Author Archives: Arab America

A brick red, six-story tenement house, St. George Melkite Church and a community house in desperate need of repair are nearly all that remain of a once thriving Arab-American community in downtown New York City. High-rise buildings now populate the area of Lower Manhattan formerly called Little Syria that has been a gradual casualty of … Continued

Everyone has had a similar experience. There is some maintenance problem in your home that you have put off repairing for a while. In the back of your mind, you know that leaving it as is might cause greater problems in the future. A friendly handyman looked at it and told you that maybe you … Continued

The New York Police Department’s widespread spying programs directed at Muslims have undermined free worship by innocent people and should be declared unconstitutional, religious leaders and civil rights advocates said Tuesday after the filing of a federal lawsuit. “Our mosque should be an open, religious and spiritual sanctuary, but NYPD spying has turned it into … Continued

In 1985, Palestinian-American civil rights leader Alex Odeh was killed in a terrorist bomb attack on the California offices of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. ADC announced earlier this month that Alex’s brother passed away on 6 June after a long illness. “We regret that Sami Odeh never lived to see justice served for Alex’s death, … Continued

New York Muslims have filed a federal lawsuit against the New York Police Department over the department’s surveillance of Muslims, which they called invasive and unconstitutional. The public debate over government surveillance has crescendoed over the last two weeks after a leaker revealed that the federal government had secretly collected detailed phone records, on a … Continued

The American Muslim community was alarmed by Republican Congressman Mike Pompeo’s statement that the Muslims here have not condemned acts of terrorism against the U.S. and therefore are complicit in those and any future attacks. In a statement on the House floor on June 11, Kansas Congressman Pompeo said that there has been a relative … Continued

The country’s leadership has greatly empowered Emirati women and they are on a par with their male counterparts, participants of a seminar were told here on Sunday. It is high time the work of women from all Arab nations is acknowledged on the international scene, said Professor Sehamuddin Galadari, Vice-Provost for Research and Graduate Studies … Continued

Two groups are seeking answers to what they say is a growing practice of Muslim and Arab-American groups having their bank accounts closed without cause or explanation. The Council on American-Islamic Relations–Michigan is asking the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, part of the U.S. Department of the Treasury, to investigate the complaints and … Continued

Many scholars are stunned that Georgetown University is denying tenure to Samer Shehata, widely seen as a significant figure in Arab studies. But there is no one theory about why he was denied a permanent spot within the university’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service. Some say he’s being punished for his politics, and … Continued

When Carl Antoun, a young Lebanese-American, had bugged his grandmother enough times about her past, she directed him to a long-abandoned closet in their basement in New York. “There was this steamer trunk, and on the side of it was written: ‘1662 Washington St.’ I opened it and found hundreds of pictures, documents and postcards, … Continued

As you know, we have just learned about the secret National Security Agency (NSA) programs, PRISM and Boundless Informant, being used to spy on Americans. According to many news sources, communication between the US and many Arab countries, such as Jordan and Egypt, have been disproportionately targeted by these programs. On April 25, 2013, it … Continued

Comedian Bill Cosby is no stranger to the culture wars. The iconic stand-up and star of the beloved sitcom The Cosby Show routinely weighs in on cultural matters. This past weekend, Cosby penned an op-ed for The New York Post in which he detailed some of the flaws in modern society. He also suggested we … Continued