the small group of computer scientists, and incorporated a new company: Pixar. The founders of Pixar, Ed Catmull and Alvy Ray Smith, had gotten together in the late 1970s with a common vision of making films using computer animation only. But they also knew no computer was powerful enough at the time, and they would have to hold out for a couple decades before their dream could materialize.

For the first five years of Pixar's life, Steve Jobs set a goal for the company to sell high-end computer graphics workstations for institutions, such as hospitals or even the army. The animations group led by John Lasseter was very small at the time, and only survived because it provided good publicity for the power of the Pixar 3D rendering software, RenderMan. Steve Jobs understood this when the studio won an Academy Award for its short movie Tin Toy in 1989. However, just like NeXT's, sales of Pixar hardware were microscopic, and the company went software-only in 1990.

Pixar then became a software company whose primary product was RenderMan. Its animation business was kept alive because it was the only one that brought some cash in, by producing various TV commercials in 3D for brands. However, a decisive contract changed everything: in 1991, Disney signed a contract with Pixar to make a full-feature computer-animated movie. The script had to be fully approved by both parties, and the very hands-on head of Disney animation Jeffrey Katzenberg halted the production several times out of creative disagreements with John Lasseter and his team. But in 1995, the movie was finally starting to take form, and Steve Jobs became increasingly enthused by it.

Although he had used his personal money to fund Pixar for nine years, Jobs had never been implicated that much in the company, which was always more of a 'hobby' to him compared to NeXT. But by 1995, NeXT had more or less tanked, whereas Pixar was obviously going to benefit widely from the Disney marketing machine and make a hit with its movie, Toy Story. Steve understood this new momentum full well: he planned to take Pixar public the week following the release of the movie, in November 1995. He was right, and Toy Story's box-office success was only surpassed by the Pixar stock's success on Wall Street. Steve Jobs, who owned 80% of the company, saw his net worth rise to over $1.5 billion -five times the money he had ever made at Apple in the 1980s!

Back to Apple

Business wasn't all sunshine and roses at Apple. In the decade following Steve's departure, the computer maker had milked all the cash it could from the Macintosh and its successors, surfing on the wave of the desktop publishing revolution that the Mac and the laser printer had made possible. But in 1995, after Microsoft had released Windows 95, which was a pale but working copy of the Mac OS GUI, sales of Macintosh computers started plummeting.

A new CEO, Gil Amelio, arrived in early 1996 to save the company. He cut costs, got rid of a third of the workforce, and decided that instead of writing a new, modern operating system from scratch to compete with Window, it was better for Apple to acquire one. Eventually, Amelio chose to buy NeXTSTEP, NeXT's operating system - and agreed to buy the company for $400 million (roughly equivalent to $670 million today). The deal was made in December 1996: Steve Jobs was back at the company he had founded.

The Amelio-Jobs cooperation didn't last long, though: Apple lost $700 million in the first quarter of 1997, and the board decided to get rid of its CEO. Jobs effectively organized a board coup with the complicity of his billionaire friend Larry Ellison, and after a tenure that lasted exactly 500 days, Amelio was gone. In August 1997, Jobs took the stage at Macworld Boston to explain his plan for Apple: he had gotten rid of the old board of directors, and made a deal with Microsoft to settle patent disputes and invest $150 million in the struggling Silicon Valley icon. One month later, on September 16, 1997, Jobs accepted to become Apple's interim CEO.

For the loser now will be later to win

The few months after Steve Jobs came back at Apple were among the hardest-working in his life. He later told his biographer Walter Isaacson that he was so exhausted, he couldn't speak when he came home at night (remember he was also running a thriving Pixar simultaneously). He reviewed every team at Apple and asked them to justify why they were important to the future of the company. If they couldn't, their product would get canceled, and there was a high probability they'd have to leave, too. Jobs also brought with him his executive team from NeXT, and installed them in key positions.

Critics started to believe in Steve Jobs's ability to run Apple when he unveiled his first great product, the iMac. Introduced in May 1998, it was Apple's first truly innovative product since the original Macintosh of 1984. Its translucent design blew away the whole PC industry, which had failed to produce anything but black or beige boxes for over a decade. Moreover, it was a hot seller, and put the company's finances back in the black. The iconic iMac also played a key role in bringing back tons of developers to the Mac platform. Design innovations continued throughout 1998 and 1999 with the colored iMacs and the iBook, Apple's consumer notebook. After three years in charge, Steve Jobs had brought Apple back to its status of cool tech icon.

At Macworld in January 2000, Steve Jobs made two significant announcements: first, he demoed Aqua, the graphics-intensive user interface that Apple would use in its next-generation operating system derived from NeXTSTEP, Mac OS X. Second, he announced he had accepted the Apple board's offer, and became the company's CEO, dropping the 'interim' from his title. It was quite controversial, as he remained CEO of Pixar, another public company. Mac OS X had not shipped yet, though -it would take another year to do so.

The simple fact that such a massive OS transition took place was a technical feat in itself. The Mac OS X team worked very hard and released six major versions of the system at a roughly yearly cadence between 2001 and 2007 -each time delivering more stability, speed, and new user features. Although Steve Jobs buried Mac OS 9 on stage in 2002, most observers acknowledge that the transition from Classic Mac OS to OS X was really complete in 2005, with the release of Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger. The continuous improvement of Mac OS X and its powerful core technologies and developer tools proved key in the success of the Digital Hub strategy, which Steve Jobs unveiled in January 2001.

The Digital Hub

Once Apple had been come back from its near-death experience in the late 1990s, Steve Jobs started focusing on ways to make the company's shrinking market share (around 5%) grow. He decided to leverage Apple's unique strength of making both hardware & software to do this: not only would Macs be very powerful and attractive machines, but they would also run differentiated software that no Windows PCs could. His first move was to bet on what he called 'desktop video', the ability to shoot and edit personal movies on your Mac. He was convinced that desktop video would become as big a deal as desktop publishing had been in the 1980s. As a first step, in 1999, he introduced the iMac DV (which stood for Digital Video) and a new digital movie editing software, iMovie.

The iMac DV was a hit, but desktop video failed to catch on as well as Jobs had hoped. After much introspection, in 2000, the Apple executive team came up with a new paradigm for the Mac that would set the company's destinies for the coming decade. They took the idea of desktop video and decided to expand it to other consumer digital devices, which were rapidly becoming mainstream at the time. Apple would write software for the Mac to edit and store all the new digital content that consumers created -and these apps would be so powerful, delightful and easy to use, that they would entice PC users to switch to the Mac. The Digital Hub strategy was born. Steve Jobs explained it to the Apple community at Macworld in January 2001, the same day he unveiled the second and third of the iApps: iDVD -to let you burn your own DVDs- and iTunes, a digital jukebox software. Other iApps would follow: iPhoto in 2002, GarageBand in 2004, and iWeb in 2006.

2001: An Apple Odyssey

In many ways, the juggernaut that Apple became was shaped by very smart decisions that Jobs and his executive team took in the crucial period of 2000-2001. We've already covered Mac OS X and the Digital Hub strategy, both unveiled in January 2001.

A third key decision was taken in 2000 and unveiled in mid-2001: that of creating a fully-owned retail channel, the famous Apple retail stores. Although it is easy to call this strategy smart in retrospect, it was far from obvious back in May 2001, when the first two retail stores were inaugurated. That same year, PC maker Gateway was shutting down its own retail stores one after the other, and the analysts consensus was that niche player Apple would burn precious money in this economic downturn on a foolish and dated idea. On the other hand, Steve Jobs explained that only in an environment fully controlled by Apple, with Apple-trained staff and only Apple-compatible products, could the superiority of Apple products be fully appreciated by consumers.

Finally, it was in 2000 that Jobs started realizing his mistake of betting only on digital movies, and reoriented the company's efforts to another media: music. Digital music file-sharing service Napster was at the peak of its popularity, and young people were not spending their time shooting movies, but rather downloading and listening to MP3 music files. iTunes was born out of that realization. Still, there was a problem: although there were great digital camcorders to run in conjunction with iMovie -and awesome digital cameras too for iPhoto- digital music players mostly sucked. Not to mention, they were ugly.

That's why, in March 2001, Steve Jobs started a crash development program to build an Apple-branded MP3 player and ship it before that year's holiday season: the iPod was born. On October 23, 2001, he introduced this cute white digital device to a small group of journalists on Apple's campus. The tagline was 'A thousand songs in your pocket' ( the ad is a classic), and there was great emphasis on its symbiosis with the iTunes app. But no one in the room, Jobs included, had any clue how important it would turn out to be.

iPod nation

iPod was a commercial success from the day it debuted, even though it was released as Mac-only, since its goal was to prop up sales of the Mac. It came at a time when a lot of people needed a good MP3 player to take their (mostly stolen) MP3s with them, and despite its rather high price tag, a lot of PC users ended up buying it too, hacking it so they could use it on their machines. This had Steve Jobs and his team think a great deal: should they keep making a Mac-only iPod, or should they open it to Windows, too? Although Jobs was initially staunchly opposed to the latter idea, he eventually relented, and the first Windows iPods were introduced in July 2002 at Macworld New York.

