We were privileged to have Rajie Cook as an active Presbyterian member of CJ Allies for many years.He participated in many of our events and we admired his creativity and passion for the cause of justice in Israel and Palestine. His studio and home were in Bucks County.
Rajie Cook, 90 (1930-2021), the award-winning Palestinian-American graphic designer, artist, peace activist, humanitarian and photographer, died of myelodysplastic syndromes on Feb. 6, 2021.
Cook and his partner, Don Shanosky, earned national recognition in 1985, when President Ronald Reagan honored them with a Presidential Design Award for their 1974 work in creating a collection of iconic public symbols. Those simple pictographs, which designate men’s and women’s restrooms, no-smoking areas, airports, train stations and many more public places, are still used today.
In 1981, Cook began creating assemblage sculptures that featured ordinary items he had collected set in wooden frames. He used locks, keys, dolls’ heads, plastic hands, barbed wire or metal faucets to construct powerful political messages about ongoing injustice in Palestine, his parents’ homeland.
His iconic boxes were frequently displayed in Gallery al-Quds exhibits in Washington, DC’s Jerusalem Fund, as well as the Palestinian Museum U.S., in Woodbridge, CT. He also volunteered his time and imagination to design logos for nonprofits.
Over the years, he designed brilliant posters, including one printed in 2013 with the letters OCCUPAYTION, captioned, “U.S. Aid to Israel totals $233.7 billion over six decades, every day you pay $8.5 million more.” Another featured a keffiyeh with colorful peace buttons printed in 2014.
Cook generously donated copies of his posters as well as his unforgettable memoir, A Vision for My Father: The Life and Work of Palestinian-American Artist and Designer Rajie Cook, published in 2017 to Middle East Books and More. The book, which is still available, is a deeply personal tribute to America and the immigrants who, like his father, Najeeb Esa Cook, left all that they knew and loved to come to America.
One sight that haunts a reader is the photo of his father, who died at the age of 94, “old and blind and sitting by the radio saying he was waiting to hear something good on the radio about peace in the Middle East.” His talented son, Rajie, used his art, and his unforgettable memoir, to open eyes that may be blind to the injustice of the ongoing Palestinian Nakba.
Delinda C. Hanley is executive editor of the Washington Report.
