Elham Dwairy Tabry

Elham Dwairy Tabry (Arabic: الهام دويري تابري, Hebrew: אלהאם דאווירי תאברי; born 11 January 1947) is an Arab Palestinian author and citizen of Israel.

Elham Dwairy Tabry was born in Nazareth in 1947.

She is the third child of five in a conservative Arab family.

Her parents are building engineer Adeeb Dahdouh Dwairy and housewife Loris Iskandar Kawar.

She attended the Fransciscan school in Nazareth, which was a girls-only school at the time.

As a child, she read books regularly and borrowed books from her uncle, poet Dr. Jamal Kawar.

Aat that time no public libraries operated near Nazareth.

In 1972, she earned a teaching certificate in a project established by the Ministry of Education in Nazareth.

Dwairy Tabry worked as a teacher between 1972 and 1997.

In 1986, she earned a teaching certificate (senior teacher) for teaching English in the junior high.

Dwairy Tabry graduated in 1989 with a BA in Education and Arabic Language at the University of Haifa.

She began writing articles on education in 1994 while working as a teacher and coordinator.

She began writing articles for the newspaper Kul al-Arab, when poet Samih al-Qasim was its editor-in-chief.

She has written about education in other newspapers, magazines and Internet websites, including Al Mawakeb Magazine, Lady Magazine, Bukra website and Sonara newspaper.

Her first book, Albaida, was published in 1994.

In 1995, she studied Bibliotherapy in Oranim Academic College and earned her master's degree in Education at the Loughborough University in England.

Elham Dwairy Tabry is married to Edwar Tabry, an engineer, and is the mother of three.

Her children and her husband helped her in writing.

Her husband and daughter Sawsan proofread, her daughter Faten illustrated her first books and her son Kamal illustrated the Qushqush series and other books.

In 2004, she won the Literary Work Award in Arabic Literature conferred by the Israeli Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport.

As of 2009, shows with the character "Qushqush" had been presented in kindergartens and elementary schools, community centers, and theater stages, in Israel and the Palestinian National Authority.

Dwairy Tabry directed and wrote the texts and the songs for the plays.

She developed mind games using Qushqush's character.

Her books were selected for the Israeli Ministry of Education's Book charts in 2010, 2012, 2016 and in 2019.

In November 2015, under the initiative of the Nazareth Municipality and the Nazareth Children's Theater Festival, an evening tribute was held for Dwairy Tabry "for her great educational and literary role and for her contribution for children, parents and society as a whole, and in particular from the Qushqush series that was derived from her books".

Throughout the festival an exhibition was held that presented illustrations from Qushqush books, in addition to illustrations from her other books.

The "Qushqush" character she created became the most popular children's figure in the Arab sector in Israel.

As of May 2017, she held a permanent position as an expert guest on education on the Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation radio program Makan Station.

She talks about education and answers parents' questions on a live broadcast.

She lectures at Colleges about Early Childhood Education.

She taught in Oranim Academic College and Open University of Israel.

She holds guest lectures at academic institutions in Israel and the Palestinian National Authority.

Her books appeal to children from preschoolers to teenagers.

In addition, she wrote therapeutic books for youth that she also illustrated.

The Firas series is about a kid named Firas.

In November 2019 Qushqush book illustrations were presented over ten days within the Tel Aviv-Yafo Illustrations Week exhibitions Of the Department of the Arts in the Tel Aviv-Yafo Municipality.

She wrote scripts for the TV show Amal Haritna (Amal Of Our Neighborhood), which was broadcast by Israeli Educational Television.

As of 2020, she has written and published 62 children's books, nine books for teenagers and two professional books on education.

She created the Firas, Hana and Qushqush series.

Her books are published by Dar Al-Elham Publishing, which she established.