However, it was soon becoming clear that iPod benefited from music piracy, and that its sales could go even higher if there was a legal way to download music. Steve Jobs didn't wait for the music industry to reinvent itself. He went to all record labels to negotiate landmark deals that would lead to the introduction of the iTunes Music Store in April 2003. Ironically, one of the arguments he used was that the risk to music labels was quite low, because of the Mac's small market share (iTunes was still Mac-only). The first compelling legal alternative to illegal music file-sharing, the iTunes Store was an instant success, selling one million songs in its first week. It not only helped the sales of iPods, but it eventually reshaped the whole music industry. It was introduced to Windows as well six months later, in October 2003.

Despite this great success, Apple didn't rest on its laurels. In January 2004, Jobs introduced the iPod mini, a more compact version of iPod that sold at $249, only $50 less than the full featured iPod. It was really the combination of the iPod mini and the Windows compatibility that propelled the iPod to its status of cultural icon. The phrase 'Walkman of the digital age' became commonplace to describe it, and in July 2004, Steven Levy of Newsweek wrote an emblematic cover story entitled 'iPod nation'. The iPod adventure was far from over, since Apple introduced the $99 iPod shuffle and the 'impossibly small' iPod nano in 2005, and the iPod video in 2006. By that time, 'iPod' had become synonymous with 'portable music player', and the iTunes Store had sold over one billion songs.

Although the iPod changed the music industry and the way everybody listened to music, the most important change it carried was probably that of Apple. The wild success of iPod proved to all the company's employees, starting with Jobs himself, that they were right to strive for perfection and ease of use -unlike the Mac, which still didn't grow beyond its 5% market share, iPod garnered Microsoft-like numbers of 80% of the MP3 player market. It was iPod that revealed the future of Apple, not only as a PC manufacturer, but as a consumer electronics powerhouse. It was also iPod that broadened the company's expertise in the supply chain, manufacturing, and distribution of a mainstream digital device in gigantic proportions. Finally, it was iPod which, through the crowds it attracted to the company's retail stores, finally helped the Mac business of Apple, whose growth rate started outpacing that of consumer Windows PCs from 2005.

When Pixar met Disney

iPod also played an indirect role in shaping the future of Steve's 'other' company, Pixar. After having released hit after hit ( A Bug's Life (1998), Toy Story 2 (1999), Monsters Inc. (2001) and Finding Nemo (2003)), the animation studio had decided to let go of its distribution deal with Disney, mainly because of increasing tensions between Steve Jobs and Disney CEO Michael Eisner. Steve Jobs openly said he would not make another deal with the Magic Kingdom until Eisner was out. Turns out his opinion was shared by many an executive at Disney - including Walt's own nephew, Roy Disney, who started a public campaign to oust the company's CEO in late 2003. This led to the nomination of Bob Iger as new CEO in September 2005.

Rumor has it that one of the first phone calls Iger made after he became CEO was to Pixar CEO Steve Jobs. He was willing to show his good will in ending the Pixar-Disney dispute. Steve Jobs took the opportunity to pitch him his new Apple plan. He was going to introduce an iPod with video capabilities soon, and he wanted a movie store to go along with it. Iger accepted, and both men appeared on stage in October 2005 to announce that Disney would be selling TV shows on the iTunes Store. The audience of journalists was pleasantly surprised to see the CEO of Disney appear so friendly with Steve Jobs, and suspected there would soon be news on the Pixar side.

Indeed, just a couple months later, on January 24, 2006, Disney announced its friendly acquisition of Pixar, at $7.4 billion (mostly in stock). Jobs became a Disney board member and its largest individual shareholder, owning 7% of the company's stock -ironically, this is by far what contributed to most of his wealth, not his Apple stock. Pixar executives Ed Catmull and John Lasseter were also both given leadership roles in the new combined animation studio. In many ways, it was as if Pixar had taken over Disney animation -a reverse acquisition reminiscent of NeXT taking over Apple after the 1996 merger.

Momentum

Meanwhile, Apple was seeing unprecedented success in all its businesses, not only iPod and iTunes. The retail stores were hugely popular, and a milestone was reached when Steve Jobs inaugurated the impressive 5th Avenue store in Manhattan, a glass cube facing Central Park. As for the Mac, it was gaining momentum on the market, benefiting from both the aura of the iPod, and the switch to Intel processors.

Indeed, at WWDC in June 2005,, Jobs made a surprise announcement that after over a decade on the PowerPC microprocessor architecture, Apple would start using more power-efficient Intel chips in its Macs. In the late 1990s, Apple had run several ads to make fun of Intel's Pentium processors. As a matter of fact, the expression 'Wintel machines' (Windows + Intel) was often used to describe PCs. That move to Intel was thus pretty bold, but in the long run turned out to be another wise decision. Not only did it make Macs more competitive and efficient, paving the way for the super slim (and super successful) MacBook Air notebooks -it also opened up a whole new set of customers to Apple, as Intel Macs could run both Mac OS X and Windows. The Mac became the platform of choice for an ever larger number of software developers. Less than a year after the announcement, all new Macs were running Intel. The transition was a complete success.

Apple Inc.

iPod made Steve Jobs realize that Apple could become the greatest consumer electronics company on the planet. Around 2003, he started a secret project to develop a computer tablet. But in 2004-2005, he realized that the technology that had been developed for this tablet -including a revolutionary touch-screen technology- could also be used in a mobile phone, which was even more appealing. After two more years of development, iPhone was introduced at Macworld on January 9, 2007. This keynote is often considered the pinnacle of Steve Jobs' career.

iPhone was not only a breakthrough digital convergence device ("an iPod, a phone, and an Internet communicator" all in one), it was also a force of disruption for the traditional phone business. Just like for the iTunes Store, Steve Jobs had negotiated a landmark deal with wireless carrier AT&T before he introduced iPhone -without ever showing them a prototype! In exchange for exclusivity, the carrier would pay Apple a share of all their iPhone subscription revenues. And of course, AT&T could not put any software on the iPhone, and no logo either. This was an inversion of the traditional master-slave relationship that carriers entertained with phone manufacturers (OEMs). In the long run, it really turned the phone industry upside down.

Unlike iPod, all of Apple understood that iPhone, if successful, could become a world-changing device and redefine their company. Thus, at the end of the iPhone introduction, Steve Jobs also announced that the company's name would change from Apple Computer Inc. to Apple Inc. Macs still mattered, but they now accounted for a minority of Apple's revenues, and this trend was not about to be reversed. They was a highly symbolic moment in the company's history.

The original iPhone was quite successful: despite its $399 price tag, Apple sold 6 million of them during its lifetime. But sales really started to skyrocket in 2008, after Apple introduced the cheaper iPhone 3G (at a subsidized $199 price) and the App Store. Just like the Windows-compatible iPod, Steve Jobs was originally opposed to letting third-party software on the iPhone. But the demand was so high that he eventually relented, and introduced the iPhone SDK and the App Store in March 2008.

It is impossible to overestimate the impact of the iPhone's App Store, which ushered in a new era in mobile software. Thousands of developers started writing apps for the iPhone platform, which became a competitive advantage for Apple. Apple proudly showed off this rich choice of software in its TV ad campaign 'There's an app for that', which ran for over two years.

Health concerns

Unfortunately, while he had never been so successful professionally, Steve Jobs had to start fighting cancer with renewed intensity.

In late 2003, he had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer of a rare kind, that could potentially be cured by surgery. However, against everyone's advice, he refused to have the surgery for nine long months. Instead, true to the ideals of his youth, he tried alternative diets and treatments, including acupuncture and seeing a psychic. Only in July 2004 did he agree to have the surgery. He looked healthy for the next five years, and spoke publicly of being 'cured' of cancer at his famous Stanford commencement speech in 2005.

Yet at the WWDC keynote in June 2008, few observers failed to notice how thin he appeared on stage, and concerns about his health started popping up again. They became increasingly frequent until December 2008, when Apple made a shocking announcement that Jobs would not be the keynote speaker at Macworld 2009, and that he was taking a medical leave of absence for six months. Although he (and Apple) publicly denied it, the truth was that his cancer had come back. He was actually weeks away from death when he received a liver transplant, in April 2009. He came back to Apple in late summer 2009, healthier though still very frail in appearance. He was eager to bring the finishing touches to a new project very dear to his heart.

Ushering in the Post-PC era

The iPhone had spun off the idea for a tablet device back in 2005, and it was time to restart that project, which of course became the iPad. Although some speculated it would run Mac OS X, it was decided that iPad would in fact run the same operating system as iPhone, now called iOS. It would therefore benefit from the rich variety of apps already present in the iPhone App Store.

