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EVENTS TUESDAY JULY 20, 2010: JOIN CHICAGO ADC and
MEET ANISA MEHDI ADC Chicago Hosts journalist Anisa Mehdi ADC CHICAGO was proud to host a membership night meeting with Anisa Mehdi, the daughter of the late Iraqi American journalist Dr. M. T. Mehdi, and her sisters Laila and Janan and mother Beverly. Anisa Mehdi is an Emmy Award-winning journalist specializing in religion, and the arts. She just returned from a 2009-2010 Fulbright Scholarship in Jordan where she worked training TV news and documentary filmmakers in advanced story-telling techniques and styles. She also worked with Jordan Radio & Television, the Royal Film Commission, and the Jordan Media Institute. Mehdi is Artistic Director of “Documentary Voices: Pulling Focus,” Dubai 2008 (www.documentaryvoices.com ) and media consultant to the Abraham Path Initiative (www.abrahampath.org). For over 20 years she has reported, written, directed and produced television news and documentary programs for major American media outlets, including National Geographic, PBS, ABC News, and CBS. Her commentaries have been heard on NPR’s “All Things Considered.” She has written perspective pieces for newspapers, magazines and Internet sites. Anisa Mehdi is founder and president of Whetstone Productions, a New Jersey-based production and consulting company. She is adjunct Professor of Communications at Seton Hall University ( www.shu.edu). “My father was very active in the 1960s and he would often bring us to protest the actions of the Government of Israel in New York and we would work with him handing out flyers and urging Americans to understand the real issues regarding Palestine,” Mehdi told a crowd of ADC members and guests at a pre=dinner membership night held at Bawadi Restaurant in Bridgeview, Illinois. Anisa Mehdi related how she, her sister, mother and father were harassed because of their activism. Mehdi produced the popular magazine ACTION Newspaper which was in English and distributed throughout the American Arab community in the United States. Anisa Mehdi recalled the family being ostracized and even attacked many times because of their outspoken support of the Palestinian cause. “It was frightening. There were times we had to sleep in a hotel because of the threats. … We faced the same kind of intimidation at school and in the neighborhood where we lived,” Medhi related. “It was a difficult time period. We’d sometimes be the only people protesting, and then there would a hafli and we would see all these American Arabs and wonder where were they?” Hatem Galal, ADC Chicago president, said that many of today’s generation of American Arabs have forgotten how difficult it was back in the 1960s to advocate for the rights of Palestinians. “It was a much smaller community but they were often more unified and focused on issues,” Galal said. The event drew many new members and featured a dinner at the Bawadi restaurant in Bridgeview, Illinois. National ADC Board member Ray Hanania, a longtime ADC member and journalist who covered Chicago’s City Hall for 18 years, said Mehdi was one of the first real role models for those in the Arab community who aspired to pursue mainstream journalism as careers. “Dr. Mehdi’s ACTION Newspaper was one of the most informative and one of the few publications we could get in the 1970s,”Hanania said. “As an activist working for the rights of Palestinians then, we were targeted by the government and many of us, including myself, had FBI reports and investigations conducted. In my report, it cited my receipt of ACTION Newspaper as one reason why they opened an investigation in to my activities as an American citizen who had just completed two years of active duty service during the Vietnam War." Information on the ADC Chicago event are posted on the chapter’s web site at www.ADCChicago.com. The Mehdis along with the National Arab American Journalists Association hosts the annual Dr. MT Mehdi Courage in Journalism Award competition.
(PHOTO from left, Anam alJabali, Janan Mehdi, student journalist Leena Saleh, Laila Mehdi, Beverlee Mehdi, Anisa Mehdi, Universal School Dean Jehad Matariyeh, Chicago ADC President Hatem Galal, Ray Hanania, Al Mustaqbal Newspaper publisher Mansour Tadros, Saffiya Shillo and George Mohamed) Information on the ADC Chicago event are posted on the chapter’s web site at www.ADCChicago.com. SUNDAY, May 23, 2010: The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee SUNDAY, JAN 10, 2010: The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee ADC urges all members to attend this important meeting. Active members wishing to serve on the board must be present at the elections event. All nominees must be present and accept the nomination. Nominations will be taken from the floor. One third of the current board members shall be elected. Following the Board elections, all officers including (President, Vice President, Secretary and Treasurer) are to be elected by the Board.
GAZA SIEGE: ADC-CHICAGO is proud to take a lead role in helping to organize community protests against the Israeli aggression and the massacre of Palestinian civilians including women and children in the Gaza Strip. As many as 4,000 Chicagoland supporters have participated in the series of protests helping to make the American public aware of the atrocities and the suffering inflicted by Israel's government on the Palestinian people. These are two images from recent protests, held Jan. 2, 2009.
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