Roundtable
Palestine: Between the Rubble and Hope
(Art, Identity, and Resistance)
Two worlds of resistance and identity intertwine: the transformative power of art in the context of occupation and genocide in Palestine and the deconstruction of myths about Judaism, Zionism, and Anti-Semitism. Through a reflection that unites the personal and the political, we will discuss the role of art as an instrument of struggle (focusing on the work of the Freedom Theatre and Playback Theatre), as a means of narrating life stories, especially from a feminist perspective. In parallel, we will explore the complexity of Jewish identity, the deconstruction of Zionist education, and the possible alliances between Jewish and Palestinian people in the fight for justice for the Palestinian people. We will address art as a voice that resists amidst the rubble, offering a space to reflect on the trauma of forced uprooting and the connections between certain artistic actions and political struggle and resistance. Thus, this meeting within the Gathering invites us to think about how artistic and personal narratives intertwine in building solidarities and resistances to oppression.
You’re either with life
Or against it.
Affirm life.
(in “First Writing Since”, by Suheir Hammad)
Shahd Wadi
Palestinian author and activist
Palestinian, among other possibilities, but freedom is above all Palestinian. She tries to exercise her freedom also in what she does, traveling between writing, research, translation, curatorship, performance, and artistic consulting. She found her resistances by writing “Bodies in the Bundle: Artistic-Life-Stories of Palestinian Women in Exile” (2017), where she considers the arts as a testimony of lives—including her own.
Jonatan Israel Benebgui
Jews for Peace and Justice
Born in Madrid, descendant of a Portuguese family. He has lived in Lisbon since 2016, where he studied Psychology, holding a master’s degree in Psychology of Intercultural Relations and a postgraduate degree in Clinical Psychology. In 2019, he co-founded the men’s association for gender equality: Men Talks. In 2023, he actively participated in the creation of the collective Jews for Peace and Justice. He works as a social intervention technician in the Fim do Mundo neighborhood in Cascais.
Elsa Maurício Childs
Moderator
An Accredited Playback Theatre (PT) Trainer, she strives to center her artistic practice on social justice and anti-oppression work. She is part of the teaching team at the Iberian School of PT and serves on the board of the Iberian PT Association. She is the co-founder of Project Eco and founded and directs InVerso. Additionally, she is involved with two international online PT companies and the PT project for social justice, HEED. She is co-founder and board member of Corda Teatro and the intersectional feminist group Eufémias.
Jews for Peace and Justice
An informal group of Jewish people, originating from various parts of the world but established in Lisbon, a city where they connected through social networks and, notably, in the demonstrations that took place after the start of the bombings in Gaza in October 2023. The group is explicitly anti-Zionist, in solidarity with the struggle of the Palestinian people, and committed to combating all forms of racism, including anti-Semitism. Therefore, the group openly rejects the conflation made between Judaism and Zionism, which contributes to the essentialization of Jews, not believing that the security of the Jewish people depends on the existence of a Jewish ethno-state but rather on a future free from all forms of oppression.
