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Arab Christian wins Israel’s first transgender beauty pageant

By

By Stephanie Marie Anderson
SBS.COM

Last week Israel held its first ever transgender beauty pageant, where 12 trans women competed to become the first Miss Trans Israel, set to represent the country at Miss Trans Star International this September in Barcelona.

21-year-old Taleen Abu Hanna, a Christian, Arab ballerina, was crowned the winner over competitors from diverse backgrounds, including a Muslim belly-dancer and a Jewish confectioner.

“Our country deserves to come out on top,” Hanna said. “Our country allowed me, a Christian Arab from Nazareth, to end the war between my soul and my body. So if it made peace for me, our country is only a country of peace.”

Participants at the first edition of Miss Trans Israel. The contest was held in Habima Theater, Tel Aviv. (Photo: Menahem Kahana/Getty Images)

Pageant judge Efrat Tilma spoke about how the pageant would increase awareness for trans people in Israel, saying that “Israeli people like transgenders but they don’t have enough information about transgenders”.

“Among us there are judges, there are doctors, there are lawyers, there are people who are working in hi-tech positions and, as well, people who would like to go to the Israeli parliament and to represent us in our parliament,” she told the crowd at Tel Aviv’s Habima National Theatre.

Israel is known for its liberal laws regarding gay and trans people, with an estimated 25 per cent of the population identifying as LGBT. The Boston Globe dubbed Tel Aviv the “Gayest City On Earth” earlier this year.

Source: www.sbs.com.au

Mashrou’ Leila is re-imagining Arab pop music

By

Patrick Dunn

Detroit News

Lebanese indie-rock band Mashrou’ Leila is on a mission to rewrite the rules of Arab pop music, but its members didn’t start with the intention of being a full-fledged band at all.

The quintet got its start in 2008, when its members were all architecture and design students at the American University of Beirut. Guitarist Firas Abou Fakher says he and his bandmates-to-be had all played instruments casually in the past, but had largely set aside musical pursuits in favor of their studies.

Realizing their mutual interest in music, they began meeting informally to jam once a week. They played live for the first time only because one of their professors asked them to play a concert on campus, branching out into a performing career from there.

From the start, the group agreed that they would play only their own original music and not covers — certainly not the Arab pop music they’d all grown up hearing on the radio. Abou Fakher says he and his bandmates were disillusioned with mainstream Arab pop’s homogenized lyrics and sound.

“(Pop stars) change the way they look and the production changes, but at the core they’re still kind of discussing the same topics,” he says. “They’re still addressing the same ideas with very similar intentions, musically and lyrically. We’re just basically bored with it. It doesn’t talk to anybody. It doesn’t try to provoke any thoughts or any discussion about bigger issues or bigger sensitivities.”

Mashrou’ Leila’s lyrics, on the other hand, have been distinctly provocative throughout the band’s career. The song “Min el Taboor” off the group’s self-titled 2009 debut album proclaims, “We’ve been fighting for 50 years / The same war, we can’t forget / The country’s a waiting room / And the queue goes to the airport.” In addition to many other lyrics referring to Middle Eastern political strife, the band has repeatedly addressed homosexual relationships in a positive light (lead singer Hamed Sinno is openly gay).

Those progressive and outspoken stances have won Mashrou’ Leila a robust fan base in the Middle East, and, in recent years, the band has begun touring in Europe and the United States, as well. But the band has also encountered hostility — most recently in Jordan, where government officials canceled an April Mashrou’ Leila show on the grounds that the band’s material contradicted religious values.

“We hold a big amount of pride for the fact that our music has been able to disseminate as widely as it has, especially among Arab youth in sister countries,” Abou Fakher says. “On the other hand, we think it’s ridiculous that it’s still something that is questioned. It’s obvious to us that these things are so boring. They shouldn’t even be controversial.”

Abou Fakher expresses excitement for the band’s upcoming stop at the Grenadier Club — Mashrou’ Leila’s first Detroit show, and part of only their second U.S. tour. Abou Fakher says the band immediately started getting calls from excited fans when it announced the show close to the Arab-American center of Dearborn. But he says the band’s past American shows have attracted a “quite diverse” mix of Arab- and non-Arab-Americans.

Abou Fakher says the band’s mission is to present those audiences with more Arab music that he, his bandmates and other like-minded Arabs can be proud of. He says the Arab music industry is largely limited to performers who are “well-connected,” “very beautiful” and discovered at a very young age.

“We’re hoping to break these misconceptions about music,” Abou Fakher says. “We’re not trying to say it’s easy or everybody’s going to succeed. But once you have enough people trying, that’s when culture starts to be created.”

Mashrou’ Leila

8 p.m. Sat.

