Education against all odds : the Palestinian struggle for survival and excellence

Abstract

I was born in Jerusalem on November 3, 1929 into a Christian family whose roots in Jerusalem-Palestine go back for at least five hundred years as far as the records of the Greek Orthodox Church in Jerusalem could tell. My father studied architecture at the Fine Arts Academy in Athens and was amongst the first architects in Palestine during the British Mandate. His style in architecture combined the Arabic arch with the Greek Corinthian column heads and his unique style spread not only in Jerusalem (one can see many of the houses he built still standing in the new City of Jerusalem, now known as West Jerusalem) but also in Ramallah and in some neighbouring villages. I was sent at the tender age of five to the boarding school of Birzeit which was one of the very few national, non-governmental secondary schools established in a rural area. At the time national or private schools were few anyway and mostly in Jerusalem. The only government school—The Arab College—was in Jerusalem and top students from the primary government schools from the rest of Palestine were sent to it. I enjoyed my life at Birzeit School but still missed my parents, family and Jerusalem. Coming home to Jerusalem for vacations was something I always looked forward to. I enjoyed accompanying my father to the old city to buy fruits and vegetables and where I learned from him how to buy the right kind of lamb meat from the meat market. Our centre of life in Jerusalem had always been the YMCA where boys and young men (prior to 1948), be they Christians, Moslems or Jews, interacted freely and played together without ever feeling any barriers. On Saturdays, the Palestine Symphony Orchestra (Arabs and Jews) would perform in the open air and on Sundays, the clock bell tower would chime lovely music. However, during the 40s (WWII) the Palestinian Arabs and Jews started growing apart as Zionist activities were increasing: illegal Jewish immigration, terrorist attacks against the British and Arabs, and establishing Jewish-only settlements with the idea of founding a Jewish National home in Palestine and thus displacing, rather than living with, the Palestinian Arabs. Nevertheless, in Jerusalem social relations among some Jews and Arabs continued. I remember how much compassion we felt for Jews who escaped the persecution in Europe when we got to know them socially (often because of work connections with my father with some of them who worked for him as foremen or draughtsmen). This feeling of compassion was mixed with the feeling of anger and fear that these people are after all, Zionists who want our land without us in it.