Although iPad was welcomed by mixed reviews when it was introduced in January 2010 (some dubbed it a "larger iPod touch"), it was always clear to Steve Jobs that it was 'the biggest thing [he'd] ever done' -the ultimate post-PC device, an eventual replacement of PCs for the average user. He laid out his vision clearly at the D8 conference in June 2010, where he compared PCs to trucks and iPads to cars. This perspective on iPad was reiterated in a series of TV commercials where the narrator, the 'Apple voice', explained how revolutionary iPad was, and how the revolution had 'only just begun'.

Unfortunately, Steve Jobs' health, which had seemed to recover throughout 2010, started declining again. In January 2011, he announced he was taking a new medical leave of absence, this time without saying when it would end. Everybody started talking about his upcoming departure. However, he deemed iPad and iOS so important that he still made two major public presentations at Apple events. The first one was the introduction of iPad 2 in March 2011, and the second one was WWDC, in June 2011, where he introduced iCloud.

In many ways, the iCloud announcement was of similar importance as the Digital Hub Strategy introduction ten years before. It was not only a product, but a master plan to get consumers to adopt iOS devices and lock them into the Apple ecosystem. The 2011 iCloud, which allowed users to sync email, documents, and media across their Macs and iDevices, was only the first step in that direction. It was crucial to Steve Jobs, who clearly considered iOS to be the most important of Apple's businesses, and the key to its future success.

Building his legacy

The resurgence of Steve's cancer was a painful reminder that it was time to 'put his affairs in order' before his passing -and he did.

First, he made sure that Apple was ready to operate without him. In late 2008, he hired the dean of the Yale School of Management to create 'Apple University', a sort of internal business track to groom future Apple executives by exposing them to the Apple ways, through case studies of the history of the company. He also consolidated his executive team and agreed with the board that his natural successor would be his second in command, COO Tim Cook. Finally, at his last public appearance in June 2011, he unveiled his plans for the future Apple campus in Cupertino (now Apple Park), a huge spaceship-sized building in the shape of a circle. All of this was in place when he eventually resigned as Apple CEO on August 24, 2011.

Jobs also prepared his personal legacy. In 2009, he started giving interviews to writer Walter Isaacson to prepare for his first and only authorized biography, sharing with him his perspective on his life and career. He also spent his last days designing a yacht for his family on which he hoped to travel the world. Unfortunately, death took him too soon, and he died peacefully at home on October 5, 2011, surrounded by his family -the day following the introduction of the iPhone 4S, an Apple event that he most likely watched from his deathbed.

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Steven Paul Jobs was born on February 24, 1955 in San Francisco, California. His unwed biological parents, Joanne Schieble and Abdulfattah Jandali, put him up for adoption. Steve was adopted by Paul and Clara Jobs, a lower-middle-class couple, who moved to the suburban city of Mountain View a couple of years later.

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Hoda Kotb Says She’s Leaving the ‘Today’ Show to “Try Something New”

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The 26-year NBC veteran plans to keep working for the network after stepping back from its morning program in early 2025.

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At only five feet five inches tall and wearing glasses, James Jabara did not look like your typical fighter pilot. A first-generation American of Lebanese descent, his parents emigrated to the United States from the town of Marjayoun, located just north of the modern-day border with Israel. They first settled in Muskogee, Oklahoma, where he was born October 10, 1923. The family relocated to Wichita, Kansas, when he was nine years old and opened a grocery store. Working for his parents, the industrious and swarthy Jabara attended Wichita North High School, where he earned the rank of Eagle Scout. When World War II broke out, Jabara wasted no time and enlisted in the Army at Fort Riley, Kansas, just down the road from his hometown. Intent on being a pilot, and despite his imperfect vision, he successfully earned both wings and selection as a fighter pilot-usually the toughest assignment to get.

Flying the famous P-51 Mustang for two tours in the European theater of operations (ETO), his first assignment was with the 363rd Fighter Group, Ninth Air Force. This first tour lasted from January to October 1944. In this capacity, Jabara was largely in direct support of Allied ground forces as they assaulted the beaches of Normandy and swung east toward greater Germany. During this period, he claimed a Messerschmitt Bf 109 aircraft after another enemy fighter had shot away his canopy. Luckily, he also survived two mid-air collisions, one with a fellow airman and one with the enemy. Reportedly, after his mid-air collision with the Luftwaffe pilot, they met on the ground, shook hands, and then walked away.

He returned to the United States after this tour but was soon reassigned to the ETO as a member of the 355th Fighter Groups, Eighth Air Force. During the war, Jabara flew 108 combat missions, clamed 1.5 aerial and 4 ground kills, and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross with one Oak Leaf Cluster, and the Air Medal with 18 Oak Leaf Clusters. It was also during this time that he received his nom de guerre, "the Ceegar Kid," due to his penchant for smoking stogies. Unlike many men in the services after V-E and V-J Day, Jabara remained on active duty and transitioned into the newly created US Air Force.

From 1947 to 1949, he was assigned to the Tactical Air School at Tyndall Air Force Base, as well as the 53rd Fighter Group in Okinawa, and learned to fly America's first operational jet fighter, the P-80 Shooting Star. Describing his first flight in the jet, Jabara said: "It was entirely different. I was at 10,000 ft before I remembered to raise my landing gear. . . . It was so quiet, so fast . . . I guess that was the happiest moment in my life." Eventually, he transitioned to fly the sleek, new F-86 Saber jet and was assigned to the 4th Fighter Intercept Wing (FIW). With the outbreak of the Korean War in July 1950, the Wing's F-86s were placed aboard an aircraft carrier and sent to the western Pacific. Initially flying out of Japan, the unit moved to Kimpo Airfield in Korea with Jabara assigned to the 334th Fighter Interceptor Squadron (FIS) in early 1951.

Flying against the Soviet-built Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15, the F-86 found a worthy adversary. While a surprise to many in the West, the swept wing, t-tail design, and heavy armament of the MiG-15 made it a formidable opponent. Its presence quickly affected bombing operations over North Korea as the Air Force's WWII vintage bombers began suffering catastrophic losses. Quick and maneuverable, the Communist jet was often flown by Russian pilots with aircraft bearing North Korean or Chinese markings. Given the performance characteristics of the American and Soviet jets, aerial victory often was a factor of pilot skill and aggressiveness rather than just airframe performance.

Off to a slow start flying combat missions over North Korea, Jabara was credited with damaging one MiG. He did not claim his first kill until April 3 in an area of northwest Korea referred to as "MiG Alley." This first victory was followed by a second a week later, with his third occurring on April 12. By the end of the month he racked up a total of four MiGs, one shy of "ace" status. While his squadron was rotating out of combat, Jabara was assigned to a 4th FIW sister squadron, the 335thFIS, so that he might pursue his fifth kill.

On May 20, 1951, Jabara was part of a fighter sweep over Sinuiju hoping to entice the MiGs to combat. When Communist fighters arrived, Jabara went to jettison his external fuel tanks from his wings and engage in combat, but only one tank jettisoned. With a "hung tank," the aircraft was asymmetrically loaded and carrying extra weight and drag. With this handicap, Jabara could have, and should have, exited the melee. Instead, he engaged in a turning dogfight with a MiG and eventually positioned himself to fire the F-86's six .50 caliber machine guns. The machine gun rounds found their mark, setting the MiG ablaze and forcing it to descend. To ensure credit for the kill, Jabara followed his prey down and captured his victory on the gun camera film.

Climbing back up to altitude, Jabara engaged another enemy jet and also sent it smoking down into North Korea. Again following the dying MiG, his own jet became the prey and was hit as he tried to shake two enemy fighters with his asymmetrical and overloaded plane. Eventually, two other F-86s came to his aid and chased away the MiGs. Low on fuel, he joined the two American jets as they escorted him to K-13 Airfield at Suwon. With these fifth and sixth kills, he was the first jet ace of the war and the first jet-versus-jet ace in history. Awarded another Distinguished Flying Cross by his Wing's commanding officer, he was also admonished for not aborting combat once he realized he had a hung tank.

Later review of Soviet records did not match the Jabara's claims, showing him short by two planes, but at the time, such a factual review of kills and losses was impossible, and Jabara was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for his "ace" status. Sent home for a publicity tour, Jabara was removed from combat operations. Back home in Kansas, his family's reputation soared, and their grocery store became a frequent stop receiving TV and radio attention. Part of his celebrity included giving a speech overseas during a visit to his ancestral town of Marjayoun. Returning to the United States, he served at the Pentagon and then at Scott Air Force Base, Illinois, before requesting a return to combat in Korea.

