Arab American Cultural Center of the Silicon Valley

Serving the Arab American community for over 14 years

Part 1

Part 2

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

Amir ElSaffar, an Iraqi-American, put down the trumpet to learn the centuries-old singing style known as maqam. He has now released his own CD of maqam and is writing music that blends the form with jazz. A true Music Bridge between Iraq and the US

ElSaffar traveled to Baghdad and London to study what some call the classical music of Iraq from the masters. Before that, Iraqi music was not a big part of his life. He grew up in the suburbs of Chicago , and jazz was his first love. After studying classical and jazz trumpet in college, he moved to New York City and worked as a sideman for pianist Cecil Taylor and others. He also led a band of his own.

He is the lead in the Safaafir – Iraqi Maqam group and will come to San Jose with the group from Chicago. The proceeds will be for the Iraqi Injured Children, an Iraqi community member has already pledged to pay the group fees and the travel cost.

That event will feature selective Iraq art and perhaps a silent art auction.

We are open for ideas, your input and do need your help, if you are interested in helping in organizing, promoting or selling tickets for this event please email us back. Volunteers are welcomed.

On July 24, 2008 two programs were recorded at CreaTV in San Jose.  Program 739 to be aired July 31, 2008 was with AACCSV media guru Adam Helweh Board member who talked about AACCSV activities and the meed of community support, donations and volunteers.  Program 740 Guest was Joe Salama a Mediation Attorney who educate us about how does mediation work.  It will be aired August 7.As always ATV is aired every Thursday at Cable   Channel 15 at 8:30 p.m.   

Before the Iraq invasion, Ruth friend Co-Founder of the Ruth Group started a movement to understand Iraq and why does the US need to go to War with Iraq.  With time that movement developed a network of people concerned about Iraq and led to there involvement with No More Victims.   Ruth and Amy will talk about No More Victims and how did AACCSV help.  

Ruth said: “When we began we knew we wanted to bring an Iraqi child to the Bay Area for medical care. We connected with “ No More Victims”, an organization dedicated to bringing children to the US who have been victims of US bombings. With our help No More Victims is now bringing Mustafa Ghazwan, a 2 year old who’s hearing was completely lost when a US percussive bomb went off near his home. He is due to arrive in July and we have work to do to make his complete care possible.”

No More Victims works to obtain medical sponsorships for war-injured Iraqi children and to forge ties between the children, their families and communities in the United States. We believe one of the most effective means of combating militarism is to focus on direct relief to its victims.

Rusul

You will wach a video about Salee Allawe’s little sister Rusul who was injured in the a US air strike of November of 2006 that took both of Salee’s legs. The girls’ brother Akram and several other children were playing outside their homes when the missiles struck. Akram was killed, as was Salee’s best friend. Salee lost both of her legs and one of Rusul’s legs was horribly mangled.

Do not miss this program.