People are the heartbeat of our organization. We believe that every individual has the potential and ability to transform themselves, their community, and the world.
Every person we work with - staff, board, volunteers, delegates, partners, and donors - has something to learn and something to teach. We invite you to join our team!
mEET OUR STAFF
Nancy
Executive Director
Born in the UK to Palestinian parents, Nancy was raised and educated in South London, where she studied Business, Finance, and Management. After moving to New York in her early 20s, she pursued a career in entertainment as a radio and event host for over 13 years and managed various artists in the music industry. During this time, she worked in the Hospitality and Healthcare industries, most recently at the Center for Innovation in Mental Health at the School of Public Health at CUNY. In 2009, Nancy co-founded Existence Is Resistance— a grassroots, not for profit, voluntary organization that took numerous delegations to Palestine/48, conducting workshops with children in refugee camps as well as organizing hundreds of events and conferences in the US and Europe. She has worked with and built strong ties with various movements across the board and on the ground in Palestine.
Kristian
Operations & Programming Manager
Kristian's introduction to Palestine came as a college student journalist reporting on the arrest of a Palestinian activist protesting the occupation's closure of main street in one of the West Bank's largest cities to Palestinians. Within the span of a year, he joined Students for Justice in Palestine and an Eyewitness Palestine delegation to see the occupation firsthand. Kristian began to see parallels between Black and Palestinian liberation struggles - leading him to co-found Black4Palestine in the wake of the 2014 war on Gaza and Ferguson uprising. His solidarity work since then has included leading a Black4Palestine delegation to engage with Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, organizing two delegations of Palestinian students from the Right to Education Campaign at Birzeit University to visit and speak across the US about the impacts of the occupation on Palestinian education, and serving as the communications manager at Palestine Legal.
Mohammad
Communications Coordinator
After graduating from Eastern Mediterranean University with a Bachelors degree in Media and Communications studies, as well as a Masters Degree in Strategic Communications from the University of San Francisco, Palestinian born, LA Based, Mohammad Qasem began his journey in Tech Communications. That is where he gained valuable experience and skills working on various projects. Mohammads passion and commitment to make a difference and give back to his community, inspired by the motto “be the change you want to see in the world,” as well as his experience, led Qasem to his role as Communications Coordinator at Eyewitness Palestine.
Larry
Programming Coordinator
Originally from Tennessee, Larry discovered community organizing after moving to Florida in 2011 to study Graphic Design and Web Development/Programming and Analysis at Santa Fe College in 2012. A short time later, he joined the Dream Defenders, where he became involved in community organizing for local and national campaigns, building solidarity coalitions across multiple orgs and social justice issues. His commitment to activism deepened while working with Existence is Resistance, leading him to participate in several delegations to the West Bank in 2016, 2017, and 2022. Outside of Eyewitness Palestine he is a volunteer program manager for a nonprofit organization that mentors young men aged 12 to 24, with the goal of preventing incarceration and gun violence. His dedication to both global and local social justice continues to inform his work as an advocate and organizer.
Meet Our Board
We are only as strong collectively as we are individually. At Eyewitness Palestine, we seek to strengthen each other as individuals, knowing that doing so strengthens us as a collective. Each member of Eyewitness Palestine's Board of Directors is a leader, a representative, and a partner in our work.
Jayeesha
Co-Chair/Governance Committee
Jayeesha is a tri-coastal, nearly tri-lingual Bengali-American interdisciplinary artist, cultural organizer and pop-ed facilitator. She is a co-founding member of Another Gulf Is Possible Collaborative, galvanizing voices and experiences from across the Gulf South to the Global South working towards a "just transition" for our people and the planet. She serves as a voting member for Alternate Roots, and on the national steering committee for the Climate Justice Alliance. Jayeesha is an avid traveler, home chef, live music lover, and adores being near (or in) any body of water. She was born in Mobile, raised in New York, aged in Oakland and is deeply grateful to call New Orleans home.
Cheryl
Co-Chair/Governance Committee
Cheryl is a Lebanese American community activist and clinical social worker who specializes in the treatment of trauma. She spent her entire career in community mental health fostering systemic change through the building of critical resources for and with underserved communities. She has been involved in justice for Palestine movements for many years. Now semi-retired, Cheryl has found even more time to devote to social activism and believes that the arc is now finally turning more strongly towards justice for Palestine. Cheryl is happy to have found a political home in Eyewitness Palestine that centers personal connection as a primary means to build understanding and deepen mutual commitment for solidarity with Palestine. Cheryl is an avid gardener of food and flowers and prides herself on growing productive fig trees in the Hudson Valley of New York which is now her home.
Harry
Secretary/Governance Committee
A lifelong public school special education teacher in New York, Harry recently retired after 33 years of work with students, families, and educational labor organizing. An advocate for anti-racist and community-based education, he remains committed to neighborhood and local activism. Since retiring, Harry has turned to more global social justice pursuits. As coordinator for the Jewish Voice for Peace chapter in Westchester, NY, he has worked to build alliances with local and national organizations that seek justice and dignity for Palestinians both in Palestine and in the diaspora. He believes that Jewish opposition to occupation and apartheid in this country adds a significant voice to the movement to free Palestine. A former musician and an avid hiker, Harry seeks beauty and peace in nature, music, and in the traditional Chinese health arts.
Rami
Fundraising Committee
Raised in the Palestinian city of Hebron, Rami is a financial services professional with an Investment firm in Chicago. He has worked with the Resource Center for Nonviolence in Santa Cruz, California and the Fellowship of Reconciliation in Nyack, New York. Rami received his B.A. from Hebron University in 2002 and his Master’s in Business Administration in Global Finance from Alaska Pacific University in 2006. He previously served on Eyewitness Palestine's Board of Directors from 2010 until 2014 and has been on several delegations.
