Exploring the Palestinian side of my family
Jerusalem Life
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).
Continue reading
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.
Continue reading
~ The story of my grandfather Manolis Kassotis—Part 1/2 ~
My grandfather’s death was never recorded officially. He died on 5 April 1971 in our home in Nicosia. He used to live with us while our grandmother, Yiayia Vitsa, lived with the Eftys (Efthyvoulou), their youngest daughter’s family. On that day, both grandparents were at our home as our parents had gone abroad for two weeks and had left my brother (age 12) and myself (10) in the care of the elders.
Continue reading
A few weeks ago Dorit Naaman and myself were interviewed on the Jerusalem Unplugged podcast, “the only podcast dedicated to Jerusalem, its history and its people.” It kicked off in late January and is hosted by Dr Roberto Mazza, an academic whose focus is the history of Ottoman Palestine. He is also the new editor of the Jerusalem Quarterly (which, however, is not related to the podcast).
Continue readingTwo heads, one bald, one full-hair, are peeking out from above the red velvet chairs. Their owners, Anwar Ben Badis and Mona Hajjar Halaby, who conduct the Arabic and English tours, respectively, of the Jerusalem, We Are Here (JWRH) interactive documentary, are exchanging family memories of the place. Dorit Naaman, the creator and director, joins them as up on the big screen fragments of an old reel start rolling.
It’s July 2015 and we are filming the opening shots of JWRH at the Regent, the longest-running cinema in Jerusalem. Today it has a different name, but to us, as we go about remapping this area and bringing back, albeit digitally, the people and the life that existed here till 1948, it is and always will be the Regent.
© 2026 My Palestinian Story
Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑
Recent Comments