I devoted a week-long retreat at The Agape Community in central Massachusetts in frigid snowless February 2024 while the war on Gaza continued to explode. After Hamas viciously and without warning attacked Israel on October 7, Israel invaded Gaza three weeks later, beginning the slaughter of the innocents, and continuing to the date of writing […]
Read More Creating my blog series “Dual Loyalty”I’d written to Yeela with some questions. She responded at some length. My earlier blog about her. On February 8, 2024 she emailed me: Skip: i found a photo of destruction in your home presumably caused by hamas. Yeela: yes, Hamas. Yeela’s kitchen after the Hamas attack could you tell me what happened, especially how you […]
Read More Dual Loyalty-addendum to Yeela Raanan (her response to my questions)Overshadowed by the savage destruction of Gaza and the massacre of Israeli civilians (with some Israeli military) on October 7, 2023, Palestinians in the West Bank live under another form of siege and potential expulsion: checkpoints, night raids, demolition of homes, destruction of olive and fruit groves, and theft of agricultural lands—an apartheid region, two […]
Read More Fareed Taamallah in the West BankWhich side are you on, boys, which side are you on? Sahar Vardi Like many observing the violence over Gaza, I’m stunned, frenzied, and outraged. My mind fractures, I feel dizzy, nightmares disturb my sleep. My heart-sick sometimes turns into gut-sick, I feel physically ill. When I shop for food and cook, when I pee […]
Read More DUAL LOYALTY-part 4-Sahar Vardi-Which side are you on, boys, which side are you on?In my 4 part blog series, drawing heavily from my photography during 6 journeys to Gaza (2013 was the most recent; since then Israel has blocked me from entrance), I hope to portray my personal connections with people and issues in Gaza, Israel (especially southern Israel in the Negev/Naqab desert bordering Gaza) and the West […]
Read More Dual Loyalty-part 3-Yeela RaananAs calls for a ceasefire/humanitarian pause, hostage and prisoner release and access to humanitarian aid rapidly develop, as South Africa brings the claim of genocide against Israel to the International Court of Justice, perhaps rendering some of my blog dated, I hope to portray my personal connections with people and issues in Gaza, Israel (especially […]
Read More Dual Loyalty-Part 2-Wesam AmerSpecial edition because of the violence in Gaza. The Peace and Social Justice Committee of Friends Meeting at Cambridge, responding to calls heard for information and action suggestions, offers this resource list. Selected and organized by Skip Schiel with help from others. Feel free to suggest other resources. The American Friends Service Committee invites you […]
Read More Resource list for thinking about the violence in Gaza (human beings at our worst) and what we can do about it (human beings at our potential best)The Palestinian inner layers of psychology go around one single issue: the 1948 uprooting and the destruction of their homes. And what the Israelis are doing, by destroying all these homes every day, they are making the Palestinians relive the trauma, which is very deeply buried into our conscious and our unconscious. The home for […]
Read More Dual Loyalty-part 1Taking a break from my regular postings—currently about my personal connections with people in Gaza and Israeli communities near the Gaza border—I decided to blog about a good mensch story, spontaneously aiding a recent Ukrainian immigrant. Originally I’d posted this with Nextdoor, an online neighborhood message board. As of this blog, 54 people have commented. […]
Read More Overheard at Star/Shaw’s food market in Porter Square, Cambridge MA (October 26, 2023)HUMAN BEINGS live, work, study, play, fight, raise children and dream in Jenin, a city of 40,000 people in the northern West Bank, 90 driving miles from Jerusalem. They are confined to a little more than 14 square miles. The refugee camp, administered by the UN Refugee Works Administration, houses some 13,000 to 15,000 people, […]
Read More jenin and the freedom theaterInspired by traditional end-of-year letters from others, never having written one myself, I’m motivated to try now. Yes, a little late. But with a twist: save for last (if ever) what tends to come first in most letters—family and travels, possibly health but usually not—and begin with what’s for me juiciest. My letter will be […]
