Exploring the Palestinian side of my family

Year: 2026

Greek Community Presentation Redux

This post is an adjunct to an earlier one — The Greek Community of Jerusalem: A Presentation — published on 28 November 2025. The original post was about a live presentation I gave in Cyprus earlier in the year on the topic of The Greek Community of Jerusalem until 1948 (Nakba and Diaspora). The post included a link to the recording of the presentation (a YouTube video). 

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Mid-19th Century Jerusalem

~ Through the eyes of an American woman ~

I asked a fellow family-history researcher the other day: Do you know what you find when you go down a rabbit hole? No, what? he replied on cue. My answer: a web of rabbit holes

My research is never linear. It takes me down so many rabbit holes, I sometimes wonder if I’ll ever find my way back. But it’s all so much fun!  

In response to a query that came in to the Jerusalem, We Are Here project a few weeks ago, I was looking through press clips and, as is my wont, I did not limit myself to reading only about the subject on hand but allowed my eyes to stray all over the page. And so I bumped into a serialised article called Home Life on Mount Zion, published by the Boston Hebrew Observer in the fall of 1884. 

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Remembering Saba Abdo

~ In Memoriam: 24 Aug 1930-16 Nov 2025 ~

They’re leaving us one by one. With every passing week, I feel they’re slipping through my fingers too quickly and I can’t hang on to them—to them and their memories. They’re the last generation that has happy memories of Jerusalem (and Palestine more generally).

They’re the last generation that remembers a multi-cultural, cosmopolitan Jerusalem. A kinder, warmer, more welcoming Jerusalem. They’re the last ones who experienced coexistence and intermingling. They’re the ones who went to school, played, shared meals, and started businesses with others, without religion, culture, or ethnic background becoming insurmountable obstacles. 

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