EUME
2014/ 2015

Maram Masarwi

The Politi-Religization of Memory and Commemoration in the Middle East: Gender, Religion and National Belonging

Memorial

Maram Masarwi is currently the head of the Early Childhood Department at Al Qasemi College of Education in Israel, and a lecturer in the Faculty of Education at the David Yallin College. Masarwi was a fellow at the Mandel School for Educational Leadership (2005-2007) and holds a PhD from the Department of Social Work at Hebrew University. Her dissertation dealt with “Gender Differences in Bereavement and Trauma Among Palestinian Parents who lost their Children in al-Aqsa Intifada.” She holds an MA in Education from Lesley University Cambridge, and a BA in Occupational Therapy from Hebrew University. She previously hosted the television program “Arabeska”, a bilingual broadcast on Israeli TV dealing with politics and current events in the Middle East. She is a 21-year resident of Neve-Shalom~Wahat Al-Salaam. Neve-Shalom Wahat al-Salam (“Oasis for Peace”) is a bi-national community of Jews and Palestinian Arabs of Israeli citizenship that is engaged in educational work for peace, equality and understanding between the two peoples.

The Polit-Religization of Memory and Commemoration in the Middle East: Gender, Religion and National Belonging

During her EUME Fellowship she will be working on a book project that aims to examine how religious, national, cultural and gender components shape the working of memory and commemoration in the Arab world following the Al-Aqsa Intifada and the Arab Spring. The proposed book will be based on in-depth research examining acts of commemoration and memory, focusing on the Palestinian and Egyptian cases as models of coping with serious trauma and loss, as well as cases for constructing collective forms of national memory and commemoration.