Hope is a Woman's Name - Dr Amal Elsana Alh'jooj

Dr Elsana-Alh’jooj is considered a leader in Israel’s Bedouin community and an authority on the status of both the Arab Palestinian minority and women in Israel.

Hope is a Woman’s Name tells of Amal’s journey navigating interweaving systems of power and oppression – the patriarchal and the nationalist – in her fight for justice and equality. As a shepherd at the age of 5, she led her flock across the mountains of Laqiya, her village in the Negev in southern Israel, and later ran literacy classes for the women in her tribe in her early teens, the beginning of a lifelong career organizing people to promote policy change for Israel’s Bedouin, a minority within the Palestinian
minority.

She later established economic empowerment programs for marginalized women, helping to found an Arab-Jewish school, and
creating organizations to promote shared society. Where others come up against obstacles, Amal builds bridges; not by sacrificing
her identity, but by embracing it. Each thread of her identity – Bedouin, Arab, woman, feminist, Palestinian and Israeli – is woven
into the tent of her life, a tent where no one is left out in the sun.  She has long campaigned for the emancipation of women in male dominated Bedouin society and established the first Bedouin women’s organization.

Amal is the founding director of the Arab-Jewish Center for Equality, Empowerment, and Cooperation and has received
numerous international humanitarian awards. Amal was among a group of distinguished women collectively nominated for the 2005
Nobel Peace Prize.

She graduated from the University of Ben Gurion with degrees in Social Work before going on to study for a PhD at McGill University
in Montreal. She is now pursuing post-doctoral work at Harvard University. 

Please find further information on the event:  IMEIS External Lecture - Monday 6 March 2023