Please join us for today's program on Zoom:

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Please click the link below to join the webinar:

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https://moadsf-org.zoom.us/j/81945714856?pwd=dubwEGyEntCacXCk1p8TER0vwvZXb1.1
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Passcode: 269508

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A conversation and call to action with Hospitality for Humanity

With the guidance of four deeply significant dishes and their liberatory ingredients and stories, join Reem Assil, Ora Wise, and Chef-in-Residence Jocelyn Jackson for an intimate conversation about food as a uniquely powerful medium for collective resistance. You, the virtual audience, will receive the recipes and reading materials ahead of time to prepare and participate in the conversation with us. Together we will create the vision and next steps for a future of freedom together. 

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This is a virtual program. You will receive a zoom link to join after you register. If you don't see the email with the zoom link in your mailbox, check your spam or junk email.

About the Speakers:

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Reem Assil (@reem.assil) is a Palestinian-Syrian chef and activist, based in Oakland, CA, working at the intersection of food, community, and social justice. She is the founder of nationally-acclaimed Reem’s California, an Arab bakery and restaurant that builds community across cultures and experiences through the warmth of Arab bread and hospitality. Reem has garnered an array of top accolades in the culinary world, including James Beard finalist for Outstanding Chef (2022) back to back semifinalist for Best Chef: West (2018-19). Before dedicating herself to a culinary career, Reem spent over a decade as a community and labor organizer, building leadership to have a voice in their jobs and their neighborhoods. Reem is the author of IACP award-winning cookbook Arabiyya: Recipes from the Life of an Arab in Diaspora (2022).

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Ora Wise (@orawise) is a Brooklyn-based event producer, community organizer, and chef.  She currently produces Queer Aperitivo, a biweekly pop up serving Italian inspired, locally sourced food and drinks while raising money for mutual aid projects from NYC to Mexico to Gaza. She is also co-founder of FIG NYC, a collective of food, hospitality, and farm workers building a more just and regenerative food system. In her previous life, she served as Youth Education Director for a progressive synagogue in NYC and as the Impact Producer for Slingshot Hip Hop, a feature-length documentary about the Palestinian hip hop movement that premiered at Sundance Film Festival in 2008. In October of 2023, she joined with Reem Assil and other Palestinian chefs in launching Hospitality for Humanity, a food sector organizing initiative against the war on Palestinians including a BDS pledge and a series of “eat-in, teach-ins” using meals to create political education and cross movement building spaces.

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Jocelyn Jackson (@justuskitchen) is an award-winning chef, artist, teacher, and activist who was raised on the Kansas plains by a Tuskegee Airman and the first Black woman to run for mayor in Wichita. Jocelyn has been a professional cook for over 12 years. She spoke on the principles of community nourishment at Court Bouillon in Southern France, and was part of the team that presented the inaugural Diaspora Dinner at MoAD. She is the founder of JUSTUS Kitchen and the co-founder of People’s Kitchen Collective (PKC). Both organizations serve to center the lived experience and liberation of Black and brown peoples using food, art, and social justice as vehicles for change.

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This program is presented in conjunction with the exhibition What We Carry To Set Ourselves Free, a solo project by interdisciplinary artist Helina Metaferia on view at MoAD through March 2, 2025.