Grenadier Club

3101 McDougall, Detroit

Tickets: $45

facebook.com/events/1530088120654546/

Source: www.detroitnews.com

LA Times Review of ‘The Idol’

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LA Times By: Sheri Linden There’s an irresistible pull to the story of Mohammed Assaf, the Palestinian wedding singer who made his way from a refugee camp in the Gaza Strip to the TV screens of tens of millions of fans. The same can be said of “The Idol,” an uneven but charmingly earnest fictionalized … Continued

Arab American Comedian Mo Amer opens for Dave Chappelle

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  Famous American comedian, Dave Chappelle, is back on the road after what seemed like a long hiatus after his hit sketch comedy show, The Chappelle Show, stopped airing in 2006. Since 2015, Chappelle has been touring across the country, performing for sold out shows. What’s special about this tour, though, is that he chose … Continued

Photo Gallery: Lebanese Designers dominate Cannes red carpet

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BY: Nisreen Eadeh/Staff Writer This year marked the 69th annual Cannes Film Festival that takes place in Cannes, France every spring. The international film festival previews films from all over the world, across many genres, at the Palais des Festivals et des Congrès. Movie stars, filmmakers, models, designers, and many other celebrities attend the invitation-only event every … Continued

Rima Fakih’s Elaborate, Star-Studded Lebanese Wedding

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This weekend, Former Miss USA Rima Fakih married Wassim SAL Slaiby at The Patriarchal Edifice in Bkerki, Lebanon. Fakih and Slaibi are both Lebanese Americans but chose their homelands to wed this weekend. Two weeks ago, Fakih converted from Islam to Christianity before she wed Slaibi, who is a Maronite Christian. Fakih’s wedding dress was … Continued

Ai Weiwei Films in Israel and Gaza 

By

Hili Perlson

Artnet.com

Ai Weiwei and a film crew in the West Bank, Monday, May 9. Courtesy of Einat Fishbain via Facebook.

The socially-engaged artist Ai Weiwei, who is currently working on a documentary film on refugees, landed in Israel yesterday, May 9, to conduct a series of interviews for his upcoming film project.

Ai visited Jerusalem and the West Bank, and was planning on traveling to the Gaza strip today, but was initially denied permission to enter, as reported by the independent Israeli news blog HA-Makom.

Following the blog’s report, which was picked up by other Israeli news outlets and made waves on social media, the artist and his crew were finally granted entry.

Ai had arranged a three-day stay in the Gaza Strip, and coordinated the trip with the Israeli production company Highlight, which is filming on location with the politically engaged artist.

As Israel marks its Memorial Day for fallen soldiers and victims of terrorism, May 11, immediately followed by Independence Day on May 12, the crossing will be shut off for three full days starting tonight due to heightened security procedures. Ai and his film crew were planning on staying in Gaza until the border reopens.

The IDF’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (CoGAT), who is responsible for issuing entry permits to Gaza, is obligated to grant entry into Gaza only for the members of international press who hold state-issued press IDs. Ai and his team are not considered journalists.

In addition, the daily paper Haaretz reports that according to CoGAT, Ai and the film crew did not apply for their permissions in due course, and that a speedy procedure was underway.

A CoGAT’s spokesperson responded to Ha-Makom’s report, saying “On May 3rd, we received said request to enter Gaza, just several days prior to the planned arrival. As in the case of every visit to Gaza, the request has to undergo inspection by security officials, and due to the short notice, we were unable to do so. We have now sent an urgent request to the Israeli Security Agency, but the request will not be taken care of before Independence Day, so the team will have to stay in Israel for a few more days. We can’t promise their entry to Gaza, but we promise to take care of the request.”

However, rather than a few days, permission was granted in a matter of hours, on Monday evening. Ai and the film crew will be heading to the Gaza Strip today.

Ai has started the visit with interviews in Israel, and met with Member of the Knesset Ayman Odeh, of the Joint List, and Hagai El-ad, executive director of B’Tselem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, to talk about the state of both the Palestinian refugees as well as refugees worldwide. Following the interviews, he headed to the West Bank, and filmed at refugee camps around Bethlehem.

Since relocating to Berlin last year, around the same time that the refugee crisis has reached devastating proportions, Ai has made countless trips to refugee camps in Greece and Macedonia, and has even opened a studio on the island of Lesbos, an entry point to Europe for refugees making the perilous journey from Turkey to Greece.

While attempting to leverage his celebrity to highlight the plight of refugees, Ai has also staged certain gestures that came under fire for being too crass, like creating a photograph of himself lying on a beach, recalling a shocking photo of drowned Syrian toddler Alan Kurdi.

He’s also hung life vests on the façade of a Berlin concert hall during the city’s film festival, and then invited guests at a gala there, including Hollywood actress Charlize Theron, to pose wearing emergency thermal blankets.

Based on first-hand accounts rather than attention-grabbing aesthetics, the documentary he is currently filming could very well be a thoughtful and candid—not to mention historically valuable—report on the Middle East refugee crisis.

“I did hundreds of interviews,” Ai recently told Reuters in Bern, Switzerland, where he was speaking to reporters at the opening of “Chinese Whispers,” an exhibition of contemporary Chinese artists from the collection of Uli Sigg at the Paul Klee Center.

He plans to release the film in 2017.

Source: news.artnet.com

First Muslim Miss USA converts to Christianity

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Rima Fakih, former Miss Michigan, was crowned Miss USA in 2010 Ruth Gledhill Christian Today The woman who was believed to be the first Muslim to win the title when she was crowned Miss USA in 2010 has converted to Christianity. Rima Fakih gave her life to Christ last month in the run-up to her … Continued

The Qanun – An Arab Musical Instrument Par-Excellence

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BY: Habeeb Salloum/Contributing writer “Ahmad my love! Ahmad my love!” You who aids the stranger, salutations to you.” The beguiling voice of Maryem Hassan, inspired by the strings of the qanun, played by Roula Said, rang out that April day in Toronto – Canada’s world-renowned cosmopolitan city. It was the opening song of an evening … Continued

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