Serene Husseini Shahid

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Serene al-Husayni
حسيني شهيد
Born1920
Died
2008
SpouseMunib Shahid
ChildrenLeila Shahid
ParentJamal al-Husayni

Serene Husseini Shahid (Arabic: سيرين حُسيني شهيد, French: Sirine Husseini Shahid; 1920–2008) was a teacher and scholar of Palestinian embroidery and a writer.

Family and education[edit]

Shahid was born in Jerusalem as a member of the influential Husayni family. Her father was Jamal al-Husayni (himself a second cousin of the then Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Amin al-Husseini), her maternal grandfather was Mayor of Jerusalem Faidi al-Alami, and her maternal uncle was Musa al-Alami. She was educated at the Ramallah Friends School in Ramallah, later at the American University of Beirut.[1]

She married Munib Shahid, son of a noble family of the Baháʼí Faith, in 1944 and they settled down in Beirut.[2] Her daughter Leila Shahid was Palestinian envoy to European Commission.[3] Her other two daughters, Maya and Zeina, designed and promoted Palestinian Embroideries for Inaash.[4]

Career[edit]

After 1967 she became involved in starting "cottage industries" among the Palestinian refugees. She worked on embroidery projects for Palestinian women, conducting embroidery workshops on weekdays. She, together with Huguette Caland, helped found the Association for the Development of Palestinian Camps, a.k.a. "Inaash" (founded 1969)[5] in Lebanon, an association devoted to preserving Traditional Palestinian Embroidery and helping women and children in Palestinian Refugee Camps in Lebanon. At the same time she wrote about Palestinian costumes and embroidery and helped arrange exhibitions, including one in the Museum of Mankind in the British Museum in 1991.[6] She also donated items to the Palestine Costume Archive[permanent dead link].[citation needed]

Her autobiography, Jerusalem Memories, was published in 2000, and was critically acclaimed as "breaking new ground."[7] It has been translated into several languages.[citation needed]

Bibliography[edit]

  • Weir, Shelagh and Shahid, Serene: Palestinian embroidery : cross-stitch patterns from the traditional costumes of the village women of Palestine. London: British Museum publications, c1988. ISBN 0-7141-1591-6
  • Shahid, Serene Hussein (Editor: Jean Said Makdisi), (Introduction - Edward W. Said): Jerusalem Memories, Naufal, Beirut, 2000. First Edition.

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ "A non Review : Memories from Jerusalem: Serene Husseini Shahid". nadiaharhash. 3 September 2015.
  2. ^ Graham-Brown, Sarah (1988). Images of Women: The Portrayal of Women in Photography of the Middle East, 1860-1950. Quartet. p. 115. ISBN 978-0-7043-2541-8.
  3. ^ The Unesco Courier. Unesco. 1999. p. 46.
  4. ^ "Al-Kulliyeh". Al-Kulliyeh. 1910. OCLC 175754937.
  5. ^ "Search". Inaash. Archived from the original on October 30, 2008.
  6. ^ Waldron Grutz, Jane (2007-02-19). "Woven Legacy, Woven Language". Saudi Aramco World. Archived from the original on February 19, 2007. Retrieved 2024-01-15.
  7. ^ Halasa, Malu (2002-10-26). "Point of no return". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2024-01-15.