Read More Slices of 2022-ConclusionInvited by Friends Meeting at Cambridge, on May 22, 2023 I offered a forum on the topic of my spiritual journey—”spiritual” for meaning as deep as possible. It was part of a series of weekly talks by participants in our community and others, mostly on personal spiritual journeys, and other topics as well. Some religious […]
Read More Notes for a forum: “And you will be carried where you do not wish to go: a photographic witness”Inspired by traditional end-of-year letters from others, never having written one myself, I’m motivated to try now. Yes, a little late. But with a twist: save for last (if ever) what tends to come first in most letters—family and travels, possibly health but usually not—and begin with what’s for me juiciest. So, here’s what I’ve […]
Read More Slices of 2022-Part Four (first half): my planned archiveFrom my photographic project, The Ongoing and Relentless Nakba— Seventy-five years after the catastrophe of the Nakba, conditions for refugees and their families continue to worsen. This is largely because few in the world notice to the point of working to bring justice to the Palestinians. My hope derives from working with Jewish Voice […]
Read More special edition to honor the 75th anniversary of the nakba, the Palestinian catastrophe of 1948: May 15, 2023Since 2004 I continue to maintain a website which I designed and love to manage. My website functions as a directory for my digital era photography (I have an earlier analog or celluloid archive which is only partially represented on my website) and a mobile portfolio which I can lead people to with a link. It is also a form of diary, helping me remember not only what and when I photographed a particular topic, but the context for it. I find my website extremely useful, altho at times frustrating because of the constant need to update and maintain. As is well known, freshness—constant new posts—adds to audience growth.
Read More Slices of 2022-Part Three: designing and maintaining my websiteIn March 2022 YouTube/Google canceled my account; I lost nearly 200 videos that I’d uploaded since 2003, many about Palestine-Israel, climate justice actions, Quaker-related events, and an activist brass band, School of Honk. I believe an algorithm struck me dead, and replied formulaically to all my appeals. Hello, is any human out there?
Read More Slices of 2022-Part Two: MY Youtube cancellation & RESTORATIONInspired by traditional end-of-year letters from others, never having written one myself, I’m motivated to try now. But with a twist: save for last (if ever) what tends to come first in most letters—family and travels, possibly health but usually not—and begin with what’s for me juiciest. So, here’s what I’ve been up to, what […]
Read More Slices of 2022-Part One: Nakba and Extinction RebellionFrancis Day 2022 reflection— As part of a procession to memorial trees during the annual St. Francis Day celebration at Agape, a lay Catholic/Catholic Worker style nonviolence activist center in central Massachusetts, I offered the following reflections at a tree dedicated to suffering and resilience in the Middle East. Agape’s annual Francis Day celebration in […]
Read More Gaza Comes to MassachusettsOn the road in Alaska with my sister, Elaine, and my brother-in-law, Bob. August 21, 2022, Sunday, Juneau Alaska Perhaps because I’d drunk coffee at lunch (having no decaf in the house) I slept relatively poorly last night [August 20, 2022]. Guilt and worries about Covid also may have interfered. Elaine is now infected, Bob […]
Read More ALASKA: COVID-19 AND ME-PART twoOn the road in Alaska with sister, Elaine, and my brother-in-law, Bob. August 20, 2022, Saturday, Juneau Alaska Quick notes about my Covid-19 infection, written about 12 hours after we’d discovered it, the incident early morning while waiting for the ferry between Juneau and Skagway, written around 2 pm yesterday. To be expanded. At the […]
Read More Alaska: Covid-19 and me-part oneFrom my journal, letters, and other writing about forcibly expelled Palestinian refugees now in the West Bank and Gaza (once I can enter Gaza), plus their ancestral homelands. Previous dispatches were based on my latest work in Palestine-Israel from mid-May to mid-July 2019. Now, drawing from my recent journal entries, I write about how I […]
