1/2024     JNS   N E W S L E T T E R   ١/۲۰۲٤   

• Being the international foundation that we are, we offer this newsletter in our four language versions.
• We were established as a foundation by Kurds for Kurds - in honor of Jemal Nebez. We build on his life s work, which we want to preserve and make known far and wide.
• We have legal capacity and are politically independent, not affiliated with any party. Our committees work on a voluntary basis. We rely on donations for our projects and planning.
• We are recognized as a non-profit organization under German law. What we receive in donations is spent in accordance with our statutes.and regularly disclosed on our website. 

Dear Kurds and friends of the Jemal Nebez, old and new!

We would like to use this newsletter to establish closer contacts with you, where ever you are, be it in Berlin or around the world.  Same thing goes for our meetings. We also want to give our standard events - when they have a physical side here in Berlin - a broad online window. So far, we can only firmly plan this for our annual meeting, but this should be our future standard. So much for a starter of this newsletter 1/2024.

Date for our 2024 Open Day has been set

On Saturday, August 3, between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m., we will be at our premises in the center of Berlin to show interested parties our library in the making and some items from our archive selected for the purpose.  If you are planning to come, please let us know in advance the desired time and how many people are involved.

Hybrid Annual Meeting 2024 end of November/beginning of December

We will organize this year's annual meeting, which aims to involve all active participants and as many interested parties as possible, in a similar way to last year's special event held in a town hall. It was a combined presence-online event. There was an online panel with several participants, which was shown on a screen in the hall. We offered refreshments, fruit and finger food.  We will organize a similar event this year, and our annual meeting will be part of it. All this will have to be carefully planned. We expect, however, to be able to post this special event's preliminary program at the end of August.

If you want, you can join Hoshang Sabri and become a supporting member

The news that we have finally started to look for supporting members for our foundation and that we have our first registered member in Hoshang Sabri should not be missing as an item in this newsletter. 

Kindly check our menu items "Donate" and "Support". Becoming a sustaining member shows a long-term interest in our foundation.

If you want to know more about our first supporting member, we think the following is really relevant in this context. Hoshang came to West Berlin as a teenager with all the good wishes of his father Osman. "Hoshang shares many of his father's values and leads a similar life," was the assessment of Jemal, who was initially on friendly terms with his father and then with his son. In the back room of the pharmacy he had run for decades, Hoshang, with the help of his wife Nahida, always had an open point of contact for fellow countrymen and friends in need. Jemal had met Hoshang in 1956 while traveling as a very young man in the home of his father, who was already famous among Kurds. Osman Sabri (born 1905 in Adiyaman in Bakur, died 1993 in Damascus) was a well-known Kurdish resistance fighter, author, poet and politician. His innovations regarding the writing of Kurdish in Latin letters proved to be of lasting value.

Jemal's foundation is making progress

Jemal's Foundation is now in its fifth year. We are glad that it already shows the specific qualities that were intended for it when it was founded in memory of Jemal Nebez who was truly cosmopolitan and, nevertheless, dedicated to all Kurds, in all parts of Kurdistan and wherever else in the world they now live. Like Jemal himself, his foundation is also politically independent and science-oriented, Like Jemal, the Jemal Nebez Foundation is also politically independent, science-oriented, committed to the facts.

Sirwan Renas Salihzade joined our Executive Board

For some time now Sirwan Renas has already rendered outstanding services to our foundation. We are delighted that he will now be leading it with us directly from the board.

Sirwan is familiar with Jemal Nebez's life work and this is a big asset  In fact, our foundation builds on the life work of Jemal Nebez as well as on all of his material possessions which he had left to the founder of this foundation as his sole heiress under German law. She had added to it from her own assets and thus brought the Jemal Nebez Foundation into existence, for details see our menu item "Founding Document".

Below we offer the contents of our annual meeting for the year 2023 held on February 4. We consider this text a good update and also suitable for newly interested parties. We present our latest developments and report on our activities.

2023  Annual Meeting (Online)

In December 2023, due to our Award event, we skipped our annual meeting and said that we would hold it at a later time which we did on February 4, 2024.

Contents, Summary

Date of the Catch up meeting: 2024-02-04 from 17:10 to 18:45 p.m.

Participants:
Hannelore Küchler, Jan Gosau, Sirwan Renas, Markus Kuchler, Yado Rahmani, Veman Lineva, Raman Hama Saeed, Rezan Abdollahi, Hesamadin Khakpur, Sahar Salhian, Salar Pashai, Hamid Karimi, Fexriye Adsay

Other participants took part via our Zoom account.

