Nerdeen Kiswani Age, Husband, Children, Family, Biography

Some Lesser Known Facts About Nerdeen Kiswani

• Her family belongs to Beit Iksa, a town in Palestine. They were refugees.

• Nerdeen Kiswani reportedly grew up listening to the stories from her grandmother about how her family left Palestine on foot during the Nakba (displacement) in 1948.

• Some of the family members of Kiswani are settled in the West Bank.

• Nerdeen Kiswani was born in Jordan and grew up in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.

• During her school days in Brooklyn, she faced Islamophobia. She was once called a terrorist by her schoolmates.

• In 2015, Nerdeen Kiswani, along with her teammates, started a group called NYC Students for Justice in Palestine (NYC SJP). The group then started working in many schools of the City University of New York (CUNY).
  

  An old picture of Nerdeen Kiswani during a protest

• In June 2015, the Israeli military banned her from visiting her family in the West Bank after she started participating in activism.

• Once, she claimed in the media that she received inspiration for her activism from Palestine and would return there.

• That same year, she, along with her group, NYC SJP, criticised pro-Palestinian activists through an article. The group claimed that the Palestinian activists used Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) as a main method for activism.

• After that, the BDS movement and the national SJP did not support the perspectives of the article.

• In November 2015, when many schools of the City University of New York (CUNY) raised their tuition fees, she organised a protest with other students and chanted “Zionists out of CUNY!”

• In a letter to the CUNY administration, the Zionist Organisation of America mentioned this slogan and blamed SJP for promoting antisemitism.

• Nerdeen Kiswani then claimed in the media that the chant was an ideology to oppose Zionism. She also added that SJP did not support CUNY banning any student.

• After that, an investigation by CUNY found that SJP was not promoting antisemitism. Kiswani then claimed that the investigation weakened the pro-Palestine activism at CUNY.
  

  Nerdeen Kiswani speaking during a protest at CUNY

• In June 2016, after completing her undergraduate degree at CUNY, she was selected as the president of the SJP at the CUNY School of Law.

• After that, under her leadership, SJP allied with the Jewish Law Students Association.

• Nerdeen Kiswani then encouraged students to vote against a resolution, which supported the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) and its views on antisemitism.

• She then worked on a BDS resolution, which was approved by a student union during her tenure as a vice -president of the BDS.

• Later, many faculty members of CUNY promoted this resolution. They claimed that CUNY had worked with Israel to promote war crimes against Palestinians.

• The faculty also requested to end the academic and monetary relations with Israel.

• Later, the chancellor of CUNY released a statement against the resolution. He then imposed some rules against BDS in New York State.

• After that, Inna Vernikov, a city councillor, withdrew the free grant of a CUNY law-school program after BDS announced its statements. Inna also criticised Kiswani for the cuts Kiswani announced.

• During the same time, Kiswani became more active through her group Within Our Lifetime, in organising protests and activism.

• In 2022, her class selected her as a graduation speaker for their graduation day. In her speech, she blamed the US, Israel, and CUNY for ignoring the Israeli-Palestinian war.

• After that, SAFE CUNY, an organisation, blamed CUNY Law for providing an unsafe environment for Jewish people, allowing Kiswani to deliver a commencement speech.

• Later, the recording of her commencement speech was removed from the website of CUNY Law. It also banned the students from choosing the commencement speakers in future.

• In 2018, she, along with her co-founders of the organisation, NYC Students for Justice in Palestine, renamed it as Within Our Lifetime (WOL).

• After that, the group began organising regular pro-Palestine protests. It also started a yearly Nakba Day march, held in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. It often organises Gaza war protests, which shut down the transportation in New York City.

• “Globalize the intifada” is the slogan of these protests by Within Our Lifetime (WOL). She often delivers lectures at the protests organised by WOL.
  

  Nerdeen Kiswani speaking during a protest

• She has been detained many times for organising several protests. She once protested against the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil.

