Abdullah H. Erakat | Screenwriter & Researcher
About Abdullah
Abdullah “A.H.” Erakat was born, raised, and educated in the United States. Following his
graduation from Rider University in 1998, Erakat left Marlton, New Jersey, crossing the Atlantic
to go to Jerusalem to cover the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. After journalism, Erakat served as a
foreign press secretary in the Palestinian Authority, and would later teach undergraduate
students media, cinema, and acting at Bard College’s Jerusalem campus.
His screenplays, works of Arab-American Erakat, often deal with issues of identity, diversity and
family. Erakat co-wrote Birth of Words about Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish and the short
film Al Bier (or The Well) about the Palestinian Nakba of 1948. He also wrote Abdullah Smith, a
semi-biographical screenplay about his experiences as an Arab growing up in Vermont and
New Jersey; currently in development. He has written a comedic play “But It's a Dry Heat”, about
a Muslim family owning a liquor store in Arizona, which he hopes to adapt to a television series.
“Searching for Sidewalks,” about the struggles of being a Palestinian-American writer, husband
and father in the occupied West Bank, is Erakat’s first novella.
Erakat currently in Abu Dis; a village southeast of Jerusalem.