Maya Bickel

Born in 1998, Maya Bickel grew up in Maryland and spent a formative eighth grade year in Jerusalem. She has a B.A. in Middle East studies from Columbia University, including a semester spent studying colloquial Arabic in Jordan. After graduating, Maya moved to Jerusalem to work as a research assistant studying water insecurity in a community in the West Bank. Maya also spent three months living in Masafer Yatta and documenting human rights abuses with the Center for Jewish Nonviolence. Last year she worked at Bimkom, a planning rights NGO, as a New Israel Fund fellow. In the past two years in Jerusalem Maya has become an anti-occupation activist, working with a number of Israeli and international activist collectives. She speaks Hebrew and Arabic fluently.