(C) Verite News New Orleans This story was originally published by Verite News New Orleans and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . ‘She’s a mentor’: Gretna educator takes on leading role in local Palestinian organizing [1] ['Lue Palmer', 'More Lue Palmer', 'Verite News'] Date: 2024-03-12 When Sherean Murad was a child in New Orleans’ West Bank, the mosque that her parents attended was a one-bedroom apartment under a nightclub where they and a handful of other Palestinian families prayed beneath pounding music. Her small community was welcomed in 1980s New Orleans, where Southern hospitality went hand in hand with a relentless friendliness that is typical of Palestinians, Murad said. I met Murad at the Pistachio Café in Harvey on March 1, a day after 112 Palestinians were killed while waiting for aid in Gaza in what United Nations experts condemned as a “flour massacre.” Murad, 41, wore a navy peacoat and a black hijab and spoke with a warm New Orleans accent. Before I arrived, she offered to buy me a tea. “Have you ever met a Palestinian?” she texted me jokingly after I politely refused. “We love to fight over the bill and pay — it’s a part of the culture.” The café, a frequent gathering spot for Palestinians in the area, is around the corner from Masjid Omar. The mosque has become the center of the pro-Palestinian movement in the New Orleans area in the aftermath of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel, and Israel’s retaliation, which has killed more than 30,000 Palestinians to date. Sherean Murad (far right) speaks to attendees at the Gulf Coast for Palestine march on February 18, 2024. Credit: Photo courtesy of Nadia Gazi A prominent organizer of Palestinian activism in the city, Murad is expanding the movement to a new generation. While working with leaders at Masjid Omar and a coalition of more than 20 organizations known as Louisiana for Palestine, she has come to be known as a guiding voice. “She’s a mentor, coming back to remind people there’s still work to do. She’s also a bridge between the older generation and the youth,” said Adan Murad, Sherean’s younger cousin and another central organizer with Louisiana for Palestine. Adan grew up watching Sherean put on events on Palestinian culture and issues at the University of New Orleans, where she attended college. Together, the cousins and other activists have organized as many as five actions per week — protests and marches through Tremé and the French Quarter, die-ins, fundraisers for aid in Gaza, film screenings, panel discussions and appearances at New Orleans City Council meetings. The local movement has also inspired other shows of solidarity during Carnival season, such as a banner in the Krewe de Vieux parade bearing the phrase, “No Mardi Gras mask can hide the US funding genocide,” in reference to U.S. foreign aid and weapons sales to the state of Israel. Among Louisiana for Palestine organizers are a food influencer, filmmakers and marketing professionals, now using their creative skills and platforms to bring awareness to their cause. Murad counts many of the organizers as family, in a tight-knit community going back to her father’s early days in New Orleans. Before arriving in the Crescent City, Murad’s family immigrated from a small town outside of Jerusalem, settling in Chicago before she was born. But after getting caught in a snowstorm, Murad’s father took out a map and looked for the warmest place in the United States. Because there was someone from his Palestinian village already living in New Orleans, he packed up his family and moved south, where Murad was later born. Since Murad’s early childhood, the Palestinian and wider Muslim community in the area has grown, she said, establishing the Masjid Omar in Harvey, and the Muslim Academy in Gretna, where she is now the assistant principal. Last fall, as the Palestinian death toll mounted, Murad’s younger cousins asked her to “come out of retirement,” she said, and bring her experience as a student activist at UNO to the reinvigorated local movement. At first Murad and other New Orleans-area Palestinian organizers were hesitant to step into the limelight, concerned that speaking up might make it harder for them to return to Palestine in the future, Adan Murad said. “No one wants to speak in public or to speak up to the media, just because of what that could mean,” said Adan Murad, pointing to Samaher Esmail, a 46-year-old Palestinian American mother from Gretna who was visiting Palestine when she was detained by Israeli forces and later released on bail for posts she made on social media. Now, Sherean has stepped into her role, guiding the younger generation to take part in the movement, she said. She encourages her mostly Palestinian students to use art projects and other means to be heard: “This collective grief that you’re feeling is a big part of healing, right? Find your role in the resistance, whatever it is. And there is no role that’s too small,” she said. As the war enters its sixth month, Louisiana for Palestine is urging the New Orleans City Council to join 48 other cities by passing a symbolic resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza — which “is the bare minimum,” Murad said. The final goal for local Palestinian organizers, she said, is to achieve dreams from their grandparents’ generation of an end to Israeli occupation. “Imagine all the atrocities and the horrifying stories your grandparents told, for it to come to you tenfold. That’s what’s happening to us right now,” said Murad, whose grandparents were among the 700,000 Palestinians forced from their homes during the 1948 crisis that followed the creation of Israel. “When you’re watching this happen from afar, the only way you can heal your trauma is to feel like you’re doing something.” The death of local teenager Tawfic Abdeljabbar, who was visiting Palestine’s West Bank to learn about his heritage when he was killed in January, has also fueled grief and a sense of duty within the movement in New Orleans. “We were devastated. The community is reeling,” said Murad, remembering Abdeljabbar as one of the boys who played basketball outside Masjid Omar. Murad said she is often asked why people would return to Palestine with their children. “If we’re waiting for peace to take our kids back, we’d never take our kids,” she said. At the beginning of this year’s Ramadan, a time of celebration, prayer and renewed faith for Muslim people that began on Sunday (March 10), Murad said that she is reflecting on both the tragedy and the support she has seen in New Orleans and beyond. “We’re in the most terrible atrocity our people have ever seen,” Murad said. “But also, there’s still good in the world.” Editor’s note: A previous version of this story mischaracterized the mosque described by Sherean Murad from her childhood. Related Stories Republish This Story Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license. [END] --- [1] Url: https://veritenews.org/2024/03/12/gretna-educator-palestine-activism/ Published and (C) by Verite News New Orleans Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 3.0 US. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/veritenews/