Organized by Daleen Saah

سفره دايمه Sofra Daymeh, may your table always be plenty

سفره دايمه Sofra Daymeh is a reclamation and celebration of Palestinian culture & identity through food, conversation and a publication. During our kick-off dinner event on September 7 2019, NAVEL was transformed into a contemporary Palestinian garden while guests enjoyed dinner by chef Reem Assil; engaging in conversations about decolonization and the important role of cultural preservation for self-preservation.

Now, سفره دايمه Sofra Daymeh continues throughout November and December 2019 with meals hosted in Palestinian-American homes across the USA. These intimate experiences aim to open this important project to a broader audience, continuing the conversation about the decolonization of Palestinian food, culture, and identity.

Each guest will receive a copy of the سفره دايمه Sofra Daymeh zine.

More about the Home Series

San Francisco, CA
Hosted by Randall Sarafa

Wednesday, November 13 at 7:30PM
$35 | Buy Tickets

Enjoy a contemporary Palestinian dinner including Musakahan and mezze. Alcohol will be served.

Capacity for 8 people.

More about the host:
Randall Sarafa, a former Director of Product Management and Design at WhatsApp and a key supporter of NAVEL and the سفره دايمه Sofra Daymeh program, was born in Detroit to an Iraqi father and Palestinian mother and have lived in San Francisco for the last 9 years. Growing up in a Palestinian household, food expresses some of the deepest roots of Palestinian culture. To engage in the smells and tastes of a home country that was difficult to visit was always for him his strongest connection to Palestine. Sarafa is extremely passionate about cooking and the food he learned to cook from his mother is something he loves to share with others.

Great Falls, VA
Hosted by Laila Mokhiber

Wednesday, December 4 at 7:30PM
$35 | Buy Tickets

Enjoy a contemporary Palestinian dinner inspired by recipes from Laila El-Haddad’s cookbook The Gaza Kitchen as well as Palestine on a Plate.

Capacity for 6 people.

More about the host:
Born and raised in the suburbs of DC to a Lebanese/Palestinian family active in civil and human rights, some of Laila Mokhiber’s earliest memories involve carrying signs at demonstrations demanding social justice. Her family’s activism gene inspired Laila’s involvement in community organizing throughout her younger years and her desire to study the Middle East at the university. Laila’s career and current role as UNRWA USA’s Director of Communications illustrates her passions: humanitarian concern for the people of Palestine and the fight for social justice.

She grew up eating the delicious and authentic flavors of Palestine thanks to the culinary talents of her Palestinian mother, mama Hindy. She grew up learning from her teta Nijmeh, who immigrated to American from Ramallah back in 1957. Food is an expression of love that connects generations of family to their identity and culture; this is especially important for Palestinians in the diaspora to feel a connection to the ancestral homeland they may have never been to. She serves as the board chair for Open Roads Media which bring together everyday people from different countries – most often, the United States and countries it is in conflict with – to share a virtual meal through the Virtual Dinner Guest Project in the hopes of breaking down cultural barriers and misconceptions. A number of their projects have involved connecting Palestinians to other cultures.

Brooklyn, NY
Hosted by Najwa Doughman

Saturday, December 7 at 7PM
$35 | Buy Tickets

Enjoy a contemporary Palestinian dinner (TBC) possibly including Musakhan, Malfouf, Mezze and Dessert. Alcohol will be served.

Capacity for 8 people.

More about the hosts:
Najwa Doughman is an urban planner and architect based in New York City. She currently works on community planning, transport planning and public space projects in Brazil, and previously across the US, Palestine, South Africa & Lebanon. Najwa will be co-hosting with Thayer Hastings, a writer and currently a PhD student of anthropology at The Graduate Center, CUNY in New York City.

Clarksville, MD
Hosted by Laila El-Haddad

Sunday, December 8 at 7:30PM
$35 | Buy Tickets

Enjoy a contemporary Palestinian dinner including a seasonal Gazan fall menu. Alcohol will not be served.

Capacity for 6 people.

More about the host:
Laila El-Haddad is a journalist, cookbook author, food justice activist and writer. El-Haddad is the co-author of the Gaza Kitchen. Her mission is to tell the story of Palestine, and specifically Gaza, through its food, and her work focuses on the intersection of food and politics.
https://www.gazakitchen.com/

South Bend, IN
Hosted by Yazan Kopty

Sunday, December 8 at 1PM
$25-35 | Buy Tickets

Enjoy a contemporary Palestinian lunch including an assortment of seasonal mezze, main dishes and dessert. There will be plenty of vegan and vegetarian options available and alcohol will be served.

Capacity for 8 people.

More about the host:
Yazan Kopty is a writer, oral historian, and National Geographic Explorer. His work centers around the acts of listening and narrating, focusing especially on memory as resistance and community-sourced history. He is currently the lead investigator of Imagining the Holy, a research project that seeks to examine and connect thousands of images of historic Palestine from the National Geographic Society archive with Palestinian community elders, cultural heritage experts, and field researchers to add new layers of indigenous narrative and knowledge to the images.

Follow him on Instagram @yazankopty and his project @imaginingtheholy.

Daleen Saah is an urban planner and designer based in Los Angeles, California. She consults in urban planning, land use planning, GIS and spatial analytics, and data story-telling. As a designer and futurist, her research and scenario building provides critical thought on multi-scale development in the United States, Latin America and the Middle East. Currently, Daleen is interested in the advancement of creative programming that welcomes new ways of understanding our city’s ecologies and radically addresses the social and political dimensions of the built environment. As a Palestinian-American, she is equally interested in work that reflects Arab image, identification, and representation.