Hakayet Turath: Affirming Palestinian Presence by Blending Craft, Archaeology, and Art with Daily Life

The need for connection and community in the Palestinian community of Jerusalem is rising, and as several organizations are stepping up to meet it, Hakayet Turath’s approach stands out, filling a social void formed by years of fragmentation and oppression.

Hakayet Turath, which translates to “stories of heritage” in English, is a cultural/educational program mediating the collection of the Terra Sancta Museum. Launched in 2024, it is a project of the Pro Terra Sancta NGO, funded by the European Commission under the East Jerusalem Program. Since then, the program’s team has worked on preserving the local heritage by engaging with Jerusalem’s archaeology, art, and history that live among the Palestinian community and define their lives—politically, socially, spiritually, and interpersonally.

Hakayet Turath offers guided museum tours, traditional craft workshops, community events, open-house days, and summer camp days. Every activity is led by a group of nine young and dedicated designers, artists, archaeologists, researchers, and educators who pool their diverse skills and disciplines to build an original educational curriculum that meets the community’s needs. During Jerusalem Story’s visit to Hakayet Turath, the team members shared that an integral part of their programs is engaging in the senses. Jihad, who’s an archaeologist and the Terra Sancta Museum liaison, recently wrote a research paper about the cuneiform language; the team will build an upcoming workshop focused on this topic using narrative storytelling, integrating one of the five senses to communicate new knowledge.1

The project’s headquarters are tucked in an old stone house, historically belonging to Musa Effendi, in Jerusalem’s Old City, just up the hill from the infamous Takiyya Khaski Sultan, and steps away from Khan al-Zeit. Currently, Hakayet Turath’s most popular activity is an incense-making workshop. The idea for it stemmed from everyone’s need for relief and a moment of expression following the 2026 US-Israel war on Iran. With every space shuttered, people isolated, and emotions suppressed, the team looked within and around for a way to affirm Palestinian presence while offering a chance to relax through scents and handiwork. After a walk through the nearby markets, they were inspired by the smell of incense that was burning in Souk al-‘Attarin—one of the oldest markets in the Old City. The smell commonly grounds people and carries religious and cultural significance rooted in the place.2

The Hakayet Turath team then conducted extensive research on the history of incense to prepare for the workshop. In Jerusalem Story’s visit to the workshop, Mariam, head of the education program, explained that just like the famous trade route known as Silk Road, there was also an Incense Road that originated in Yemen, reaching the central Gaza port before traveling far through land and the Mediterranean Sea. Together, the team and participants explored the journey of incense across borders and its connection to everyday life, community traditions, faith, rituals, and purity.

For instance, participants learned that Buddhists used incense smoke to communicate with gods. Ancient Egyptians had depictions of incense burners in their hieroglyphics, dating back thousands of years. To this day, churches in Palestine and the region burn locally produced incense. For many locals, the smell of incense invokes the feeling of being inside the Church of Nativity or the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Muslims, too, burn incense to calm the nerves and create a spiritual setting. In the Old City, many shops burn incense to attract customers, even beyond Souk al-‘Attarin.3

After experimenting with various local materials and researching techniques to create incense sticks, Hakayet Turath members landed on a recipe that they teach in their workshops, providing participants with an opportunity to create their own incense stick.

Hakayet Turath aims to activate community spaces in Jerusalem and offer locals what has become less and less accessible—the Old City of Jerusalem, cultural knowledge, and the sense of belonging.

Naturally, when Hakayet Turath launched, their efforts focused on outreach, networking, and building relationships with Palestinian institutions in the Old City, such as collaborations with the Palestine Heritage Museum (Dar Al-Tifel Al-Arabi Museum), the Palestinian Museum in Birzeit, the Spafford Children’s Center, and Saraya Center. Today, Hakayet Turath is receiving requests for their popular workshops in Jerusalem and beyond, reaching as far as the cities of Haifa and Jenin.

The value of accessibility is at the core of Hakayet Turath’s work. The program includes a mobile museum that travels to Jerusalem’s suburban villages whose residents have difficulty reaching the city center due to checkpoints, roadblocks, the permit regime, and the Separation Wall. The mobile museum develops activities appropriate for each village’s context and local history and has visited several locations such as al-Jib, al-Nabi Samwil, al-‘Izariyya, al-‘Ubaydiyya (in Bethlehem), and others. In some other cases, the program provides transportation for school-organized field trips to the Terra Sancta Museum to relieve transportation costs for local Palestinian schools.

Utilizing craft is an essential and integral portion of the program, inviting participants to engage their hands and creative imaginations as part of their learning journey. Through viewing the displayed pieces at the museum or the mobile museum, participants learn the history of the craft itself and then re-create it in their own ways.