James Jabara perched in the cockpit of an F-86 Saber. All of Jabara's 15 victories during the Korean war were scored while flying Sabers. (USAF Museum Photo)

Promoted to the rank of Major, he was sent back to Korea in January 1953. During his second tour, Jabara significantly increased his tally of enemy kills. Starting slowly again, he did not score his next victory until May 16, but then scored two more ten days later. On June 10, he claimed another two. However, on June 18 his F-86 experienced mechanical problems that almost resulted in a crash. He was able to recover and still bagged an already damaged MiG. Weeks later, on June 30, he flew two missions in one day, scoring one kill in each. However, in the second mission he was pursued by multiple MiGs, and, while trying to evade their pursuit, his engine flamed out. Heading for the water to bail out, he was able to restart his engine and return to base. He scored his last victory on July 15, despite trying to raise his score with subsequent missions. Now a "triple ace," he was again withdrawn from combat and received another Distinguished Flying Cross, as well as a Silver Star. His tally would be superseded only by Captain Joseph McConnell, who claimed 16 MiGs during the war. However, years later Russian records would claim the Soviets had four pilots engaged in the conflict whose scores topped both McConnell and Jabara.

After the war, he was sent to Yuma Air Force Base, Arizona as commander of the 4750s Training Squadron. By 1957 he was reassigned to Eglin Air Force Base to fly the F-104 Starfighter. Dubbed the "missile with a man in it," the F-104 was a sleek fighter and was the first production aircraft capable of Mach 2 airspeed. Next, he assumed command of the 337th Fighter Interceptor Squadron at Westover Air Force Base in Massachusetts. Subsequently, he flew the F-104 in combat missions over Taiwan from 1958 to 1959. After this overseas assignment, he attended the Air War College and then proceeded to Carswell Air Force Base, Texas to fly the first supersonic bomber, the B-58 Hustler. By 1965 he was in command of the 31st Tactical Fighter Wing at Homestead Air Force Base, Florida and was promoted to the rank of Colonel. However, his combat days were not over. In July 1966 he flew the F-100 Super Saber fighter-bomber aircraft in missions in Vietnam.

He returned home for vacation after these final missions in the F-100. Unfortunately, while traveling to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, on November 17, 1966, Jabara and his oldest daughter were fatally injured when she lost control of the car she was driving and overcorrected, causing it to roll several times. Both are buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, D.C. He was 43, while his daughter was only 16. It was a tragic end for an American hero who braved combat in three wars.

Despite the loss, Jabara's courage, skill, and dedication are still commemorated by the US Air Force Academy's Jabara Award, bestowed yearly upon the graduate whose accomplishments demonstrate superior performance in fields related to aerospace vehicles. Jabara was also named to the Kansas Aviation Hall of Fame in 2006, and an airport near his hometown of Wichita is named after him.

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jenny craig institute for the study of war and democracy

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James Jabara: The Unlikely Fighter Pilot | The National WWII Museum | New Orleans

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A first-generation American of Lebanese descent, James Jabara was intent on being a fighter pilot. Soon, the five foot five airman would make US military aviation history.

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Founder of MADD | Founder of We Save Lives | Candace Candy Lightner

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Candy Lightner, founder of Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) and We Save Lives (Link to WSL) is recognized nationally and internationally as the moving force behind reshaping the nation’s attitude toward drunk driving. She founded MADD after her after her 13-year-old daughter, Cari, was killed by a multiple repeat offender drunk driver.

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Diane Rehm is one of the most respected radio journalists of our time. Listen to her podcast "On My Mind." Explore the Diane Rehm Show archives. Learn about Diane's upcoming appearances.

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Dr. Farouk El-Baz: Space Photographer Pioneer

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Originally from Egypt, geologist Dr. Farouk El-Baz helped NASA select the best places to land on the Moon.

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Maysoon Zayid: Comedian, Producer, Filmmaker 

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Maysoon Zayid: Comedian, Producer, Filmmaker 

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“I have cerebral palsy. I shake all the time,” Maysoon Zayid announces at the beginning of this exhilarating, hilarious talk. (Really, it’s hilarious.) “I’m like Shakira meets Muhammad Ali.” With grace and wit, the Arab-American comedian takes us on a whistle-stop tour of her adventures as an actress, stand-up comic, philanthropist and advocate for the disabled.

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Emma Rothberg, NWHM Predoctoral Fellow in Gender Studies I 2020-2022

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As a life-long Detroiter, and one of the first Muslim-Americans, as well as the first Palestinian-American woman, ever elected to the United States Congress, Tlaib advocates for issues that affect the working-class.

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On how to be famous and keep cool

Growing up on the sets of cult TV productions such as Arrested Development, Alia Shawkat learned how to keep up with the adults. In three decades on screen, she's honed a surgically precise technique that's the toast of her generation of co-creators, Zoë Kravitz, Hailey Gates and Natasha Lyonne included, whose female voices are being sought out at last. We will next see Alia, 34, in Severance, The Old Man and Pussy Island - and her own series, Desert People, is in the works. But first, she's attending a debut of a different kind - that of her son.

When she was a child actor living with her family in Palm Springs, California, and commuting the 100-plus miles to Los Angeles to play Maeby Fünke in the TV sitcom A rrested Development, Alia Shawkat was a grown-up little thing. "I used to dress like a 40-year-old woman," Alia, now 34, says when we meet on a hot July day in the Los Feliz area of Los Angeles. "Yeah, I used to have tiny little purses, and I would dress like I was going to work: a button-up and dress shoes and a purse. I didn't even have anything in the purse - maybe a sparkly lip gloss - but there was something in me that meant I was like: I have to be an adult."

Alia has been an adult, then, since she was eight. She has been on screen for longer than any of us have had smartphones. And her reputation as an actress with an eye for an excellent script and a talent for comedic timing and spot-on delivery, her distinctive cherubic face with its freckles, her brunette curls and her nuanced facial expressions are ever more familiar to ever more people. "She is one of those rare actors who all but guarantees that a project is going to be worth your attention," Rebecca Nicholson, The Guardian 's TV columnist, says. "Often her presence suggests that whatever is happening might be a little less obvious than your run-of-the-mill production." For Alia, that usually means a script with laughs - wicked, satirical, picking-at-the-scabs-of-humanity laughs. "It's my favourite thing to make," she says. "A comedy that's really fucked up."

Alia is eight months pregnant with a boy. She doesn't want to name the father, her partner, but suffice it to say it's not Brad Pitt, her friendship with whom the tabloids made a great fuss of a few years ago. She's in that late stage when your baby carries your weight so far forward you have to alter your gait and put your balance into the back of your body else you'll topple over. But she's feeling good. She's been swimming a lot - "I sneak into my friend's house when she's out of town" - and she laughs when she tells me that just as she's about to stop being pregnant she's finally "learned how to dress for pregnancy". A faintly striped oversized button-down shirt flaps open over black Martine Rose ripstop shorts and what look like black wrestling boots by The Row on her feet. She has just finished filming Atropia, directed by her friend Hailey Gates. "We circled each other for many years," Gates tells me by email from Los Angeles. Atropia, a feature-length version of Gates's 2019 short, Shako Mako, for Miu Miu's Women's Tales series, also starring Alia, follows an aspiring actress working in a simulated Iraqi war zone on a US military training base. "As an actor, she is a surgeon," Gates adds. "Her control is almost sinister. And what's confounding is that she makes all her work invisible. She can play all the strings at once - humour, heartbreak, ennui, in one sneeze. Envy-inducing shit."

This year, Hollywood labour disputes permitting, Alia will resume her role of Angela Adams, the FBI agent in The Old Man, alongside Jeff Bridges and John Lithgow, and you'll catch her in the second season of Apple's Severance. She will also be seen in Pussy Island, the directorial debut of Zoë Kravitz, who has been one of Alia's best friends for more than a decade. Kravitz, writing by email from New York, remembers first seeing Alia "at a cafe in LA wearing a 1950s one-piece bathing suit and carrying a stuffed animal, maybe it was a penguin, and clearly I was like, 'Who is that?!'" Alia says she was a little more hesitant about Zoë. "I thought she was too cool, we'd never hit it off. But she's so warm and loving. A good friend.

"Working with friends has become a big priority for me," Alia says. "And not just making small things, but feeling like we're all kind of expressing the things we really want to say and putting it out there. We've been talking about it forever: 'One day we'll make our own stuff!' And now it's really happening."

Alia was born in Riverside, just east of Los Angeles, in 1989. She is the middle child of three; her older brother, Paul, is a teacher, and her younger, Sharif, recently decided to become an actor. Her father, Tony Shawkat, an Iraqi who came to America in the late 1970s, is a film producer who started the only strip club in the Coachella Valley with Alia's mother, Dina, some 30 years ago. Tony continues to run Showgirls today; Dina has taken a step back. "She thinks it's so funny that people judge it," Alia says. "If you met my mom, she dresses beautifully, and she's definitely on the more conservative side, not a hippie by any means. She looks at it - as does my dad - very much as a business."

