Nakba

Personal Story Mai and Her Israeli Citizenship

Mai reflects on her reasons for applying for Israeli citizenship and the psychological and emotional cost of that decision.

Personal Story A War without Chocolate

Betty Majaj, a nurse in Jerusalem, lived through the demise of the New City and its reincarnation into West Jerusalem. This is her story. 

Personal Story The Baq‘a Zone Ghetto: A Memoir of a Palestinian Jerusalemite Who Remained in West Jerusalem after the War

Jacob Nammar, whose family established the al-Nammamreh neighborhood in al-Baq‘a, shares the trauma his family went through in what became West Jerusalem.

Personal Story “Until This Day, We Don’t Know Where They Buried Them”

A survivor of the Deir Yasin massacre recalls that dark day, its cost for his family, and its aftermath. 

Bio Hala Sakakini

A Palestinian educator and writer who wrote an iconic, vivid narrative recounting her family’s exile from Qatamon and Jerusalem in 1948

Photo Album The Meo Family Shop by Jaffa Gate: A Mirror of Family, Community, and City History

A photo album of the Meo family business, a Jerusalemite Old City landmark for 124 years

Photo Album “Present Absentees” Look Back: A Jerusalemite Family’s Journey from West to East, 1930–2021

A photo album depicting the story of the Sabella family, part of the Jerusalem elite, before and after the 1948 War

Case Study Mubarak Awad: Lifelong Experience of Dispossession

A Palestinian American psychologist who was born and raised in Jerusalem had his residency revoked when he advocated nonviolence in Palestine in 1987–88.

Personal Story Recollections of an Old City Childhood in the Shadow of the Nakba

A well-to-do Jerusalem family was made refugees overnight in 1948; they lost everything but tenaciously remained in their city and gradually rebuilt.