Julie Webb-Pullman: Gaza - Reading between the bombs

Choosing a new book

While bombs continue to fall on Gaza, young bloggers and others in the besieged strip gather to exchange and discuss books at the monthly meeting of the Diwan Ghazza Book Exchange.

Yasmeen El Khoudary, one of the founders, described to Global Voices Online how it came about.

“A group of my friends and I were fed up with the way the world regards Gaza (with the usual media coverage on the negative side of life here) and disregards the other face: the historic, the beautiful, the educated, and the inspirational. We decided that Gaza is a city no less capable than other cities, and the fact that we have gone through so much should add to our credit. Gaza breeds thinkers, and the only thing it teaches them is that they should do the thinking themselves. There are no cultural centers, theatres, cinemas or updated public libraries in Gaza, but that wasn’t going to stop us.

So we decided to put our thoughts, time and energy into creating a group that we would be proud of belonging to.”

Their first activity was to organize a “tweet-up” with 30 local ‘tweeps’ in July 2011. This led to more meetings, and the formation of the Gaza Book Club, a branch of the Palestine Writing Workshop.

As Yasmeen says, “We didn't want to limit ourselves to English books or to novels, or to a small group of people. Neither did we have an updated library or bookstore option. Thus, we decided to start the Diwan Ghazza Book Exchange Club. And we did.”

Diwan Ghazza Book Exchange meeting

The first meeting was attended by 18 people and yielded 25 books. Yesterday’s meeting was the third, and the photo shows it is growing by the month!!

As the attached video illustrates, the role of books in Gaza is a very important one – not only as a source of information, ideas, and entertainment, but also as a distraction from Israeli attacks, when sometimes the only comfort one has, is the book in their hand.

The group’s meetings are hosted by Almat'haf Hotel, who also hosts a ‘mini-library’ to store any extra books not currently being read by members.

“Because of the Israeli siege, the only way we can get books into Gaza is if they brought in by convoys, international activists, or through the tunnels,” one of the members told me.

Even Israel must realize the pen is mightier than the sword…but clearly neither siege nor bombs can stop Gazans from quenching their thirst for knowledge.

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