Who is Robert Azzi?
Robert Azzi is a photojournalist, columnist and public speaker who lives in Exeter NH. An Arab American Muslim born in the Granite State, he has lived in Beirut, Cairo, Athens, Jeddah, and New York. Today, he writes on issues of identity, conflict, and Islam, particularly as they apply in the Middle East and the Global South.
Azzi has been a Nieman Fellow in Journalism at Harvard University,. He has also served terms as a member of the Leadership Council of the Harvard Divinity School and as an advisor to Tufts University’s Fletcher School committee on Islam and South-West Asia.
He is a board member of ACLU-NH.
On November 15, 2018, Azzi became the recipient of the Nackey S. Loeb School of Communications’ First Amendment Award and was recognized at the school’s 16th annual honors event at the Palace Theatre in Manchester NH.
As a photojournalist he was represented by Magnum Photos and by Woodfin Camp and Associates. Azzi’s work appeared frequently in such publications as Life, Time, Newsweek, National Geographic, Fortune and other domestic and international publications.
At Phillips Exeter Academy he once served as advisor to the Middle East Society and to the Muslim Student Association (MSA).
During the 1990s war in the former Yugoslavia, Azzi initiated a project that brought 85 high school students from Bosnia-Herzegovina to live with American families, empowering them to continue their education until it was safe to return home.
Today, Azzi is a columnist and public speaker and in his work he attempts to contextualize, for an “Outside-the-Beltway” audience, Islam and the Middle East by speaking in the voice of The Other.
“People don’t know what they don’t know,” Azzi tells his audience. “I want to open up new perspectives for my readers – especially for those who don’t often agree with me – and expose them to history, facts, and points-of-view I believe are important and which they might not have previously considered.”
Azzi is frequently invited to speak to schools, libraries and civic and religious groups; invitations he welcomes in order to encourage tolerance, understanding and interfaith dialogue and he remains available to mentor students and teachers on issues related to the Middle East and Islam.
One popular program is an event devoted to “Ask a Muslim Anything,” where Azzi welcomes questions on Islam, on being Muslim in America, on issues related to terrorism and on the geopolitics of the Middle East as he has experienced and understands them.
He is also a regular participant in interfaith dialogue groups that meet on a regular basis in New Hampshire and Massachusetts and frequently consults on related education and political issues.