Moderator Veman Lineva

1.  Welcome & more

Hanne Küchler, Jan Gosau, Markus Kuchler, Sirwan Renas:
● After a warm welcome to everyone and everyone, Hanne Küchler, as chairwoman and founder of the Jemal Nebez Foundation, first shared that she was very happy about the outcome of the previous internal meeting, where Sirwan Renas had just been appointed as the 3rd member of the JNF board.
● Jan Gosau, as the second member of the board and deputy, added that they had been in complete agreement with each other when they asked Sirwan to join the management of the foundation.
● Markus, as chairman of the advisory board, added that he had also welcomed Sirwan's joining the JNF management board.
● Sirwan confirmed that he was happy to accept the appointment and looked forward to to work for the Jemal Nebez Foundation, as he had done in various capacities over the past two years.
Moderator Veman Linevan then opened the  Foundation's 2023 Annual Public Meeting by inviting Jan to be the first to speak.

2.  Appointments and personnel changes in 2023

Jan:
● Schilan Kurdpoor became a member of the JNF Advisory Board in May 2023.
● In August, Yado Rahmani took on an innovative managerial role, which he has since carried out via the Internet, supported by Sirwan. These are coordination and organizational tasks that are currently being described and named in more detail in order to firmly anchor them in our foundation.
● In December, Salar Pashai resigned from the foundation at his own request as Berlin office manager.

3.  Jemal Nebez Library

Hanne:
● So far, a large portion of the books and journals published by the Jemal Nebez Library have been entered in Excel spreadsheets. These still have to be checked,
and further processed before they can be put on the Internet in the future.
● The Jemal Nebez Library also includes the future Jemal Nebez Archive, which will contain our namesake’s personal papers, diaries, letters, photographs, files and manuscripts.
● Both - the work that has already been done for the Jemal Nebez Library and the imminent cataloguing of the estate for the archive - are to be presented to experts and then the next steps to be determined
.
Raman:
● Raman Hama Saeed, a master's student in cultural studies at Freie Universität Berlin FU) in Berlin, who has been working as a freelancer for the foundation since May 2023, reported that his professor showed continued interest in our long-term project (library and archive).
● Raman was told that if the foundation sought contact, they would help him establish such contact with the librarians at the FU.

4.  Jemal Nebez Award

Sirwan:

● Sirwan Renas talked about how he organized the Jemal Nebez Award Commission. He explained his approach to the composition of his team, taking into account the diversity in all parts of Kurdistan, the Kurdish diaspora, the Kurdish communities and gender diversity, and introduced the individual commission members and their expertise.
● He mentioned that the sum dedicated to the laureate was increased to 4000 euros.
● Sirwan added that after his move to the Foundation's board of directors, another organizer of the next prize would have to be found and hoped that it would be someone from the current Jemal Nebez Prize Committee.
● Before closing, Sirwan mentioned that most people had welcomed the Jemal Nebez Award and considered Zara Mohammadi to be a deserving person to receive this award. He admitted that there were people who criticized this award. He replied to these critics that this prize was not exclusively an intellectual one. He explained that different activities and aspects played a role in this. He referred to the relevant information available on the Foundation's website. He encouraged everyone to study this website and contact the Foundation if they had any suggestions and criticism.

5.  New books in 2023

Hesamadin:
● Hesamadin Khakpur spoke as translator of a book by Jemal and as a colleague of Kamil Sharifpoor, who translated another book by Jemal at Hesamadin's side.
● Hesamadin gave general and necessary information about the content of the two books. He also mentioned peculiarities that play a role in translations from the Arabic into Kurdish.
● Hesamadin also spoke as the initiator of a small print run in his home region of the two books that he and his colleague had translated. According to Hesamedin these two books by JN are now available in almost all bookstores in Rojhelat. They are also available at the Ghazalnus center in Sileymani/Bashur as well as from ‘49kiteb’ in Europe.
● He offered to translate other works by Jemal Nebez into Arabic, if there were any.

6.  JNF Scientific Seminars

Yado:
● Yado (Yaser) Rahmani, as the main coordinator and organizer of the newly introduced JNF scientific seminars, presented the project and its main objectives by showing informative slides, written in both English and Kurdish. This information is posted on our subsite Events/Online Seminars.
● He shared details about the seminars held in 2023 featuring distinguished scholars and their topics:
-Hesamadin (Hiwa) Khakpour, Ph.D. in Arabic Literature and Translator, on August 7, 2023, presented his thoughts on the feasibility of an intellectual project based on the thinking of Jemal Nebez, especially in today's world.
-Sirwan Renas, Ph.D. Student in Political Theory at the University of Pennsylvania, presented "A Comparative Analysis of Ernest Renan and Jemal Nebez’s Conceptions of Nation" on Aug 7, 2023.
-Kurish Azizi, Post-Doctoral Researcher in Water and Environmental Sustainability at Arizona State University discussed ‘Environmental Challenges and Adaptations, from Current Academic Trends to Kurdistan’s Experience’ on Sep 23, 2023.
-Hamid Karimi, Assistant Professor in Computer Science at Utah State University, addressed ‘Information Age and Social Media: Opportunities and Consequences’ on Jan 6, 2024.