Paula
Fundraising Committee
Paula is an employment discrimination and civil rights attorney who practices in the Chicagoland area. She volunteers with a number of social justice groups that work on issues relating to policing, Black youth, and also Palestinian civil rights. Paula is actively involved with United Methodists for Kairos Response, Friends of Sabeel North America, Black 4 Palestine, and the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression. Paula received her Bachelor’s degree from Northwestern University and Juris Doctorate from Northwestern University School of Law. She was an Eyewitness Palestine delegate in 2008.
Aubrey
Fundraising Committee
Aubrey is a poet and an advocate for sustainable food systems. She lives in Los Angeles where she works as a director in a nonprofit that expands food access and promotes local agriculture. Aubrey got her start in the nonprofit world writing grant proposals in Cairo, Egypt. She has lived throughout the Middle East and studied falconry in Abu Dhabi, non-violent resistance in Palestine, and the art of rolling couscous by hand in Morocco. Aubrey has been passionate about Palestinian liberation since her first visit to Bethlehem in the year 2000.
Joe
Governance Committee
Joe was the Director of Interfaith Peace-Builders (now Eyewitness Palestine) beginning in 2001 and “retired” from IFPB in 2011 as co-director. Joe was Professor of Religious Studies and Peace and Conflict Studies at Guilford College in Greensboro, NC, and then Adjunct Professor of International Peace and Conflict Resolution at American University in Washington, DC. While in Greensboro, he was involved in various efforts on racial and economic justice, and in DC, he worked closely with Nonviolence International as a volunteer and staff member. He has now retired to Chapel Hill, NC.
Khaled
Treasurer/Governance Committee
Born in Palestine, Khaled grew up in Rama village in the upper Galilee. In 1997, he moved to Norway to study and moved back two years later. Khaled's activism began when he refused to serve in the Israeli Army, a requirement imposed on him as a Druze male holding Israeli citizenship. He was released after a two-month sentence then moved to Jerusalem where he studied law at the Hebrew University. In 2006, he co-founded The Orient Institute, a center that helped Palestinians achieve educational and academic success. Khaled co-founded Grassroots Al-Quds in 2010, which he directed for 11 years. He is also co-founder of Urfod (refuse), a movement of Druze objectors to the army service imposed on them. Today, he leads the Public Narrative Committe, which combats the false narrative Israel promotes about the Druze in Palestine. After 24 years in Jerusalem, Khaled moved temporarily to NYC in 2022 for professional and family reasons.
Nour
Fundraising Committee
Nour, of Palestinian and Honduran descent, is based in Connecticut and is pursuing a pre-law degree with plans to attend graduate school. For the past two years, she has been an active member of Students for Justice in Palestine, serving as vice president. Nour also contributes to the Connecticut Palestine Solidarity Coalition as a steering committee member and serves on the executive committee for "We Will Return." Throughout the last two years, she has worked with numerous local organizations to organize initiatives and campaigns for the Palestinian people.
Jenny
Fundraising Committee
Jenny Kelly is an Associate Professor of Feminist Studies and Critical Race and Ethnic Studies at University of California, Santa Cruz. She received her Ph.D. in American Studies with a Portfolio in Women’s and Gender Studies from University of Texas at Austin, her master’s degree in Interdisciplinary Humanities from New York University, and her bachelor's degree in Feminist Studies and Literature from University of California, Santa Cruz. Her research broadly engages questions of settler colonialism, U.S. empire, and the fraught politics of both tourism and solidarity. Her first book, Invited to Witness: Solidarity Tourism Across Occupied Palestine (Duke University Press, 2023), is a multi-sited interdisciplinary study of solidarity tourism in Palestine that shows how solidarity tourism has emerged in Palestine as an organizing strategy that is both embedded in and working against histories of sustained displacement. Her next book project, co-edited with Somdeep Sen (Rothskilde University) and Lila Sharif (Arizona State University) is Detours: A Decolonial Guide to Palestine, the next volume in the Detours Series at Duke University Press after the inaugural Detours: A Decolonial Guide to Hawai'i. She is also a Founding Collective member of the Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism and UCSC’s Faculty for Justice in Palestine.
Viktoria
Fundraising Committee
Viktoria Zerda (she/her) is a Mexican-Tejana, abolitionist attorney and clinical law instructor at Rutgers Law School. Viktoria is currently based in West Philadelphia, but is originally from San Antonio, Texas, where she worked in the Immigrants’ Rights advocacy space for nearly 10 years before attending law school. Her decision to pursue law school was informed by both her family history as farm workers and union organizers in South Texas, and by the unaccompanied immigrant youth she worked with for many years. She has written about anti-border struggles along the U.S.-Mexico border, and what it would mean to live in a world without settler-colonial borders and violence. Formerly, at the American Civil LIberties Union of Pennsylvania, Viktoria represented people who suffered civil rights abuses at the hands of ICE. She is grateful and excited to join Eyewitness Palestine.
Sofia
Governance Committee
Sofía is a somatic facilitator, body worker, and intimacy and consent educator. With over a decade of grassroots organizing experience and a Master’s in City Planning from M.I.T., she weaves together her life experiences and skills to recenter our sacred relationship with our bodies and the Earth. She is a proud border crosser who believes in the indigenous wisdom of remembering our way forward.
Meet Our Delegates
Our delegates are the core of our work. Delegates represent Eyewitness Palestine in Palestine/Israel, in the movement for Palestinian rights, and in their communities. They are donors, volunteers, partners, and friends. Here are profiles and interviews with some of them:
Our Delegates Blog