• In 2023, when the Christmas festival was cancelled in Bethlehem, Palestine, she protested at the Rockefeller Centre Christmas Tree Lighting ceremony in New York City.

• She is often named for promoting the Gaza War protests and student protests in the US.

• In February 2024, she was detained for protesting outside Columbia University.

• In March 2024, during an event organised for the students of Columbia University, she condemned the peace process held between Israel and Palestine. She also supported the use of violence by Palestinian groups to oppose Israeli military occupation and policies.

• She then visited a student camp organised at Columbia University in her wedding dress after her marriage in April 2024 and offered her support.

• Later, she delivered a speech at the opening night for Hinds House Collective’s multimedia exhibit in response to the above student camp.

• After that, she was banned from entering Columbia University.

• In June 2024, she delivered a speech during a protest held outside a Nova Exhibition. In the speech, she referred to Nova as,
  

  The place where Zionists decided to rave next to a concentration camp.”

  She called the exhibition as,

  Zionist propaganda to try and justify the mass murder of the Palestinian people.”

• In the same speech, she criticised the Nuseirat rescue and massacre, which happened on 8 June 2024.

• Many government officials, such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a representative, called her protest antisemitic.

• After that, a WOL member was criticised for asking some Zionists to leave an apartment on a subway train. She then replied to the criticism through a social media post. She wrote,
  

  Her group does not want Zionists “in Palestine, NYC, our schools, on the train, ANYWHERE.”

• Kiswani then filed a case against the New York City Police Department (NYPD) for their conduct during the Gaza War protests held in October 2023.

• In 2024, Kiswani blamed the NYPD for encouraging conflicts during the Nakba Day protests.

• She accused the NYPD of treating the protestors poorly.

• In June 2024, she organised a protest at a museum in Brooklyn. After that, the NYPD reportedly removed her hijab and tackled her.

• In 2025, after the pro-Israel mob attack in Brooklyn, she accused the NYPD of encouraging the attack.

• Kiswani and her group, WOL, are known for following extremists ideas. According to her, Palestinians has the right to use weapons to fight for their land.

• She has claimed that armed resistance has played an important role in many revolts. She follows Malcolm X and his idea “by any means necessary.”

• She once stated in the media that Israel was controlling both Israel and Palestine, and the two-state solution ideology was not worth.

• She added that, a single Palestinian state should be formed by merging the lands of Israel and Palestine. The Palestinians should be allowed to return to their lands.

• She has often criticised American politicians Joe Biden and Kamala Harris for their support to Israel.

• She once claimed that the proposal of Donald Trump on Gaza Strip was void.

• She once expressed her thoughts about Ukraine. She said,
  

  Western-backed project propped up for geopolitical interests & sustained by empire” and that Ukraine and Palestine “are not the same struggle.”

  

  Nerdeen Kiswani speaking at a news channel

• She is often blamed for encouraging Gaza War protests at many educational organisations in the US.

• In February 2024, the Instagram handle of her group WOL was deleted. According to Meta, her organisation violated the rules and regulations of the platform. She promoted many harmful people and groups.

• WOL then claimed in its statement that the ban was a cencorship.

• Many organisations from Israel, including the Canary Mission, the Anti-Defamation League, and StopAntisemitism, often blames her for promoting antisemitism.

• According to her, she is against Zionist, not antisemitic.

• In January 2025, Betar, a far-right Zionist group, posted a death threat to her on a social media platform.

• The claimed that they would award $1800 to anyone who would give a pager (an electronic device to kill someone) to Kiswani.

• In 2026, a Jewish extremist man, who was arrested by FBI and NYPD, planned an attack on her house. The man was captured by an undercover detective through social media group chat. After the attack, he was planning to flee to the US.

• After his detention, he was granted ten years of imprisonment for keeping deadly weapons.

• An official statement by Zohran Mamdani, the Mayor of New York City, stated that the suspect who was planning to attack her house, wanted to flee Israel after the attack.