#12: Filastin (Palestine)
Oh, Palestine. My heart breaks for you!
This sheet was created in, I believe, May of 2021. Isr*el was bombing Gaza...again. I decided to draw this map and name its streets and parks and religious structures and lake after Palestine.
There are more than 400 depopulated and "extinct" villages in all of Palestine. This neighborhood which spans over four sheets memorializes those places. Many places on this sheet and the neighborhood are even of places that still, defiantly and proudly, exist.
The lake in this neighborhood and the parks that surround it are some of my favorite places in all of my city. I originally named it Nakba Lake, but ultimately decided to name it after the Galilee region of northern Palestine with Lake Tiberias.
We have the Grand Palestine Mosque just north of the main roundabout in the center along with two other major mosques and several minor ones. We have three major synagogues. We have three major cathedrals with several minor churches.
I'm very proud of this sheet. I didn't want Palestine to be forgotten about--not that it would, but that I wanted to make sure it was at the forefront of my mind. This was 2021. A horrible tragedy was taking place in Gaza...and now look at where we are. A genocide. Subhan'Allah.
In this sheet we have depopulated and extant villages and towns. Some of the depopulated ones are:
Rantiyya رنتية
Al-Kabri الكابري
Deir Yassin دير ياسين
Bayt Jibrin بيت جبرين
Al-Dawayima الدوايمة
Al-Birwa البروة (hometown of Mahmoud Darwish--the national poet of Palestine)
Indur إندور
Saffuriyya صفورية
Khirbat Qumbaza خربة قمبازة
Al-Majdal المجدل
Lydda اللد
Safad صفد
Idnibba إذنبة
Iqrit إقرث
Some of the extant places are:
Gaza غزة المعزة
Nazareth الناصرة
Sha'ab شعب
We have streets that come from the Ummah neighborhood directly to the east as well such as Sarajevska Cesta (Sarajevo Road), Jidka Kismaayo (Kismayo Street), Sana'a Street صنعاء, Chechnya Street. We even have some that come from Centrum (Downtown) such as Buckeye Street, Carrer Els Castells, and Bardissi Avenue. Malcom X Boulevard makes its way over to Filastin from the Thawrah neighborhood as well.