Jerusalem Story joined Hakayet Turath’s activities at Dar al-Majus (the Pro Terra Sancta Community Center) in Bethlehem, just steps away from the Manger Square and Church of the Nativity. The day was dedicated to the women and children of al-‘Ubaydiyya (a village in Bethlehem’s governorate), with each group engaging in a unique activity. The children were invited to the Church of the Nativity to explore ancient mosaic pieces inside. Afterwards, they created their own mosaic art piece by filling in squares of a grid in the shape of their choosing, usually inspired by a piece of local heritage such as native plants, flowers, animals, or any other object. In the final step, the children transferred the shape they drew onto a sheet of clay using small stones, creating their very own mosaic art piece to take home.

Hakayet Turath also offers museum guided tours, adapted for specific age groups and focused on topics related to the tour’s purpose. The Hakayet Turath team welcomes everyone to their community events, ranging from panel discussions, film screenings, and open days at the museum, creating a sense of community in the heart of the Old City.

During Jerusalem Story’s interview with the team, they amusingly described the casual relationships that arise from Hakayet Turath’s open doors. The entrance to their space is not prominently labeled, and those who notice the small “Hakayet Turath” sign do not usually know what it represents. Thus, elders, neighborhood children, tourists, and passersby often open the door and invite themselves in, sometimes sitting down in the traditional seating area, which resembles a living room. Some people sit down, finding relief from the trek of walking around the Old City, while other intrigued guests come in and ask, “Who are you and what do you do?”

The team members find humor in the walk-in phenomenon but also admire it—people in the Old City are welcomed in the center’s space and intrigued by its purpose.

To be a part of the Old City fabric, the Hakayet Turath team introduced themselves through a big open event. In April, their event “Mujaddara wa-Burbara bi-l-Hara” featured a collaboration with Takiyya Khaski Sultan and local women, to distribute food to attendees and neighbors.

Takiyya Khaski Sultan, the soup kitchen serving Jerusalem’s needy for 500 years and Hakayet Turath’s neighbor, cooked mujaddara (a famous Arabic lentil and rice dish), and the local women made burbara (a traditional wheat pudding), a special dish made during Eid al-Burbara (the Feast of Saint Barbara), which was happening at the time. The event included a tour of the Terra Sancta Museum and the ‘Aqabat al-Takiyya neighborhood it lies within followed by a meal shared with old and new neighbors. This was an introduction and celebration of Hakayet Turath’s community, who would eventually become their participants, audience members, and partners.

Today, education in East Jerusalem is undergoing drastic changes and manifesting in a crisis that isolates Palestinian youth from the history and cultural heritage attaching them to the city (see Education). Hakayet Turath witnesses this on a regular basis: at times, school-aged children lack certain information that should be taught at the basic level in schools. “When we teach the children about an archaeological item from Haifa or from the Galilee, we are surprised to discover that they don’t know what the Galilee is. Then, we must devote time to learning the map of Palestine and its different regions. The curriculum is failing these children, and this is why extracurricular education is needed right now,” Mariam told Jerusalem Story.4 Though Hakayet Turath employs several teaching strategies, engaging the senses with hard materials and information, the team hopes “that just one thing, at least one memory or piece of information, sticks with the child and can impact their life now or later on,” Mariam added.

It is true that investment in children’s education is integral to the preservation of Palestinian cultural heritage, but adults also find the need to engage with the places they call home and with the ancestral knowledge that lies within them.

Salma, a team member, expressed during the incense workshop that she is always in awe at the creativity and innovation coming out of the sessions. “It is not expected that people will create impressive products, especially since most don’t come from artistic or craft backgrounds, and sometimes we wonder if the topic is intriguing them at all,”5 she said.

“However, once they touch the materials and make their products, we start to believe that the craft we teach is second nature to them. Their hands simply know how to mold the materials, and perhaps many of them had been waiting for the moment to release their creative sides,” she added.

Salma also revealed that many Jerusalemites have formed fearful relationships with the city’s monumental sites, even those carrying religious meaning. Because they are so targeted, politicized, and under attack, people distance themselves from these places. Rinad, another team member, shared that her family avoids visiting the Old City, for fear of unexpected escalations, and that is the case for countless other families. Despite there being several cultural organizations working to engage Jerusalemites with the city, some still avoid being affiliated with institutions which share political stances, merely to avoid complications with the law.

Hakayet Turath provides a chance for people to rekindle their relationships with the Old City, tearing down the walls of fear that separate Jerusalemites from their beloved place.

In 2025, Hakayet Turath’s activities reached over 1,480 people including 1,294 children and youth, 187 adults and parents, and 13 young professionals from East Jerusalem.6