Sami Shalom Chetrit

Sami Shalom Chetrit was born in 1960 in Ksar-Suk in Morocco and relocated to Israel with his Arab-Jewish family in 1963. He grew up in an immigrant working class neighborhood in the port city of Ashdod (former Palestinian village Asdud). He writes and publishes poetry, political essays and scholarly articles in many journals and papers.
Sami is active in Mizrahi oppressed communities on alternative equal education and community empowerment. In 1993 he was among the founders of Kedma – the alternative
educational organization for equality in education in Israel, and served as the school principle of Kedma High School in southern Tel-Aviv . In 1996 he was among the founders of the social movement Hakeshet Hademocratit Hamizrahit (The Mizrahi Democratic Rainbow Coalition), that has been struggling for economic and social justice in Israel. In 2001 he finished his Ph.D. study on the Mizrahi struggle in Israel. It will appear as a book in Hebrew, by Am-Oved, in 2003. Today, Sami teaches critical studies and works on new studies and
publications. He is the editor of the alternative web portal: Kedma – Middle Eastern Gate to Israel (www.kedma.co.il). At the present time, he is a Visiting Research Scholar at UCLA.
The Black Panthers (in Israel) Speak is Sami’s first film.