Read More The Ongoing and Relentless Nakba: Adventure or Ordeal?–Part FiveFrom my journal, letters, and other writing about forceably expelled Palestinian refugees now in the West Bank and Gaza (once I can enter Gaza), plus their ancestral homelands. Previous dispatches were based on my latest work in Palestine-Israel from mid-May to mid-July 2019. Now drawing from my recent journal entries I write about how I […]
Read More The Ongoing and Relentless Nakba: Adventure or Ordeal?–Part FourFrom my journal, letters, and other writing about internally expelled Palestinian refugees in the West Bank and Gaza (once I can enter Gaza), plus their ancestral homelands. Previous dispatches were based on my latest work in Palestine-Israel from mid-May to mid-July 2019. Now drawing from my recent journal entries I write about how I decided […]
Read More The Ongoing and Relentless Nakba: Adventure or Ordeal?–Part ThreeFrom my journal, letters, and other writing about internally expelled Palestinian refugees in the West Bank and Gaza (once I can enter Gaza), plus their ancestral homelands. Previous dispatches were based on my latest work in Palestine-Israel from mid-May to mid-July 2019. Now I write about how I decided to cancel my long-anticipated return for […]
Read More The Ongoing and Relentless Nakba: Adventure or Ordeal?–Part twoFrom my journal, letters, and other writing about internally expelled Palestinian refugees in the West Bank and Gaza (once I can enter Gaza), plus their ancestral homelands. These dispatches are based on my latest work in Palestine-Israel from mid-May to mid-July 2019, and my plans to return, the pandemic easing, to Palestine-Israel in mid May […]
Read More the ongoing and relentless nakba: adventure or ordeal?-part OneThis blog is a departure from my main photographic project in Palestine-Israel, “The Ongoing and Relentless Nakba.” I need a break as I prepare for my next journey of discovery which begins on May 19, 2022. Invited by the Agape Community in western Massachusetts to reflect on the 13th station on Good Friday, April 15, […]
Read More via dolora: the 13th station—Christ removed from the cross, Palestinian rights, and climate justiceFrom my journal, letters, and other writing about internally expelled Palestinian refugees in the West Bank and Gaza (once I can enter Gaza), plus their ancestral homelands. These dispatches based on my latest work in Palestine-Israel from mid-May to mid-July 2019. With the pandemic crisis easing, I now plan to enter Palestine-Israel in mid May […]
Read More THE ONGOING AND RELENTLESS NAKBA—NOTES FROM THE PAST POINTING TO THE FUTURE (PART 3)From my journal, letters, and other writing about internally expelled Palestinian refugees in the West Bank and Gaza (once I can enter Gaza), plus their ancestral homelands. These dispatches based on my latest work in Palestine-Israel from mid-May to mid-July 2019. With the pandemic crisis easing, I now plan to enter Palestine-Israel in mid May […]
Read More The Ongoing and Relentless Nakba—notes from the past pointing to the future (part 2)From my journal, letters, and other writing about internally expelled Palestinian refugees in the West Bank and Gaza (once I can enter Gaza), plus their ancestral homelands. These dispatches based on my latest work in Palestine-Israel from mid-May to mid-July 2019. With the pandemic crisis easing, I now plan to enter Palestine-Israel in mid May […]
Read More The Ongoing and Relentless Nakba—notes from the past pointing to the future (part 1)In America they retained the vestiges of important Indian tribes or tribes that are still dwelling. This is not the case here. We have nothing to do with the name of a minuscule Bedouin tribe, and we can assign a Hebrew name here. Yitzhak Be Zvi, at the Negev committee meeting, Sept 29, 1949 Photos […]
Read More next steps for my nakba photograpic project“The facts are that men, women, old people and babies were murdered, villages were destroyed and burned, without justification […]. There will only be atonement when those guilty of murder will be judged and when the houses and the lands of the people of Saliha will be returned to them […] but who but us, […]