● Additionally, Yado mentioned the upcoming seminars:
The next seminar will examine ‘Kurdish Cultural Heritage and Looting’ by Haci Akman, Professor in Archaeology, History, Cultural Studies, and Religion at the University of Bergen. This will be followed by a session on ‘Vision or Reality? The Kurds in the Policy of the Great Powers, 1941–1947’ by Burhan Yasin, Professor (Emeritus) in the Department of Middle Eastern Studies at Lund University

● Yado also introduced Jemal Nebez Foundation’s YouTube channel, https://www.youtube.com/@JemalNebezStiftung-Berlin

7.  Jemal Nebez Foundation on social media

Rezan:
● Rezan Abdollahi provided general information about all the social media platforms on which the Foundation is active.
● She introduced the foundation's Instagram, Facebook, X (Twitter) and YouTube accounts.
● While presenting these accounts, Sirwan provided the links of all platforms in the Zoom chat and Rezan suggested that all participants in the meeting share the links with their friends and colleagues.
● She introduced the admins of these accounts: Facebook (currently Rezan – formerly together with Salar Pashai), X/Twitter (Fexriye Adsay), YouTube (Yado Rahmani) and Instagram (Veman Lineva).

8.  Financial Report 2023

Jan Gosau:
● The Foundation's general financial figures for 2023 were explained, as published on the Foundation's subsite Transparency.
● Subsequently, a cost breakdown of the Jemal Nebez Award 2023 was shown, which is also posted on the Foundation’ subsite Transparency. For the prize money, the foundation received a special donation of about 2000 EUR. As the Foundation increased its own prize money to 2000 EUR in this context, the prize money was raised to altogether 4000 EUR, to be paid in 2024. (The payment was settled in the course of February 2024.)

9.  Budget 2024, Projects

Jan (continued):
● The budget (2024) was drawn up on the basis of the figures in the 2023 financial report and a view of the current situation, see the PDF designated JNF Budget 2024 on our Transparency subsite
● Expenses for the library are reduced to the rent of the storage space and some minimal expenses. No amount has been earmarked for the cataloguing itself for 2024, as we first want to obtain an expert opinion on how best to proceed. This also applies to the pending processing of the unpublished estate, which will be included in the archive.
● In the current year (2024) year we still have to transfer the prize money to the family of Zara Mohammadi. We expect the website to cost about the same as last year, but we hope to be able to get by with it. Within our 2024 budget, we set aside smaller amounts of money for our book projects/publications, as well as for events, seminars, the memorial and the maintenance of social media.

10.  Open discussion, focus on priorities and current situation

● Dr. Hamid Karimi suggested that he could help the foundation with its social media activities.
● Raman Hama Saeed suggested that the library could be connected to some universities.
● Dr. Hamid Karimi also asked if Jemal Nebez's books were available in the U.S. and if he could order them from the U.S.
● Fexriye Adsay suggested that our foundation would benefit from collaborating with the Ismael Beshikchi foundation. As she said, this foundation has a representative in Germany.
● Sirwan Renas Salihzade asked those present to help the foundation with translations. If they are not able to do so themselves, there would be the possibility of approaching other capable people about it.

11.  Closing remarks

Sirwan:
● Sirwan Renas thanked everyone for their interest in the Jemal Nebez Foundation.
By referring to the way in which the foundation defined itself, namely founded by Kurds for Kurds, Sirwan addressed a topic that Jemal Nebez was probably the first to devote himself to intensively, namely who actually was a Kurd. Sirwan said that being Kurdish was not exclusively an ethnic identity. Rather, it included all those who care about the rights of the Kurds and the fate of Kurdistan.

● Sirwan thanked Salar for his contribution to the Foundation. It would be nice if he could continue to stay in touch with the friends and community of Jemal Nebez and be able to work within the foundation again in the future.
● Sirwan also expressed his gratitude to Markus for his services to the
Foundation.

Date: 2024-04-01
The summary of the contents was created collaboratively.

Hanne Küchler, Jan Gosau, Sirwan Renas
Board of Directors

Jemal Nebez Foundation,

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