Co-Sponsors
Presenter Info
Nora Lester Murad
Nora Lester Murad is an educator, activist, and author of the award-winning young adult novel, Ida in the Middle, among other books about Palestine. Nora, who is Jewish, married a Palestinian Muslim and raised three daughters in the West Bank. She shares K-12 teaching and school advocacy resources and research for librarians at www.IdaInTheMiddle.com and can be reached through her blog at www.NoraLesterMurad.com.
Mary L. Onorato
Mary L. Onorato has enjoyed a career in library reference publishing that encompassed several years of editorial work and ultimately product development and management. She also lived in Lebanon and Syria, where she worked as an editor and French-to-English translator.
Eman Khadra Ansari
Dr. Eman Khadra Ansari is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, specializing in Critical Care and Pulmonology, and practices Emergency Medicine at Boston Children’s Hospital (BCH). She is widely recognized for clinical excellence and leadership, serving as Chair of the PICU Committee and on the PCRF Medi cal Advisory Board and Board of Directors. As founder and director of the BCH Book Club, she fosters empathy and inclusion through literature. Dr. Ansari earned her MD from King Abdul-Aziz University and an MPH from Harvard.
Eman’s chapter is: Lost Homeland, Lost Sanctuary
Lesley Williams
Lesley Williams served as head of Adult Services at the Evanston Public Library for fifteen years, until controversy over an event with Palestinian author Ali Abunimah led to her departure. She has presented at the American Library Association on planning diverse and controversial library programming and has served as a library programming and DEI consultant. She currently reviews books on racial equity, Islamophobia, and Palestine for Booklist and organizes with Jewish Voice for Peace.
Jamilah Thompkins-Bigelow
Jamilah Thompkins-Bigelow is an award-winning children’s book author who worked as an educator for more than fifteen years, teaching children and teens in schools and alternative settings and writing anti-racist curricula. She has earned the prestigious Walter, Irma Black, and Golden Kite award honors for her work. In addition to producing children’s literature, she mentors aspiring authors through We Need Diverse Books and the Highlights Foundation.
Jamilah’s chapter, co-authored with Hannah Mermelstein, is: Who is Being Protected? An Author and a Librarian in Conversation About a Canceled School Visit.
Abdelfattah Abusrour
Abdelfattah Abusrour was born and raised in the Aida refugee camp in the West Bank and earned a PhD in Biological and Medical Engineering in France. He is a published playwright as well as the founder and general director of the Alrowwad Cultural and Arts Society in Aida camp. A recipient of the Ashoka Fellowship and a Synergos Social Innovator Award, Dr. Abusrour initiated and devised the philosophy of “Beautiful Resistance”: using performing and visual arts to promote creativity, peacefulness, and sumud, and resilience in young people facing the trauma of war, violence, and oppression.
12pm (EST) 
Online 
Free 
