Politics and Parenting in Palestine: Laila El-Haddad

For years, Palestinian writer Laila El-Haddad has been documenting daily life in Gaza. She’s done it with a journalist’s eye for detail, a chef’s instinct for taste and smell and a mother’s hopes and anxieties for the future.

Laila El-Haddad

As a reporter, El-Haddad’s work has appeared in the Washington Post, New Statesman and the Guardian and on the BBC, CNN and al Jazeera. Some of her most compelling work, however, has been published on her award-winning blog, Gaza Mom, which she started back in 2004. The blog interweaves personal stories with grassroots reporting, political opinion and amazing local recipes.

Gaza Mom, she writes, is ‘about the trials of raising my children between spaces and identities; displacement and occupation; and everything that entails – from potty training to border crossings.’

El-Haddad is the author of two books, including a Palestinian cookbook and Gaza Mom: Palestine, Politics, Parenting and Everything in Between, a compilation of blog posts and published journalism. She discusses the inescapable connections between personal and political in today’s Palestine with host Jordy Silverstein.

Jordy Silverstein and Laila El-Haddad in conversation