Contributed by This Week In Palestine on 30.07.2007:
The Forgotten People
By Amoun Sleem
A band of itinerant musicians and dancers hired by a Persian king? A caste of entertainers, commissioned to defend their homeland against a Hunnish invasion in the 5th century? Or a number of tribes sent out to Persia to a Turko-Persian general, never to return again? How and when did the Gypsies begin their migration, and how did they end up (...)
Contributed by This Week In Palestine on 30.07.2007:
Palestinian Cave Dwellers and Holy Shrines: The Passing of Traditional Society
By Dr. Ali Qleibo
Every village is unique.
Field work reveals that the generic noun “peasant” has no absolute referential value. Moreover the traditional dichotomy of “Bedouin/peasant” totally dissolves when subjected to close analysis. In fact, both communities are “traders” - shrewd enterpris(...)
Contributed by This Week In Palestine on 30.06.2007:
Like Peace Needs a Bicycle…
By Peter Stockton
‘Asira Shamilya is five kilometres to the north of Nablus and situated behind Mount Ebal, the highest mountain in the West Bank. Like most Palestinian villages, it does not appear to have much that is distinctive about it at first. It is set amid the hills and olive trees, and the air is good; but it’s not too remote to be immune fro(...)
Contributed by This Week In Palestine on 30.06.2007:
By Maria C. Khoury, Ed.D.
I left the cosmopolitan city of Boston and a university job to follow Daoud Canaan Khoury to his picturesque home village of Taybeh and support his dream to invest in his homeland by producing Taybeh Beer and to have our three children grow up near a loving extended family in one of the most ancient places in Palestine. Twenty-one years later, something strang(...)
Contributed by This Week In Palestine on 30.06.2007:
Our Village in the North
By Reem M. Wahdan
It was not until I met my best friend and partner, who happens to also be my fiancé, that I heard of a village in the north called Al-Fandaqomeyyah. At our very first conversation, as I recall now, I asked him: “Where are you exactly from?” He replied, “Well, I come from a village near Jenin I am sure you have never heard of,” and that (...)
Contributed by This Week In Palestine on 30.06.2007:
Love and Life in a Palestinian Village
By Dr. Ali Qleibo
Three huge ancient oak trees huddle closely together, and two younger ones, not more than two hundred years old, stand to their right in the curb along the winding road from Jerusalem to Bet Suriq. The history of these trees dates back more than five hundred years; remnants of a Palestine once famed for its oak woods. In c(...)
Contributed by This Week In Palestine on 30.06.2007:
Documenting Daily Life in Galilee Villages
By Khalil Nakhleh
In 1970 I came with my small family to spend a year in my village - Rameh, in Galilee - to carry out field research. I was accompanied by my wife (a “very American” nurse then, but fortunately, a “very Palestinian” artist now), our one-and-a-half-year-old first-born son, and our 1965 VW Beetle, which followed us by shi(...)
Contributed by This Week In Palestine on 23.06.2007:
Crafting Palestinian Identity
By Dr. Ali Qleibo
“It is spring, and the fennel grows in abundance in the valley of Gimzo,” sighs Dr. Fawzieh, a professor of history at Al Quds Open University in Jericho. “The fragrance of our fresh wild fennel soaks the horizon.” The spatial and temporal distance dissolves as the description of Gimzo, ten kilometres from Lod airport, becomes more(...)
Contributed by Alex Kattan on 03.04.2007:
A little bit of history :
General Allenby, T. E. Lawrence, and Giries Hanna Kattan
In the early part of 20 th century, after the British took control of Palestine from the Ottoman Empire, General Allenby visited Bethlehem regularly.
He got to know Giries Hanna Kattan, and offered him the Governorship of the Greater Bethlehem area.
Discussions ensued between Gene(...)
Contributed by African Jerusalem on 31.03.2007:
In the prison courtyard 