Read More The ongoing and relentless nakba: end of year update (2021)J. Schiele and K. Downey talk with their father, Skip Schiel, about what led him to move to Boston in the 1960s, his activism during the Vietnam War, his interest in cooperative living, and his work as a photographer and filmmaker. —StoryCorps This is one of about 7 interviews, partly organized chronologically, only one on […]
Read More My two daughters interview me for StoryCorps (January 23, 2021)During my last days exploring, searching, the ghosts of former residents of the destroyed towns and villages call out to me, Skip, we are still here. Tho expelled, please feel our presence. See us, show us, help us regain our basic human rights. We want to go home! We have a right to our homes […]
Read More The Ongoing and Relentless Nakba: searching for the shadows of ancestors in British ParkIn July 2019 during a conversation with Amos, who I met during my first trip to the region in 2003 in his kibbutz, Shefayim, and listening to his friend, Aziz Al-Touri, near the Bedouin village of Al Araqib in the Naqab/Negev desert, I heard two major claims: from Amos that one’s life is concretely determined […]
Read More The Ongoing Nakba: Amos Gvirtz and Aziz Al-Touri, a Jewish Israeli and his Bedouin friend in the southern Negev/Naqab desert(The Agape Community published an earlier version in The Servant Song, summer 2021) When passion can’t flow easily into policymaking, it congeals as angry protest, growing wilder and more paranoid. Daniel Immerwahr Climate justice or justice for Palestine? Which for me will take precedence in my activism? With limited energy and time remaining in my […]
Read More How far can outrage carry me?From my journal, interviews, letters, and other writing about internally expelled Palestinian refugees in the West Bank and Gaza (once I can enter Gaza), plus their ancestral homelands. These dispatches are based on my latest sojourns in Palestine-Israel from mid-May to mid-July 2019 and more recent writing. Currently, the Covid-19 pandemic prevents me from returning. I […]
Read More The Ongoing Nakba: “Seven years to build, one hour to destroy”—Ibrahim Eid Nghnghia (Abu Adnan) in Jenin with his son and a friend—part twoAn analysis from Adam Keller, a Jewish Israeli in Israel, followed by a set of action items you can use to respond (U.S. based) The storm which Netanyahu unleashed Adam Keller, May 12, 2021 Yesterday morning (Tuesday) we woke up with the news of twenty one Palestinians killed in Gaza, nine of them minors, and two Israeli […]
Read More SPECIAL MESSAGE ABOUT PALESTINE-ISRAELFrom my journal, interviews, letters, and other writing about internally expelled Palestinian refugees in the West Bank and Gaza (once I can enter Gaza), plus their ancestral homelands. These dispatches are based on my latest sojourns in Palestine-Israel from mid-May to mid-July 2019 and more recent writing. Currently, the Covid-19 pandemic prevents me from returning. I […]
Read More Hip-hop in the Jenin refugee camp—and finding its locationFrom my journal, interviews, letters, and other writing about internally expelled Palestinian refugees in the West Bank and Gaza (once I can enter Gaza), plus their ancestral homelands. These dispatches are based on my latest sojourns in Palestine-Israel from mid-May to mid-July 2019 and more recent writing. Currently, the Covid-19 pandemic prevents me from returning. I […]
Read More The Ongoing Nakba: Sheik Jarrah and two friends about to be evicted-part threeFrom my journal, interviews, letters, and other writing about internally expelled Palestinian refugees in the West Bank and Gaza (once I can enter Gaza), plus their ancestral homelands. These dispatches are based on my latest sojourns in Palestine-Israel from mid-May to mid-July 2019 and more recent writing. Currently, the Covid-19 pandemic prevents me from returning. […]
Read More The Ongoing Nakba: Sheik Jarrah and two of my friends about to be evicted-part twoFrom my journal, interviews, letters, and other writing about internally expelled Palestinian refugees in the West Bank and Gaza (once I can enter Gaza), plus their ancestral homelands. These dispatches are based on my latest sojourns in Palestine-Israel from mid-May to mid-July 2019 and more recent writing. Currently, the Covid-19 pandemic prevents me from returning. […]
