Reading Vigil for Free Palestine

Contact/Follow the Reading Vigil for Free Palestine here:

Since November 2023, a group of readers has gathered every day for one hour at Dam Square, Amsterdam to read aloud from Palestinian literature, testimony, scholarship, and poetry, alongside works by historians, theorists, journalists, and writers engaging Palestine across histories, geographies, and struggles. The Reading Vigil for Free Palestine is a daily public action that makes a growing bibliography on Palestine audible and visible in the heart of the city.

By reading aloud in public space, the vigil claims time and attention for political education while building a self-organised audio archive and a dispersed collective library. The readings continue in solidarity with the Palestinian people and their struggle for liberation, and in opposition to the ongoing genocide, settler colonialism, apartheid, and occupation carried out by the Israeli state.

Join the vigil at the square from 12:30 – 13:30 every day.

As part of Archive in Residence at de Appel (October 2025 to March 2026), Reading Vigil for Free Palestine developed an (unwilling) archive of daily audio recordings from the vigil, accessible via readingvigil.net. Copies of the books were acquired by the de Appel Library as a special collection and can be borrowed from the library at Tolstraat 160, Amsterdam.