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Alex Shams

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Alex Shams

  • About me
  • Reporting
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  • Academic Work
  • Contact me
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Palestine Reporting

Why do Palestinians burn Jewish holy sites?: The fraught history of Joseph’s Tomb

Posted on November 12, 2015 by Alex Shams

Originally published in Mondoweiss. Joseph’s Tomb (Photo: Alex Shams)  On October 16th, a large crowd of Palestinians near the northern West Bank city of Nablus surrounded the religious site

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Opinion Pakistan

Exhausted Geographies: Mapping the Dream of Pakistan in the Streets of Karachi

Posted on November 12, 2015 by Alex Shams

Originally published by Ajam Media Collective on November 12, 2015. In Karachi, the dream of Pakistan – in all of its glory, misgivings, failures, and triumphs – has become reality.

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Opinion

Obama Defied GOP to Make Peace with Iran — Now It’s Time for Palestine

Posted on November 11, 2015 by Alex Shams

Originally published in Huffington Post. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s vindictive policies are creating a climate in which Palestinians are once again rising up to reject their lack of freedom

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Featured Israel Palestine Reporting

Learning the Language of Jesus Christ

Posted on November 2, 2015 by Alex Shams

Originally published by Roads and Kingdoms on November 2, 2015. Just a few hundred feet west of the church built atop the site where the Christian faithful believe Jesus was

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Israel Reporting

La langue arabe en tête des charts israéliens grâce à trois sœurs yéménites

Posted on October 20, 2015 by Alex Shams

Le clip de cette chanson a été vu 1,2 million de fois et a attiré des milliers de fans dans tout le Moyen-Orient

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Israel Reporting

Arabic tops Israeli charts as Yemeni sisters take Tel Aviv by storm

Posted on September 24, 2015 by Alex Shams

The music video has amassed 1.2 million hits and has attracted thousands of fans from across the Middle East

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Reporting

Les conducteurs palestiniens font les frais des patrouilles de la police israélienne en Cisjordanie

Posted on September 14, 2015 by Alex Shams

Pour parcourir le trajet d’une heure de Ramallah à Bethléem, les conducteurs palestiniens doivent passer par cinq autorités de régulation différentes

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Featured Palestine Reporting

The Ghosts of Christmas Past

Posted on August 18, 2015 by Alex Shams

The city of Bethlehem wants the world to know it’s more than a Biblical theme park.

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Israel Opinion Palestine

Killings reveal link between homophobia, anti-Arab racism

Posted on August 15, 2015 by Alex Shams

Originally published on the Washington Blade on Aug. 15, 2015. Shira Banki, a 16-year-old girl who was stabbed during a Jerusalem Pride march, succumbed to her injuries on Aug. 2,

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Palestine Reporting

Bethlehem centre revives iconic Palestinian Christian craft

Posted on July 30, 2015 by Alex Shams

Icon school creates opening for local artists to tap into ancient skills and challenge cheap tourist-targeting imports

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About me

Alex Shams is an Iranian-American writer and a PhD student of Anthropology at the University of Chicago.

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Recent posts

  • Workshop: Investigating Power
  • The “Terrorists” in My Grandmother’s Neighborhood
  • A Persian Christmas Story: How A Jewish Shrine in Qazvin Connects Palestine and Iran
  • ‘They Hit Everyone and Anyone’: From Lebanon, residents share what life has been like since Israel launched its attack.
  • Iran Braces for Uncertainty After President Raisi’s Death
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About

Born and raised in an Iranian-American family in Los Angeles, Alex Shams has long been fascinated by the stories that places can tell us. Growing up, he learned Persian and Spanish; in college, he learned Arabic and studied abroad at the American University of Cairo before moving to Beirut after graduation. After receiving his master’s in Middle Eastern Studies from Harvard, he moved to Bethlehem, Palestine, where he was a journalist at Ma’an News Agency, the largest independent Palestinian news organization. He received his PhD. from the University of Chicago in Sociocultural Anthropology. His dissertation, entitled “Constructing Islamic Modernity: Power, Religion, and Masculinity in Post-Revolutionary Iran,” was based on three years of ethnographic research in Iran, Iraq, and Pakistan as well as archival research in the British Library and Ba’ath Party Archives.

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    Iran Braces for Uncertainty After President Raisi’s Death

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