Anthrow Circus

Tag: Middle East

Hamstrung by Trump’s Executive Order, a Syrian Family and a U.S. Private Sponsor Group Hope for an Exception

STORY BY HEATHER M. SURLS

The day of Donald Trump’s inauguration, Rania Walid Alyousef checked her social media feeds often. The wife and mother of three, who has lived in Amman, Jordan, since 2013, was apprehensive.
Last year, she and her husband, Mohammed Basim Alkurdi, known as Basel, had connected with a group of Americans willing to sponsor their family’s resettlement through Welcome Corps, a private sponsorship program. The family’s and their sponsors’ applications were progressing, and the family’s move to the U.S. seemed within reach.
But after Trump’s November reelection, Rania recognized that renewed travel bans and cuts to immigration were possible, given the way Trump halved refugee admissions in 2017. So when news of the president’s executive order halting refugee programs came across her screen, she was upset and saddened but not surprised.

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Finding My Center in Jerusalem: A Post-October 7 Photo Essay

PHOTO ESSAY BY ELSA WOLMAN KATANA

Other cities in the world speak to me—Amsterdam, Beijing, London, and San Francisco—but Jerusalem is my favorite. In love and solidarity, and seeking some serious emotional, mental, and spiritual R&R, I made two different trips in the last year from my current home in Baltimore. As a Jew and an Israeli, only in Israel could I find refuge from the general refusal of the world to acknowledge the atrocities of October 7, 2023. In Jerusalem, my world spins on center.

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Exploring Palestinian Identity in Jordan’s Baqa’a Refugee Camp

STORY BY HEATHER M. SURLS

ARTWORK BY HAIFA ABU KHDAIR

In Jordan’s Baqa’a camp for Palestinian refugees, I sat with several women and piles of their cross-stitch embroidery. A fan blew the late May heat through a simple but neat room, where we sat on brown couches drinking small goblets of juice, followed by Turkish coffee and tea. Zahieh Ahmad Saeed Abu Rases and her relatives showed me embellished pillowcases, a mirror framed in a kaleidoscope of colors and patterns, clocks stitched on white Aida cloth, and sections of unfinished thobes, traditional Palestinian dresses.

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“I Was Raised Under the Trees”: Olive Harvest in Jordan

STORY BY HEATHER M. SURLS
PHOTOS BY ISABELLE BERNARD & HEATHER M. SURLS

Outside the northern Jordanian city of Ajloun, I sat cross-legged in Wael Rabadi’s olive grove, stripping ripe olives from just-pruned branches. Looking up from the work in my hands, I could see olive trees and oaks, grapevines and stone walls blanketing the hills in all directions. Eighteen hundred years ago, Rabadi’s ancestors owned this whole area, including the prominent hilltop behind me crowned by the centuries-old Ajloun Castle.

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View From a Pandemic: Ramadan in Jordan in Coronavirus Times

STORY AND PHOTOS BY BATOOL Al-DULIGAN

Ramadan’s vibe in Jordan brings streets full of twinkling lights and colorful lantern decorations; tents pitched especially for nighttime gatherings; children playing in their neighborhoods and celebrating with fireworks; traffic jams; overcrowding in restaurants and bakeries before the call to maghrib prayer at sunset; and people rushing home to break the fast and enjoy the iftar before setting off again to the streets. p>

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