Sad Swamp Witch

Right now we have 7 kitchens running in and around Gaza City, 5 water trucks delivering fresh water every morning, and our health clinic is still seeing patients. Sadly, our classroom was bombed—but we’ve pivoted to something bigger: Delivered 4,250 food parcels so far; another 2,550 parcels ready to go; in the middle area, we delivered 600 parcels and opened a new kitchen; we keep showing up for hospitals with meals. Each food parcel = 40–60 meals. It’s not just about helping one family—it feeds whole networks of relatives, neighbors, and displaced people. In doing this, we’re also showing the world (and the bad actors watching us) that you can give away a lot of food in Gaza without harming Palestinians. Our signage makes that crystal clear. One moving moment: we’ve been operating from inside an Orthodox and Catholic church. Families shelter there, and they benefit from the food too. Our young team—many who had never met a Christian before—are learning about unity and friendship in real time. Feeding people from a church feels like something Jesus himself would have blessed. We hear the drones above us, and we know they don’t like what we’re doing. But we’ll keep feeding as long as we’re allowed. Our system works: families sign up on a link, we close it when full, assemble the food, and text pickup times. No chaos, no exploitation—just neighbors helping neighbors. Each distribution serves 500–1,000 people with dignity.

Nor are Palestinian Christians some kind of oppressor class. The social role of Christianity in the Levant is different from whatever you are used to seeing in the Christian-majority West. Christians are a marginalised community within Palestine. From an essay I wrote on the subject:

As of 2004, an estimated 56% of all people with Palestinian Christian ancestry were living outside of Palestine. The trend shows no signs of slowing down: a 2020 survey found that a much higher proportion of Christians than Muslims wished to leave Palestine. Respondents cited dire economic circumstances, the dangers of military and settler violence, and religious intolerance, including job discrimination and difficulty having church marriages legally recognized. [...] The Palestinian Authority has stated an intent to try to keep Christians in the West Bank by promoting Christmas festivities. In 2022, a Nativity scene and Christmas tree were publicly displayed in مَيْدَان المَهْد (“maydān al-mahd”; Manger Square) in Bethlehem: the Catholic Church in Bethlehem lights the tree for Advent, beginning four Sundays before Christmas. A Christmas parade, with brightly lit floats carrying Christmas trees, people dressed as angels and Santa Clauses, and Nativity scenes with live actors, took place again for the first time after having been interrupted due to the Coronavirus pandemic, and was broadly attended by Muslims and Christians.

[...] During the first and second اِنْتِفَاضَات‎ (“intifāḍāt”; singular اِنْتِفَاضَة “intifāḍa,” “uprising” or “rebellion”), the tree in Bethlehem was no longer lit due to widespread mourning—Masses continued, but not the public festivities. Instead, private celebrations would take place within the home. Some families began buying artificial Christmas trees rather than real ones, since they were easier to tuck away from windows where they would not be seen from the outside. Even after the lights returned, Israeli military border walls, checkpoints, and curfews hampered Christmas celebrations for many: Christians from Gaza need permits from the Israeli military to take pilgrimages to, or visit family in, Bethlehem and other places in the West Bank, and the majority of those requested are not granted.

So yes, the fact that the volunteer team is coming into contact with a marginalised and isolated community that they had not previously formed any personal relationships with, is a straightforwardly good thing.

Egon Schiele (Austrian | 1890 - 1918)

Viva couture! - Vogue Italia (1995)

Wolof woman from West Africa

Ruth Ellis was a lesbian activist for LGBTQ rights for all of her 101 years. In the '40s, '50s, and 60s she turned her home in Detroit into a haven for black Americans who came out before the Civil Rights Movement and Stonewall.

Ruth Ellis was born in Springfield, Illinois to parents who were conceived in the last years of slavery. Her life spanned through moments of great turmoil and upheaval, an endless backdrop of conflict from which Ellis managed to extract an exuberance for life that was incandescent.

She came out as a lesbian at the age of 16, and got a high school diploma at a time when fewer than seven percent of African Americans graduated from secondary school.

In 1936 she met her partner of 34 years, Ceciline "Babe" Franklin, with whom she moved to Detroit, Michigan in 1937. Ellis became the first African American woman to own an off-set printing business in that city. Her success as an entrepreneur from 1946 to 1971 inspired the couple to turn the home they shared into the “Gay Spot” – a place where young gays and lesbians, who were denied access to both white gay clubs and black straight clubs – could congregate and enjoy a welcoming night club atmosphere decades before the Black Civil Rights Movement and the Stonewall Riot would begin to alter their outlook and options.

Ellis became a fierce advocate for African Americans, senior citizens, and the gay and lesbian communities. She offered assistance to lesbians of color researching their history and their roots; she proposed a variation on Big Brothers/Big Sisters, where younger gays and lesbians would be matched as social companions with gay and lesbian seniors according to similar interests; and the Ruth Ellis Center, founded in 1999, continues to provide shelter and aid for GLBTQ youth in Detroit.