Arab American Cultural Center of the Silicon Valley

Serving the Arab American community for over 14 years

Join us August 22nd at the Saratoga Library from 7-9:00 pm for a fun and visual ride through an experience visiting family in Lebanon after 8 years away. You will learn about the Lebanese people, food, and culture through the eyes of Adam Helweh, a Lebanese American living in the bay area. 

The event is free and all are welcome. The Saratoga Library is located at:

 13650 Saratoga Avenue • Saratoga, California • 95070-5099 • 408.867.6126

Anyone who wants to study Arabic will have several opportunities this coming fall.  Classes are being offered at San Jose State, DeAnza Community College, and Stanford Continuing Education, as well as at Santa Clara and our own Arab Cultural Center Saturday morning series of classes.

San Jose State will again offer Arabic IA, in an evening  semester length course carrying five credits, Taught by Dr. Fayeq Oweis. For more information, go to www.sjsu.edu and check the language department.  A flyer for this class is at:http://www.sjsu.edu/foreignlanguages/docs/flyer_Arabic1Afall08.pdf .

De Anza Community College will  offer both Arabic 1 and Arabic 4,5, and 6, also five credit quarter length classes.  This is especially helpful for those of us who have been able to complete  Arabic 1,2, and 3 but have not been able to find a class that continues from that without matriculating at a major university with a declared major.  The classes will be Tuesday -Thursday, and the cost is approximately $103 plus parking.

Stanford’s Continuing Education Division is offering Arabic 2, for ten weeks starting on September 24. Students must have completed Arabic 1 and have a knowledge of the alphabet.  Please go tohttp://continuingstudies.stanford.edu/ for more information.

Arabic is also offered at Santa Clara University, but the program is only available to regular registered and matriculated students.

Our own Arab American Cultural Center is continuing to offer beginning and intermediate Arabic on Saturday mornings, and this summer, and also offered Arabic 4 during two mornings during the week.  All classes are taught by our long time teacher, MS Ein Al Hayat Fahmy, who has a degree in teaching Arabic from Ein Shams University in Egypt and seventeen years experience.  The cost is $100 for eight sessions. Classes follow the interest  of the students enrolled, and include reading and writing as well as colloquial Arabic. For more information on our next series of classes, please read about our arabic classes here or send an email to carol.elshaieb@aaccsv.org.

Call for interns: Do you want to learn how to do video production, sound, editing and controls? AACC has been providing a weekly TV program on topics of interest to the community for twelve or so years on the Community Channel through Comcast.  Now, however, CreaTV, a non-profit run by the City of San Jose, will be producing the community channel programs at new and state-of -the art  production facilities in San Jose.  This will allow us to train interested members of our community who would like to learn video production and to provide hands on experience, once  they are trained, in actually producing our programs!  We are in initial stages of setting up an internship program to do just that!  If you might be interested, please contact us at: Vik Zikoor:

Vic Zikoor
Vice President, ArabTV
vzikoor@comcast.net
408 239 9681

Need interns who have experience or would like to learn more about the following:

• State of the art HD studio cameras
• Video and audio Editing
• Interviewing influential Arab Americans and local citizens
• Graphic design and motion graphics

September Social, September 26th, Friday at the Saratoga Public Library Community Room:   Iftar “breaking  of the fast” - We will share the Ramadan tradition and learn traditional games of the season, taught by Emad and others.  Please bring a dish to share, more details later on, but save the day….

Fall sessions classes beginning  September 6:  

Classical Arabic (Reading, Writing, & Conversation)
Held at the center at 416 Park Ave. San Jose, CA 95110
(408) 279-2722

1. Beginner Level
   Saturdays: 9:00 to 10:00 am (1 hour)
   All ages welcome! Class length and exact time will be decided on size of class and ages of class members.
2. Intermediate / Advanced Level
   Saturdays, 10:00 am – 11:45am (1hr, 45 min)
   This class follows the inclination of the class members and is currently working on spoken Arabic and preparing for a performance n Arabic, an after class project.

Instructor: Ms. Hayat Fahmi
Place: 416 Park Ave. San Jose, CA 95110
Day: All classes held on Saturdays

Cost per Session:
$100 + $10 facility fee for Non-Members
$100 for AACC Members

Ask about our discounted rate for two or more from the same family

Pre-registration is recommended to ensure space and availability.

To register: Please contact the center by phone at 408-279-2722 or
by email at carol.elshaieb@aaccsv.org

No refund after first class
Arab American Cultural Center’s yearly membership is $40 per family, $25 per single