A home for Palestinian art, memory, and imagination

Run by youth, open to everyone. A neighborhood arts academy based in Chicago's Southwest Side.

A sunlit studio wall at the Jerusalem Academy hung with three large paintings — including a lime-green canvas with bold black Arabic calligraphy reading Gaza — above an upright piano, a wooden oud, an electric guitar, congas, and audio equipment

this week

This week at the academy

See all programs

Dabke rehearsalWednesdays6:00 PMAges 17+
Open studioThursdays4:00 PMAll agesOn recess
Tatreez schoolSundays2:00 PMGirls ages 7–10Starting soon

what we do

Revive ancestral practices, explore the arts, build futures

A painting of Nazareth with the Basilica of the Annunciation among terracotta-roofed houses

Memory

We keep Palestinian narrative and collective memory

Oral histories, family archives, and classes where artists teach the old forms and what young people are doing with them now.

Community members making art together around a table in the studio

Infrastructure

A space for cultural production & artistic innovation

Studios, rehearsal rooms, and instruments. Plus commissions, apprenticeships, and paid teaching, so artists can make a life here as we build each other.

Paintings by community artists hung along a gallery wall

Connection

Rooted here, tied to movements everywhere

Shared meals, film nights, residencies, and exchanges that carry the work outward.

how we teach

Seven dimensions shape how we teach, create, and care.

Read the Liberatory Arts Framework

support the academy

Keep Palestinian art and memory open to all

Your support keeps our programs accessible regardless of ability to pay, keeps the virtual museum and heritage resources free to the public, and builds cultural ties between Palestinians in exile and the homeland.

Support the Academy Other ways to help