Contributor

Ray Hanania

America's most censored columnist

Ray Hanania is a Palestinian American Columnist with Creators Syndicate. His columns on the Middle East appear every Wednesday in the Jerusalem Post and regularly at PalestineNote.com. His political columns appear every week in Chicago in the Southwest News-Herald Newspaper and the Lawndale News Newspaper.

An award winning former Chicago journalist, Hanania is the host of the American Arab syndicated radio show Radio Baladi broadcast in Chicagoland and Dearborn Michigan every Friday (7-8 am, Central) on WJJG AM 1530 and WNZK AM 690 radio.

Named "Best Ethnic American Columnist" in Nov. 2006 by the New America Media and winner of the 2009 Mehdi Courage in Journalism Award , Hanania covered Chicago City Hall from 1976 until 1992. He is one of only a few professional Palestinian Arab American journalists. He received the Sigma Delta Chi award for column writing from the Society of Professional Journalists in November 2010, and is the recipient of four Peter Lisagor Awards for column writing from the SPJ's largest Chapter, the Chicago Headline Club.

Hanania is the national coordinator of the National Arab American Journalists Association (NAAJA).

After Sept. 11, 2001, Hanania expanded his communication entering standup comedy, using humor to bridge anti-Arab animosities. Internationally acclaimed, Hanania is co-founder of the Israeli-Palestinian Standup Comedy Tour.

Hanania is also the author of the humor book I'm Glad I Look Like a Terrorist: Growing up Arab in America (1996) and Arabs of Chicagoland, (2005) a history of Chicago's Arab settlement.

A Christian Palestinian, Hanania's wife and son are Jewish. He can be reached at RayHanania@comcast.net.