Zochrot

Zochrot
Founded 2002
Founder Eitan Bronstein
Location
Revenue
280,000 euros in 2006
Slogan "To commemorate, witness, acknowledge, and repair"
Mission To raise awareness of the 1948 Palestinian exodus (Nakba) and to "Hebrewise" it.
Website Zochrot website in Hebrew; in English

Zochrot (Hebrew: זוכרות‎; "Remembering"; Arabic: ذاكرات‎‎; "Memories") is an Israeli non-profit organization founded in 2002. Based in Tel Aviv, its aim is to promote awareness of the Palestinian Nakba ("Catastrophe"), the 1948 Palestinian exodus.[1] The group's director is Eitan Bronstein. Its slogan is "To commemorate, witness, acknowledge, and repair."[2]

Zochrot organizes tours of Israeli towns, which include taking displaced Palestinians back to the areas they fled or were expelled from in 1948 and afterwards.[3] The group erects street signs giving the Palestinian history of the street or area they are in. Zochrot sees this as causing "disorder in space," raising questions about naming and belonging. A key aim is to "Hebrewise the Nakba" by creating a space for it in the public discourse of Israeli Jews.[1]

The word "Zochrot" uses the feminine plural form of the Hebrew verb "to remember," whereas it is customary in Hebrew to use the masculine form when referring to a group of people. The feminine form was chosen to signal Zochrot's approach toward the Nakba, which the group says challenges what it sees as the masculine historical narrative by focusing on compassion and inclusion.[1]

Publications

The Magazine of the group bears the name Sedek (engl. rupture/rift) and was published for the fourth time in spring 2010. This issue contains more than 40 poems by Israeli poets, which were published in the period between 1948 till 1958. The poems reflect theviews of the authors on the displacement of the Palestinians in the years around the foundation of Israel.

In 2012, Zochrot and Pardes Publications published a guidebook "Omrim Yeshna Eretz" ("Once Upon a Land – a Tour Guide") in Arabic and Hebrew which is "designed to educate Jewish-Israelis about how their towns and cities were founded in an effort to reconcile them with the original inhabitants of the land."[4][5] It provides tours of 18 localities, mostly the sites of Palestinian villages depopulated in 1948.[4][5]

Funding

Eitan Bronstein, director of Zochrot, posts a sign in Hebrew and Arabic on the former Arab "ghetto" in Lod (Lydda), 2003.

According to its 2010 annual report, Zochrot listed the following groups as contributors: EKS-EPER, Trocaire, CCFD, Broederlijk Delen, MISEREOR, ICCO-KerkinActie, Oxfam GM, Oxfam Solidarity, Mennonite Central Committee, medico international.[6] The group did not list its annual income.[6] In its 2006 annual report, the group declared a total income of 280,000 euros and listed the Mennonite Central Committee, Kerkinactie, ICCO, Cimade, CCFD, EPER/HEKS, Broederlijk Delen, Oxfam Solidarity Belgium, Misereor, Medico International, and Zivik as contributors.[7]

In 2012, the German Holocaust remembrance foundation EVZ announced that they would no longer support Zochrot due to Zochrot's support for the Palestinian right of return.[8]

See also

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 Bronstein, Eitan. "The Nakba in Hebrew: Israeli-Jewish Awareness of the Palestinian Catastrophe and Internal Refugees," in Masalha, Nur. (ed.) Catastrophe Remembered: Palestine, Israel and the Internal Refugees. Zed Books, 2005.
  2. ↑ Zochrot, the website in English, accessed February 9, 2010.
  3. ↑ Rinat, Zafrir. Out of sight maybe, but not out of mind, Haaretz, June 13, 2007.
  4. 1 2 "Whose land is it anyway?". The Economist. 15 April 2013.
  5. 1 2 Moshe Gilad (7 Dec 2012). "The Arab villages that were; a new Israeli guidebook". Haaretz.
  6. 1 2 2010 Annual Report p.40
  7. ↑ Annual report 2006, Zochrot, accessed February 9, 2010.
  8. ↑ German fund pulls NGO cash
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