30 May 2019
An integral part of the collection are issues of unknown and or rare local newspapers, such as for example particular issues of FALASTIN which are not available in other public digital archives on the web. There are also newspaper issues which are precious and can only be found in very few places as hardcopies and not as digital, such as SOWT ASHA’B (Bethlehem daily) from the 1930s and others which also hold special value, such as AL-AKLAM (Beirut) from the 1930s and AL-LAHAB (Jerusalem) 1938. Additional and separate efforts need to be invested to ascertain which are unique issues, and which archives do or do not have copies of these newspapers.
Most of the newspapers in our collection were collected and put together because they contained articles and news about Bethlehem or they are articles gathered and circled because they are the work and were personally written by Nasri Jacir. This means we have great raw material collected and sorted that tells the history of this city. Nasri Jacir was a journalist all his life and the only journalist in the Bethlehem area. He was the first journalist to report on the King David Hotel bombing on July 22, 1946. He was also the speech-giver of the Bethlehem Area – the “speaker” of Bethlehem.
The team that worked on mapping this section of the archive were: Emily Jacir, Munir Fakher Eldin, Walid Habbas, Abeer Saadeh, Ibrahim Burnat and Saif Hammash. Faris Giacaman volunteered during the initial organizing with Emily and Munir.
We plan on continuing to map the remainder of the Newspaper and Magazine section soon and seek volunteers and interns to work with us.
Photo: Emily Jacir 2018
Photo: Emily Jacir 2018