Alia's first screen role was in David O Russell's Three Kings, a 1999 film set during the Iraq war on which her father was an advisor. (Her interest in acting had started when she was watching a children's sketch show called All That and thought, "I can do that"; she soon began asking her parents to take her to auditions.) Two years later, she co-starred in the comedy series State of Grace. But her big break was winning the role of Maeby on Arrested Development, the five-season cult comedy that received 25 Emmy nominations and won six. The show starred Jason Bateman, Will Arnett, Portia de Rossi and the young Michael Cera as Maeby's cousin George Michael; the two teenagers were impossibly attracted to each other. "We were learning on a very fast level there," Alia says. "Me and Michael talk about this. How we were reading scripts and figuring out timings. We maybe didn't even understand the jokes. And everyone's laughing at the table, and you have to figure out why it's funny. That was kind of invaluable. And tricky, because I read scripts now and I'm like, Oh, this is just terrible! Like, I'm used to good scripts!"

She also thinks she benefited from being in the public eye at an early age. "I know people who started acting, like most people, in their 20s and 30s, and they're a little more caught up by it," she says. "They believe it's so real, and so important to be looked at by that person or go to that event. And I feel really lucky to have had that - like, I've seen it for a long time. When you're a kid you have radar vision, instincts about people. I was around people when I was pretty young, seeing the way they carried themselves and being like, Oh, that's bullshit. That's not real. I don't believe it."

Her mother, Dina, is the child of the late actor Paul Burke. "She didn't have the best experience with it, being a kid. My grandfather was successful in the late 1950s and 1960s, and then work dried up when he was older," Alia says. "But when he became famous he left the family for a little while. They reconciled and became very close later in life. But, yeah, I mean, fame isn't a healthy thing, especially for a kid. And my mom just tried to keep me on the up and up about that."

Alia was only 18 when the first run of Arrested Development ended (it was revived by Netflix for two series in 2013 and 2018). At that time, she didn't feel like she was being offered the right roles - though she would go on to star in independent films such as 20th Century Women, alongside Greta Gerwig; Duck Butter, which she also co-wrote; and more recently the starry, Aaron Sorkin-scripted movie Being the Ricardos, alongside Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem. So in 2007 she moved to New York, where her then boyfriend lived, with the idea of more study and doing some theatre.

She took up painting and line drawing, a practice she continues today, producing seven-foot canvases in oil and charcoal, and occasionally ceramics. Anthony Chen, the director of Drift, which also stars Cynthia Erivo, asked Alia to do the artwork for the promotional poster. "I like it when I have a brief," she told me. She also likes the solitude painting brings. "Sometimes after a job I need to sit in a room and be alone. On set you're so sociable, and I thrive in it, I love it. But when I go to my studio it's a very different mindset. Getting that rhythm again... I like switching between that and being super social."

In 2016, Alia became known as Dory Sief in Search Party, the critically acclaimed dark comedy series that ran for five seasons and gave her great dramatic scope. "It started as a murder mystery and became one of the most inventive series of recent years, with each season assuming a new genre," Rebecca Nicholson says. "As Dory, she had to lead a murder mystery, a crime thriller, a legal drama, a horror and a cult conspiracy, all within the same show. It was remarkable." Alia became a producer and director on the series. "I learned so much on Search Party," she says. "We were very much making it all together - the same age, same sense of humour. It was all the things we were thinking about and talking about."

"It's my favourite thing to make - a comedy that's really fucked up."

Alia enjoys the shared experience - the romance - of the troupe. "You know, we're gonna see each other every day for this short period of time, we're gonna bond and, ideally, really trust each other, make some cool shit."

Alia spent most of last summer in the Yucatán jungle, wearing a bikini, on location for Pussy Island. The film is a thriller starring Naomi Ackie as a waitress who starts a relationship with a tech billionaire - played by Kravitz's partner, Channing Tatum - and is taken to his mysterious private island, where things turn out to be more than a little twisted. Kravitz wrote the script with ET Feigenbaum, with whom she worked on the TV series High Fidelity. It draws on true stories about power-wielding sex offenders such as Jeffrey Epstein holding sordid parties in remote places. "It was a big undertaking for her, to have such a big film for your first project," Alia says. "But Zoë had been working on it, writing it, for a long time. I always kept being like, 'Send it to me, I want to read it, I want to give you notes,' or whatever - just encouraging her to really follow through. I think she's really proud of it. But she doesn't want any of the actors to see it till it's, like, done done."

It was an unusual situation, working with a friend. "Hailey and I became close making the short, so I kind of met her in a professional context," Alia says. "Zoë, we're more like buddies. I know her better than maybe any other person in the cast except Channing. So I could see if she was stressing out or she wasn't happy about something maybe a little bit more than someone else might. But, yeah, I feel like the friendship gave us a shorthand. I always know exactly what she means, and I felt I could be really intimate in front of her, so it's easy to get the performance. I felt safe." For her part, Kravitz says meeting "work Alia" for the first time was fascinating. "She's a lot more serious at work than she is in her life. She takes her work very seriously. It was a very interesting shift to witness as someone who has been so close with her for so long. She knows what she needs to do her job well, and she's not afraid to ask for it. It feels like a happy accident, but it's wildly impressive."

"A lot of the work of becoming older has been about being playful."

For the first time in the history of the entertainment industry, women's voices and stories are actively being sought out, and Alia has stuff to contribute. "As much as you can, be a part of something where you actually believe what it's saying," Alia says. "You have to be conscious of it. What are the characters you're putting out there, the stories you're telling? You don't realise how much they affect other people. People forget that. They just want to make stuff that is titillating and exciting." Alia's been tackling ideas around "women acting like they have power, but maybe not - the whole feminist math problem" - for a long time. Circumstances have given Alia - as a child actor around adult actors, as a woman of colour, as the daughter of an Iraqi immigrant father and an American mother, and as the daughter of parents who owned a strip club - an interesting perspective on many things.

She has been working on a script for a TV series about her family's club for a few years now. It is called Desert People, and Natasha Lyonne is a co-creator. "The strike has slowed it down. And now I'm pregnant." Alia shrugs. "It's, like, the most personal story, and it would be the biggest thing I could make for me, but it takes so much energy and heart. And you know, I worry about my family, even though it's fictionalised and they're super supportive of it."

She wasn't allowed to go through the door of Showgirls until she was 21. "The first time I went in, it was really trippy. Because something hadn't sunk in until I was actually there as a customer," she says. "The girls were the same age as me, and even some a little younger, and they're looking at me like, Oh, you're the boss's daughter. And I'm like, Yeah, hi, sorry, I'm not in my bikini." She laughs. "And then the psychology about family and, you know, father complexes, sexuality, and that thing of wanting your father's attention. It was just this weird cycle, being the daughter of someone who owns a strip club. My father's very respectful of all the women and all that stuff, but it's still super layered.

"I think the equation, or not, with the strip club is that these women have a lot of power when they're on stage, and then the minute the song is over and they're on their knees collecting the money it seems like the power is gone. And all of a sudden you're confused by the fantasy. And you're like, But I thought she had the power? Now she doesn't?" She nods. "Because she's not allowed to keep her power. She can't go home with it."

When she lived in New York, Alia would often go to watch Woody Allen play in a jazz band at the Carlyle hotel. "I barely had any money, and I'd go there all dressed up, thinking he'd be like, 'Wait a second! You at the back!' I'd try and catch his eye. And now I'm like, Why was I trying to catch his eye? It was the power. Right."

It's hard, Alia says, trying to come to terms with your own agency as a woman. Although she likes to think she was a feminist always, "I don't think in practicality it was until I was probably really in my late 20s. Until I stopped using my body to get what I wanted, you know? And then I was like, Wait a second. I'm much more powerful if I don't give it away? Yeah, it takes a minute. You're there thinking, I'm doing whatever the fuck I want! And then it's like, Oh, no, actually, they're doing it to me. It's hurtful. Then you have to heal and forgive yourself."

It's an evolved perspective, perhaps the result of being a professional for almost her entire life but more likely due to what she calls "the good work" she's put in to make sure she has emerged resilient and self-aware. "So now when I'm on set, instead of being, like, Hey, I've been doing this for 20-plus years, which I definitely did for a while, I'm trying to be like, No, I'm learning from everyone, and we're here to have fun." She has put away the purse. "It's a lot of pressure when you're young - to learn lines, to buck up, to put in 12-, 14-hour days. So a lot of the work of becoming older has been about being more like a child, more playful and being, like, I don't have to be the responsible one all the time. I don't have to be so serious or in control. It's OK."

