Abdallah Schleifer
Professor Emeritus & Senior Fellow
Center for Electronic Journalism at the American University in Cairo
SleeplessinGaza@gmail.com
Asmaa Al Zohairy
Assistant Producer
azohairy@aucegypt.edu
Sleepless in Gaza and Jerusalem
Youtube Video Release
March 1st -- this coming Monday-- the premier episode of a 90 part series, "Sleepless in Gaza...and Jerusalem" will be launched on YouTube. www.youtube.com/Youtube Video Release
Schleifer ( see bio below) It is going to be a non-partisan, apolitical reality TV program that reflects the hardships of life from a humanitarian perspective in Gaza, Jerusalem and the West Bank.
It will be a video diary, narrated in English about four young Palestinian women, Muslim and Christian, two living in Gaza and two in Arab Jerusalem/West Bank.
Each episode runs 26 minutes and will be shot in Jerusalem/West Bank and Gaza, edited and uploaded the same day. So you will find a new sequence six days a week at www.youtube.com/
PINA TV Production camera crews will be covering Ashira Ramadan, a broadcast journalist based in Jerusalem; Ashira's friend in Gaza, the documentary film maker Nagham Mohanna; Donna Maria Mattas, a 17 year-old student at the Holy Family school in Gaza who dreams of growing up to be a journalist, and Ala' Khayo Mkari who works with Caritas in Jerusalem.
The intention of this series is neither rant nor rhetoric. It is rather an opportunity for all of us, who do not live in Gaza, occupied Arab Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank, to grasp how these four young Palestinian women live out their daily lives, precisely because their lives are stories journalists are taught almost dismissively to think of as "human interest" and almost necessarily conflict driven.
How, as human beings, these four Palestinians can also experience moments of personal and community achievement, and the warmth of friends and family life that in real life is possible even in the most difficult circumstances of siege and occupation.
A "Sleepless..." trailer should be up on YouTube by the time you receive this release. We also have just set up "Sleepless in Gaza...and Jerusalem" on Facebook. Just type in "Sleepless in Gaza...and Jerusalem" in the Facebook search and you will be home. We don't have our own domain web site yet, but our partners PINA TV Productions' web site will serve as such for the time being at www.pina.ps.
Professor Abdallah Schleifer is a veteran journalist who has covered the Middle East for American and Arab media for more than thirty years. He is currently Professor Emeritus & Senior Fellow at the Center for Electronic Journalism at the American University in Cairo
New York Times columnist Tom Friedman has praised Professor Schleifer as "a great bridge-builder between cultures", saying “we Middle East correspondents are something of a fraternity and Abdallah has always been a credit to our little club. He is intensely independent, honest, and a wonderful explainer about both Islam and the Arab world."
Prof. Schleifer has had experience covering the Middle East for a wide range of international and American media outlets. He launched his journalistic career in America by writing for The Village Voice and The Nation.
From 2006 to 2007, he was the Washington Bureau Chief for the Al Arabiya TV network. Professor Schleifer also worked for NBC as NBC News Radio and TV producer/reporter in the Middle East from 1970 to 1983 and as the bureau chief for NBC News Cairo from 1974 to 1983.
Before NBC, he worked in the region as a correspondent for the Paris weekly newsmagazine Jeune Afrique, a stringer for The New York Times, and as managing editor of Jordan's English language daily The Jerusalem Star.
Please pass this release on to your friends and to organizations that believe in peace on earth and good will to all, that they too might spread the word.
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