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Aida Camp

Palestine Reporting

2 years after youth shot by soldiers, friends honor him with mural

Posted on January 15, 2015 by Alex Shams

Originally published on Ma’an News Agency on January 15, 2015. BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — As the second anniversary of the death of a young Palestinian boy from Bethlehem approaches, his friends

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Palestine Reporting

Israeli forces spray Bethlehem homes with putrid-smelling water

Posted on June 27, 2014 by Alex Shams

Originally published on Ma’an News Agency on June 27, 2014. BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — Rubhiya Abd al-Rahman Darwish was taking a nap on the couch of her family home on Sunday when

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Palestine Reporting

Camp on front line of struggle against occupation

Posted on February 11, 2014 by Alex Shams

Originally published by Ma’an News Agency on February 11, 2014. Tucked behind the luxurious Intercontinental Hotel in the northern edges of Bethlehem sits the crowded Aida refugee camp. Reacting to

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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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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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