Text by
Kate Finnigan Kate Finnigan is a writer, editor and creative consultant, and a regular contributor to publications such as Vogue, Telegraph Magazine and the Financial Times. Fancy. read more Portraits by
Colin Dodgson Born and raised in Southern California, the fashion photographer Colin Dodgson grew up with ambitions of being a professional surfer, before an encounter with a 35mm film camera persuaded him to study at the local art college instead. In 2006, he moved to New York, where he worked for arts magazines... read more Styling by
Jasmine Hassett Jasmine Hassett is a stylist and consultant living in New York City, working with brands such as Cartier, Louis Vuitton and Zara. The diverse and wide breadth of her distinctive fashion portfolio, across stills and motion image, can be perused in full at jasminehassett.com. read more

Hair: Terri Walker at Walter Schupfer Management. Make-up: Sandy Ganzer at Forward Artists. Photographic assistance: Sam Rivera. Production: Art Partner, Connect the Dots.
This profile was originally published in The Gentlewoman nº 28, Autumn and Winter 2023.

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A fabulous magazine for modern women of style and purpose.

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Mo Amer is one of my favorite stand-up comedians... That's why I had to feature him on my show."

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A glimpse into a beloved novelist’s inner world, shaped by family, art, and literature. In her fiction, Claire Messud “has specialized in creating unusual female characters with ferocious, imaginative inner lives” (Ruth Franklin, New York Times Magazine). Kant’s Little Prussian Head and Other Reasons Why I Write opens a window on Messud’s own life: a peripatetic upbringing; a warm, complicated family; and, throughout it all, her devotion to art and literature. In twenty-six intimate, brilliant, and funny essays, Messud reflects on a childhood move from her Connecticut home to Australia; the complex relationship between her modern Canadian mother and a fiercely single French Catholic aunt; and a trip to Beirut, where her pied-noir father had once lived, while he was dying. She meditates on contemporary classics ...Read More

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Because Christian Zionism drives U.S. support for this genocide, Christians have a responsibility to use our voices as powerfully as possible for the cause of peace and justice. We are taking public action as Christians.

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The Palestinian keffiyeh explained: How this scarf became a national symbol | CNN

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A keffiyeh — sometimes spelled kufiyya or kaffiyeh — is a traditional scarf worn across many parts of the Middle East. In recent decades they have come to be identified in particular as a symbol of Palestinian identity and resistance.

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Marking April as Arab American Heritage Month - a time to learn about the history, culture and contributions of our nearly 4 million strong community - is gaining traction across the country.

In 2022, Joe Biden made history as the first U.S. president to recognize the month, which he did again in 2023. States such as Illinois and Virginia have passed legislation to make the celebration an annual event, and dozens more have commemorated it.

This recognition is important, given the simplistic ways Arabs are often portrayed in American culture. From TV stations to entertainment media, people of Arab descent are often stereotyped as violent, oppressed or exotic. Nevertheless, as an anthropologist who studies religious and racial dynamics in Arab societies, I am concerned that as the celebration of "Arab American heritage" becomes more mainstream, the diversity and complex stories of Arab Americans' many different communities may be papered over. In short, Arab Americans are not a monolithic group.

Arab Christians

In 2023, Arab American Heritage Month overlaps with the second half of Ramadan, the Muslim month of fasting. For many in the United States, this overlap seems natural, given how often Islam is conflated with Arab identity. But just as most Muslims around the world are not Arab, not all Arabs are Muslim.

While the 22 countries that make up the Arab League all have Muslim majorities, Christian communities predate Muslim ones in the region. Indeed, Christianity began in the Middle East, with the Palestinian city of Bethlehem, which is revered as Jesus' birthplace, an important pilgrimage stop for Christians from all over the world. During the first significant wave of Arab immigration to the U.S. in the late 19th century and early 20th century, families more often than not were Syrian, Lebanese and Palestinian Christians.

Today, most Americans of Arab descent identify as Christian. While the Arab community in the greater Detroit area, a short drive from where I live and work, is majority Muslim, that sets it apart from many other Arab communities in the U.S.

Arab American Christians are themselves diverse, identifying as Protestants and Catholics, and with a variety of Eastern Christian traditions, such as Antiochian and Coptic Orthodoxy.

Furthermore, some sects of Christianity have become intertwined with specific ethnic identities. For example, some Coptic Christian Egyptian Americans refuse the label "Arab," even if they grew up speaking Arabic at home or learn the language to connect with their family roots. This refusal is often rooted in Copts' collective experiences of marginalization in Egypt, where they face many restrictions, including on repairing and building churches.

From Mizrahi Jews to Shiite Muslims

Just as Christianity is an integral yet complex part of Arab heritage, so is Judaism. Arab Jews, often called Mizrahi Jews, have existed since ancient times and helped shape Arab heritage through their philosophical, poetic and political contributions across centuries.

To be sure, Israel's establishment and its occupation of Palestinian territories has complicated Arab Jewish identities, with new forms of antisemitism becoming more common within many Arab communities. Still, there is growing interest among scholars and Arab American Jews themselves in learning more about this history, as well as the Jewish background of beloved pan-Arab celebrities such as Layla Murad, an iconic midcentury Egyptian actress.

The San Francisco Bay area for generations has been home to the Egyptian Jewish Karaite community. Karaites reject the authority of the rabbinic oral tradition used by more mainstream branches of Judaism such as Reform, Conservative and Orthodox groups in the U.S. Here in the U.S., as in Egypt, members struggle for recognition as a religious minority within a religion that is itself a minority, Judaism.

Arab American Muslims are not a monolithic group, either. Over half identify as Sunni, 16% as Shiite and the rest with neither group, according to a 2017 Pew poll. Of course, the diversity of beliefs and practices within Sunnism and Shiism, the largest two branches of Islam, are themselves present within Arab American Muslim communities as well.

Finally, many Arab Americans identify with no religion at all, or with other faiths beyond the Abrahamic traditions.

Many nations, one box

Arab heritage not only includes a variety of religious traditions, but encompasses a wide range of ethnic and racial identities. It is difficult to make generalizations about Arabs, whose skin tone, facial features, eye colors and hair textures embody the rich histories of human migrations and settlements that characterize western Asia and northern Africa.

The U.S. census erases this internal diversity, however, by categorizing Arabs and other Middle Easterners as "white." Arab American advocacy groups have long argued that the form's categories do not reflect the actual experiences of the vast majority of Arab Americans, who are not treated as white in their everyday lives. And Arab identities in the U.S. are becoming only more complex, given the diversity of national backgrounds reflected in the more recent waves of Arab immigration from the 1960s to today.

Complicated identities

Asking that Arabs check the box as "white" also marginalizes Black Arabs. The term Afro Arab is growing as a term of self-description for Black Arab Americans seeking to make space for their multifaceted identities and heritage. Black communities are a part of every Arab country, from Iraq to Morocco.

These dual identities are still fraught, given the pervasiveness of anti-Black racism within some Arab communities, which often stems from the legacies of the trans-Saharan and Ottoman slave trades. An estimated 15% of Tunisians, for example, are descendants of enslaved Black people from sub-Saharan Africa. Tunisia abolished slavery in 1846, two decades before the U.S., yet it passed a law prohibiting racial discrimination only in 2018, making it the first Arab country to do so. Still, Tunisia's president recently provoked outrage after he gave a racist speech targeting African migrants and Black Tunisians.

Around the world, Black Arabs have consistently criticized such racism, especially after the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests in the U.S., which sparked a regional reckoning with anti-Blackness.

As the Sudanese-American museum curator Isra el-Beshir put it, "I am an African person, who speaks Arabic and who as a result of speaking Arabic has Arab cultural tendencies. But I do not racially identify as an Arab. It's still murky territory for me that I am trying to navigate."

500-year journey

In her historical novel " The Moor's Account," which won the Arab American Book Award in 2015 and was a Pulitzer Prize finalist, Laila Lalami recounts the experiences of Al-Zammouri, more commonly known as Estebanico. Based on true accounts, Lalami narrates how he was enslaved and brought to current-day Florida by 16th-century Spanish colonizers. Al-Zammouri's name reflects his Moroccan hometown: Azemmour, a city famed for its ocean breeze. His identity - Black and Arab; Muslim, then Catholic - reflects the complexity of the Arab world while bringing to light the complex origin stories of America itself.

Ideally, heritage month celebrations will create more opportunities to reflect on stories like Al-Zammouri's, which portray how rich and diverse Arab American identity is - really, many different identities rolled into just two words. If heritage months are an opportunity to celebrate the diversity of America, the diversity of the Arab community itself should not be overlooked.

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Arab Americans are a much more diverse group than many of their neighbors mistakenly assume

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Arab American Heritage Month is becoming more well-known, but the simple words 'Arab American' encompass a wide array of religious and ethnic groups.

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Paul Anka biography, influences, awards and chronology of his legendary career.

