Hope is a woman's name

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The fifth daughter in a patriarchal society, and an indigenous Bedouin Palestinian in Israel, Amal came into this world fighting for her voice to be heard in a community that did not prize girls. At birth it was only her father who looked at her and said “I see hope in her face. I want to call her Amal [hope] in the hope that Allah will give us boys after her.” Five brothers were indeed to follow. 

As a shepherd at the age of 6, Amal led her flock of sheep across the green mountains of Laqiya, her village in the Negev in southern Israel. Aged 13, Amal set up literacy classes for the adult women in her village.

This was the beginning of a lifelong career initiating projects that would help create change for the Bedouin – a minority within Israel’s Palestinian minority – and for their women in particular. 

At every turn she had to face the challenges of tradition and the prejudices of the Israeli state. Amal has learnt to embrace every aspect of her complicated identity – Bedouin, Arab, woman, Palestinian and Israeli citizen – to navigate between individual, social and political identities, and the systems of power within which they exist. 

Hope is a Woman’s Name is a rare, moving and intimate portrayal of a little-known culture and its strengths, values, morals and boundaries.