Read More The Ongoing Nakba: Sheik Jarrah and two friends about to be evicted-part oneFrom my journal, interviews, letters, and other writing about internally expelled Palestinian refugees in the West Bank and Gaza (once I can enter Gaza), plus their ancestral homelands. These dispatches are based on my latest sojourns in Palestine-Israel from mid-May to mid-July 2019 and more recent writing. Currently, the Covid-19 pandemic prevents me from returning. […]
Read More The Ongoing Nakba: “As if they took all my clothes and left me naked”—Ibrahim Eid Nghnghia (Abu Adnan) in Jenin with his son and a friend—part onefriends in the struggles, because of a recent discussion with quaker colleagues about how to motivate people to fight for palestinian human rights, i thought you might be interested in one of my heart connections with the issues of palestine-israel, what i call a “heart attack”—a provocation or incident that pierces my heart so fiercely […]
Read More The Ongoing Nakba: a brief letter about my heart attackFrom my journal, interviews, letters, and other writing about internally expelled Palestinian refugees in the West Bank and Gaza (once I can enter Gaza), plus their ancestral homelands. These dispatches are based on my latest sojourns in Palestine-Israel from mid-May to mid-July 2019 and more recent writing. Currently, the Covid-19 pandemic prevents me from returning. […]
Read More The Ongoing Nakba: Qasem Ahmad Qasem Abu Qutnah-returning to his olive trees in al-MansiFrom my journal, interviews, letters, and other writing about internally expelled Palestinian refugees in the West Bank and Gaza (once I can enter Gaza), plus their ancestral homelands. These dispatches are based on my latest sojourns in Palestine-Israel from mid-May to mid-July 2019 and more recent writing. Currently, the Covid-19 pandemic prevents me from returning. […]
Read More The Ongoing Nakba: Fatima Ali Msaimi (Um Wajeeh) tells her early storyFrom my journal, interviews, letters, and other writing about internally expelled Palestinian refugees in the West Bank and Gaza (once I can enter Gaza), plus their ancestral homelands. These dispatches are based on my latest sojourns in Palestine-Israel from mid-May to mid-July 2019 and more recent writing. Currently, the Covid-19 pandemic prevents me from returning. […]
Read More The Ongoing Nakba: AK, of an old illustrious Arab-Palestinian familyFrom my journal, interviews, letters, and other writing about internally expelled Palestinian refugees in the West Bank and Gaza (once I can enter Gaza), plus their ancestral homelands. These dispatches are based on my latest work in Palestine-Israel from mid-May to mid-July 2019 and more recent writing. Currently, the Covid-19 pandemic prevents me from returning. […]
Read More The Ongoing Nakba: Zakia Mohammed Theeb Hamad (Umm Al Abed)-her rescued fig treeFrom my journal, interviews, letters, and other writing about internally expelled Palestinian refugees in the West Bank and Gaza (once I can enter Gaza), plus their ancestral homelands. These dispatches are based on my latest work in Palestine-Israel from mid-May to mid-July 2019 and more recent writing. Currently, the Covid-19 pandemic prevents me from returning. […]
Read More The Ongoing Nakba: Mohammad Saleh Abu Habsa-Patience is a virtue!From my journal, interviews, letters, and other writing about internally expelled Palestinian refugees in the West Bank and Gaza (once I can enter Gaza), plus their ancestral homelands. These dispatches are based on my latest work in Palestine-Israel from mid-May to mid-July 2019 and more recent writing. (With major assistance from Fareed Taamallah, my colleague […]
Read More The Ongoing Nakba: The Lost Paradise-Maryam Abdallah Abu Lateefa from the village of SarisFrom my journal, interviews, letters, and other writing about internally expelled Palestinian refugees in the West Bank and Gaza (once I can enter Gaza), plus their ancestral homelands. These dispatches are based on my latest work in Palestine-Israel from mid-May to mid-July 2019 and more recent writing. (With major assistance from Fareed Taamallah, my colleague […]
Read More The Ongoing Nakba: My colleague and friend, Fareed Taamallah-part three
Skip Schiel & Teeksa Photography 