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Advocacy - EPIC - Enabling Peace in Iraq Center

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New report offers an inside look at Iraq's popular Tishreen protest movement and its struggle for reforms.

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Mission & Vision — Syrian Community Network

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Born out of the Syrian refugee crisis, Syrian Community Network was founded with the purpose of easing the transition of newly arrived refugees as they acclimate to life in the United States. We wanted to create a community for new arrivals that was welcoming and combatted the misinformation, politicization, racism, and xenophobia that directly impacted refugee resettlement and, specifically, Syrian refugees.

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Palestinian Mahmoud Darwish was born in al-Birwa in Galilee, a village that was occupied and later razed by the Israeli army. Because they had missed the official Israeli census, Darwish and his family were considered "internal refugees" or "present-absent aliens." Darwish lived for many years in exile in Beirut and Paris. He is the author of over 30 books of poetry and eight books of prose, and earned the Lannan Cultural Freedom Prize from the Lannan Foundation, the Lenin Peace Prize, and the Knight of Arts and Belles Lettres Medal from France.

In the 1960s Darwish was imprisoned for reciting poetry and traveling between villages without a permit. Considered a "resistance poet," he was placed under house arrest when his poem "Identity Card" was turned into a protest song. After spending a year at a university of Moscow in 1970, Darwish worked at the newspaper Al-Ahram in Cairo. He subsequently lived in Beirut, where he edited the journal Palestinian Affairs from 1973 to 1982. In 1981 he founded and edited the journal Al-Karmel. Darwish served from 1987 to 1993 on the executive committee of the Palestinian Liberation Organization. In 1996 he was permitted to return from exile to visit friends and family in Israel and Palestine.

Mahmoud Darwish's early work of the 1960s and 1970s reflects his unhappiness with the occupation of his native land. Carolyn Forché and Runir Akash noted in their introduction to Unfortunately It Was Paradise (2003) that "as much as [Darwish] is the voice of the Palestinian Diaspora, he is the voice of the fragmented soul." Forché and Akash commented also on his 20th volume, Mural: "Assimilating centuries of Arabic poetic forms and applying the chisel of modern sensibility to the richly veined ore of its literary past, Darwish subjected his art to the impress of exile and to his own demand that the work remain true to itself, independent of its critical or public reception."

Poet Naomi Shihab Nye commented on the poems in Unfortunately It Was Paradise: "[T]he style here is quintessential Darwish-lyrical, imagistic, plaintive, haunting, always passionate, and elegant-and never anything less than free-what he would dream for all his people."

Mahmoud Darwish died in 2008 in Houston, Texas.

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Palestinian Mahmoud Darwish was born in al-Birwa in Galilee, a village that was occupied and later razed by the Israeli army. Because they had missed the official Israeli census, Darwish and his family were considered "internal refugees" or "present-absent aliens." Darwish lived for many years in...

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Edward Said: Founder of Post-Colonial Studies

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Edward Said: Founder of Post-Colonial Studies

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Center for Palestine Studies | Columbia University

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CPS | Edward Said Archive — Center for Palestine Studies | Columbia University

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Arab American Resistance Poetry: Voices of Resilience

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Arab American Resistance Poetry: Voices of Resilience

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The most reliable source of information and analysis on the Question of Palestine.

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NAAHM Proclamation Kit (Arab America Foundation)

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NAAHM Proclamation Kit (Arab America Foundation)

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Council on American-Islamic Relations ( CAIR)- Nationwide

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Council on American-Islamic Relations ( CAIR)- Nationwide

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Muslim & Arab American Heritage Month.pdf

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These family stories were created in the Community History Studio at the Arab American National Museum (http://aanmcuratorial.wordpress.com/family-story-proj...

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Who We Are Stop AAPI Hate is a national coalition fighting against racism and racial injustice targeting Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. Together, we work with local communities and government stakeholders to document the rise of anti-AAPI hate and dismantle the systems that allow it to persist.

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Dabke is an Arabic folk dance which originated in the mountains of the Levantine region; including Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan & Syria. Dabke is derived from the Levantine Arabic word dabaka دبكة meaning “stamping of the feet” or “to make a noise” A thread on the art of Dabke...Legend says that people in the Levantine region made the roof of their houses with tree branches & mud. When the weather would change, the mud would crack. Family members & community would come & help patch it by forming

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Arab Americans: Effect of Stress and other Factors on Depression

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Arab Americans: Effect of Stress and other Factors on Depression

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There are presently three different schools related to learning to play the Oud in the Middle East and Arab world. These include Egypt, Iraq and Turkey. Ramy Adly is equipped to teach a student the correct techniques of the Oud-the methods and approach to the study of the Oud for these three different schools. Whether you are a beginner or experienced, you can enjoy a new adventure and work to develop your musical talents.Live Communication It's key to see one another face to face when learning the Oud; especially as a beginner. Using Skype gives you that benefit-to feel as if you are in the same room, since every student makes his or her own mistake when learning technique, therefore, the benefit of Skype is allowing the instructor to directly identify what needs to be corrected. Plus you can practice from your own home, car, workplace and has a schedule that fits everyones' needs The TTT factors; Music consists of Tunes, Times and Technique. Each student must master all of these. An online instructor can spot and correct any errors in these areas of music as the lesson progresses. Plus there are presently three different schools related to those learning to play the Oud in the Middle East, and Arab world. These include, Egypt, Iraq and Turkey, whether you are a beginner or experienced, you can enjoy a new adventure and work to develop your musical talents.

1- Communication: the most important thing is to have the instructor watching you, especially if you are a beginner. 2- Teaching designed just for you personally: Each student has his own mistakes in technique to be corrected and each student will respond to teaching differently than others. 3- The TTT factors: Music consists of Tunes, Times and Technique. Each student must master all of these. An online instructor can spot and correct any errors in these areas of the music as the lesson progresses. 4- A fast and easy method of study: As a total beginner, never having played the Oud before, it is expected that you can learn the basics and first melodies on the Oud within 3 months.

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There are presently three different schools related to learning to play the Oud in the Middle East and Arab world. Oud lessons includes The school of Egypt, Iraq and Turkey .Ramy Adly is equipped to teach a student the correct techniques of the Oud-the methods and approach to the study of the Oud for these three different schools.Whether you are a beginner or experienced, you can enjoy a new adventure and work to develop your musical talents.

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The complete works of Lebanese-American author Kahlil Gibran. Pictures of his museum and hometown in Lebanon.

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PROJECTS ‹ Kinan Azmeh :: Official website

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© Copyright 2023. All Rights Reserved. Designed by Mays Domat

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جامعة الدول العربية

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Institute for Middle East Understanding (IMEU)

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Institute for Middle East Understanding (IMEU)

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IMEU Institute for Middle East Understanding

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The Institute for Middle East Understanding (IMEU) is a non-profit organization that offers journalists facts, analysis, experts, and digital resources about Palestine and Palestinians.

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The Story Of Palestinian Christians | The Stones Cry Out (2013) | Full Film

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Gaza Fights For Freedom (2019) | Full Documentary | Directed by Abby Martin

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Watch Imprisoning a Generation Online — Anemoia Projects

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Imprisoning a Generation is an award-winning, feature-length documentary film following the stories of four young Palestinians who have been detained and imprisoned under the Israeli military and political systems. Their perspectives, along with the voices of their families, form a lens into the ent

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Interactive Encyclopedia of the Palestine Question

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Interactive Encyclopedia of the Palestine Question

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Interactive Encyclopedia of the Palestine Question - palquest

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Interactive Encyclopedia of the Palestine Question

Explore thousands of events, biographies, highlights, places and primary documents, in the first interactive platform entirely devoted to the Palestine Question.

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Interactive Encyclopedia of the Palestine Question - palquest

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Explore events, biographies, highlights and documents, in a platform entirely devoted to the history of the Palestine Question

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Christians Fight To Survive: ISIS in Iraq | EWTN News Special

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https://dai.ly/x94158o

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I Am From Palestine | Award-Winning Short Animation (full) | Rifk Books

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Via Dolorosa: The Path of Sorrows | Documentary event screening

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US Invasion of Iraq: Explanations & Implications

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US Invasion of Iraq: Explanations & Implications

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Middle East Eye: News, Opinion, and Analysis

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Latest news, opinion, video and analysis with a focus on the Middle East and wider region.

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Let's Talk Palestine | Instagram | Linktree

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View letstalkpalestine's Linktree. Listen to their music on Spotify here.

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Ahlan wa sahlan (أَهلًا وَسَهلًا)! We are ACSA Arabiyya (العَرَبِيِّة), a diasporic grassroots collective of Arab educational leaders from California. We are seeking to connect with colleagues of Arab heritage who are educational leaders in PK-12 school districts throughout California to unite and empower Arab administrators as leaders who are committed to supporting Arab students and their families by preserving and promoting Arab cultural heritage and legacy.

