Nina’s Story: The Life of a Palestinian Woman

About the speaker: Nina Cullers was born in Katamon, West Jerusalem during the British Mandate. After the Nakba her family lived in Bethlehem. After high school Nina worked for UNRWA in Hebron, the Dheisheh Camp outside of Bethlehem and Beit Safafa. Her work was as a teacher, head teacher and finally as a supervisor of practice teachers. Nina then went on to earn a degree in education from Beirut Women’s College, now American Lebanese University. Nina now resides in Virginia in the United States. She has been a board member of the Bethlehem Association of the Episcopal Church for 26 years. Additionally, she continues advocacy work for Palestine. She recently published her memoir, “Living Through the Nakba: Tales of a Palestinian Youth.”

Nina’s memoir, “Living Through the Nakba: Tales of a Palestinian Youth” is just the beginning of her lifelong experiences as a Palestinian woman. Travel with her through her life in our forum.  Children and her Palestinian heritage are very important to Nina. In her memoir she says, “Teach them (children) our tradition, our art, our songs, our poetry and remind them that they came from honorable, brave people who cared for humanity.”’ Her work with children began with teaching in UNRWA schools. After the 1949 Armistice her family came to the realization that they had no home to go to. Share this experience with Nina. Come with her to the present day as we hear her say, “I urge all Palestinians to remember our past, our history, our family values and to instill these values in our children.”

Toward the end of the forum we will have a conversation with Nina about parallels between her life experiences and what is happening to Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza today.

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NOTE: A brief annual MEPN meeting will be held for a few minutes before our forum begins. It will feature a message from our president, Janet Tollund, along with finance and membership updates. An election for new board members will conclude the meeting.