British Mandate

Bio Wasif Jawhariyyeh

A musician and diarist who created an invaluable account of life in Jerusalem from the late Ottoman to the British Mandate periods

Bio Khalil Sakakini

An educator, political and social figure, and intellectual whose diary of over 3,000 pages covers 45 turbulent years in Jerusalem and Palestine in the early 20th century

Backgrounder The West Side Story, Part 1: Jerusalem before “East” and “West”

Before 1948, Jerusalem was not split between an “East” and a “West.” Rather, a cosmopolitan, multiethnic New City grew organically out of the Old City.

Bio Ibrahim Dakkak

A talented and dedicated engineer who devoted his life to institution building, Jerusalem, and the Palestinian national cause

Bio Zahiya Nashashibi

A Jerusalemite who helped to found one of the oldest women’s movements in Palestine in 1929, and remained in a leadership role in it until her death

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.