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Teach Palestine | Teaching Educators How to Teach Palestine

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As the war on Gaza intensifies, we're watching in horror as an unimaginable catastrophe catapults forward. As teachers, we know we need to help our students discuss and try to make sense of what's happening. This is both difficult and critical because the mainstream media, as well as our local, state and national governments, are almost completely dominated by the Israeli narrative. We have curated a few resources to help educators understand what is happening on the ground in real time, as well as background information about Palestine and resources to use with students at different grade levels. Let us know if you'd like to talk or have questions: TeachPal@mecaforpeace.org

News Sources & Social Media accounts
on what's happening in Gaza now

For up to date stories on what is currently happening in Gaza, check out:

● "Gaza on the 8th Day of Israeli Aggression" tells the story of the destruction of Gaza and the loss of life through numbers and statistics (as of October 14, 2023).

● "The Violence of Demanding Perfect Victims"

● Middle East Monitor

● Jerusalem writer Mohammed El Kurd - @mohammedelkurd on Instagram

● Jewish Voice for Peace - @jvpbayreas on Instagram

● Institute for Middle East Understanding - @imeu on Instagram

● Eye on Palestine - @eyeonpalestine

Background Information & Teaching Resources
on the Roots of Current Events in Palestine

● "It's Not That Complicated" - from the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights

● Project48.com provides multimedia resources on the history of Palestine and the Israeli occupation

● Teach Palestine Project has curriculum, and suggested books and videos

Infographics

Visualizing Palestine has created a series of resources that help to put the current events in Gaza in context as the product of a system of violence:

● "Four Wars Old"

● "Israel's Closure of Gaza Started Long Before the Blockade"

● "Short Walk Home, Long Walk to Freedom"

● "Gaza Health Access Under Israeli Siege"

● "Undrinkable: 97% of Gaza's Water is Undrinkable"

● "Rising Israeli Settler Violence in the Occupied Territories"

Shoruq and MECA
Arabic with English subtitles.

Shoruq, a cultural and community center in Dheisheh Refugee Camp near Bethlehem, took Palestinian youth to visit their ancestral villages. Sarah Faraj was one such youth, and her livestream of her visit is seen by Aya, a teenager living in Gaza. Aya asks Sarah to visit her ancestral village, Al Jura, located a few miles north of the Gaza Strip. Ayat surprises her grandmother, Um Nabeel, with a video call with Sarah, who takes them on a live virtual tour of Al Jura, the village Um Nabeel calls home and refuses to forget.

This short, heartfelt video captures the intergenerational Palestinian refusal to forget about their homelands, and would make an excellent introduction to studying forced migrations, the Nakba, Gaza, and/or the right of return.

Grade level: 6th grade and above.

Dear Teach Palestine Project family,

Although this has been a rough fall to be a teacher-all the pedagogical, emotional, and physical stresses of teaching while still in the midst of a pandemic-we hope you're finding joy in being back in the classroom with students and that you're staying healthy.

The right-wing attacks on teaching Palestine, Ethnic Studies, Black Lives Matter, and Critical Race Theory have been horrifying. We're working with educator activists across the country to organize a more united approach, and we'll keep you posted as that develops. Let us know what's happening in your area! We'd love to talk and connect you with organizing efforts in your area if that would be helpful.

We just added new curriculum to the website based on Jody's recently published book, Determined to Stay: Palestinian Youth Fight for Their Village. Determined to Stay builds on an understanding of settler colonialism in the US and Palestine, with the goal of helping educators bring Palestine into their classrooms and make connections to issues that youth face here in the United States. Here's a link to Nina Shoman-Dajani's review of the book in the new issue of Rethinking Schools magazine.

We're excited to see educators starting to use the book in their classrooms-and we'd like to support any way we can. We may be able to get you a class set-just let us know what you need!

We created two lessons based on the book. "Determined to Stay: A Case Study" is a stand-alone lesson-designed for a day or two of teaching. It uses narratives from the book for a jigsaw activity that introduces students to the connections between ongoing colonial conquest in Palestinian and the United States.

"Determined to Stay: An Introduction" is designed as an introductory activity to teaching the book itself. It includes more voices to create interest and questions about reading the book. Both lessons include an energizer, background information and essential vocabulary.

Determined to Stay centers on the Palestinian village of Silwan, just south of Jerusalem's Old City. To learn more about Silwan, join us for a virtual brunch featuring Silwani community leader Jawad Siyam and Jody, December 5 at 10 am PST/1 pm EST. Hope to see you there!

We've also added new resources, so check out the rest of the Teach Palestine website. And, if you can, support the Teach Palestine Project!

In solidarity,
Samia and Jody

Photo shows: Children at Al-Maleh school demonstrate for their right to an education.

October 25, 2021, Israeli occupation forces raided Al-Maleh school in the northern Jordan Valley and demolished a new building under construction.

The Al-Maleh school was built at the end of 2020 as part of the Right to Education Campaign. The small school has only four classrooms, filled with kindergarten and elementary students from Khirbet Al-Maleh and the neighboring communities.
To increase the capacity of the school MECA partnered with Stop the Wall Campaign to construct one more classroom and a school clinic that Israeli occupation forces demolished and confiscated.

Last week, we visited Al-Maleh and the school children brought their books and signs to a protest demanding their right to education. Please stand with these children and take action now.

The Israeli occupation has a long and violent history of destroying schools serving Palestinian Bedouin communities throughout the Jordan Valley. These include the kindergarten in Khirbet Makhoul (2013), the school in Khirbet Samra (2012), and the school in Ras Al-Tin (2020). As of 2019, the Israeli occupation had given more than 42 schools in Area C orders to be partially or totally demolished. (Created by the Oslo Accords, Area C, which comprises 60 percent of the West Bank, is under complete Israeli control. Currently, an estimated 300,00 Palestinians and 400,000 Israeli settlers live there. In addition to withholding the right to education, Israel denies Palestinians in Area C adequate water, healthcare, and other basic human rights).

Denying Palestinian children their right to education in the Jordan Valley and other parts of Area C aims to displace Palestinians in violation of international law.

MECA has teamed up with Rebuilding Alliance to advocate for the return of the two rooms and playground shade for Al-Maleh school and for the dismissal of demolition orders against other Palestinian schools by asking Congress to help.

The current attacks on Critical Race Theory (CRT) are a terrifying indication of the rabid racism of the right wing. CRT isn't an abstract idea for graduate students. Authentic Ethnic Studies, all anti-racist education, is based in CRT. When elementary school teachers have their students write counter-narratives about the strengths of their communities, they're teaching CRT. When middle school teachers compare "Manifest Destiny" in the US to the "Promised Land" in Israel as ideologies of settler colonialism, they're teaching CRT.

So we have to fight for ethnic studies, including Palestine, and CRT in the same breath. And we need a unitedstrategy and organizing to do that!

In coalition with Save Arab American Studies and the Free Minds, Free People conference, we're launching a National Liberated Ethnic Studies Coalition, and we hope you will join us in the fight against rightwing, Zionist attacks on education!

Register for the Ethnic Studies People's Assembly on Sunday, August 1st.

The Ethnic Studies People's Assembly culminates a weekend of panels and workshops on Ethnic Studies and Transnational Solidarity at the Free Minds, Free People Conference. See the full schedule and register for the conference here. There is a minimal fee. For just the Ethnic Studies People's Assembly, register here (no fee).

Please passon this invitation to trusted partners, allies, and educators around the country.

We hope that you are about to have a chance to relax and recuperate from an immensely challenging school year.

The past couple of months have been intense. We've seen the escalation in both resistance and repression in Palestine, and an explosion of solidarity across the United States and the rest of the world.

The current round of demonstrations throughout Palestine was spurred by mounting Israeli efforts to expel long-time Palestinian residents of Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan in Jerusalem. There's never been a more important time to understand and teach about what's happening in East Jerusalem. Determined to Stay: Palestinian Youth Fight for Their Village is the story of Silwan, and it's written with middle and high school students in mind.

If you missed the book launch for Determined to Stay, check out the recording here. In addition to Jody talking about the book and reading a few excerpts, you'll hear from Sahar Abbasi, deputy director of Madaa Creative Center in Silwan, talk about the current situation.

If you've already read Determined to Stay, please take a minute to review it on Good Reads, Bookshop.org, and the MECA Shop Palestine site.

Do you know Free Minds, Free People? It's an amazing bi-annual conference of radical educators, organizers and youth. This year it will be online throughout the month of July. The last weekend, July 31 and August 1 focus on Ethnic Studies/Transnational Solidarity, with a special concentration on including Palestine in ethnic studies curriculum. On Sunday, we'll hold a People's Assembly aimed at building a national organization of educators committed to authentic ethnic studies, with Palestine as a critical component. Sign up here for updates and to register for the conference. We hope to see you there!

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Teaching Educators How to Teach Palestine