Jerusalem Unplugged Podcast

With this episode I started a series divided in 5 episodes discussing Jerusalem during the First World War. In this first installment I discuss the large question of Ottoman mobilization in 1914 and in the second part the mobilization process that started in the summer of the same year. In the last part of the episode I will discuss the general conditions of war-time Jerus...

In his new book 'Both sides of the goal: a history of football in Palestine and Arab-Jewish relations during the British Mandate' (original in Hebrew), tells the story of the emergence of football in Palestine and how the game was enjoyed, organized and exploited by both Arabs and Jews in Palestine during the British Mandate. Football was introduced at the end of the late ...

In this episode Faisal Saleh - founder and director of the Palestine Museum US - and Nancy Nesvet - curator of the 'From Palestine with Art' exhibition at the Venice Biennale - tell us about their amazing work. Palestine Museum US was founded by Palestinian American Faisal Saleh who, after over 40 years of entrepreneurial work, tuned his attention to managing the most ambi...

The Jerusalem Quarterly Dakkak Award winner Adey Almohsen in this episode takes us back to the Jerusalem of the 1960s when a generation of Palestinians who experienced the Nakba began to consider how to elaborate this tragic event through literature and poetry. His award winning essay which will be published in the Jerusalem Quarterly looks at the al-Ufuq al-Jadid magazine...

In this episode the new director of Emek Shaveh Alon Arad tells about their activities and tours around Jerusalem, Palestine and Israel. Emek Shaveh is a NGO working to defend cultural heritage rights and to protect ancient sites as public assets that belong to members of all communities, faiths and peoples. Emek Shaveh objects to the fact that the ruins of the past have b...

In 1917 the Egypt Expeditionary Force led by General Edmund Allenby conquered Southern Palestine, Jerusalem and later in 1918 Northern Palestine. In this episode, Professor Matthew Hughes tells us about the British army in Palestine, its strategies against the Ottomans and tells us more about Allenby himself. The conquest of Palestine and Jerusalem occurred as part of the...

Steven Wagner, historian of intelligence and security, tells us about the little known history of British intelligence in Palestine during the British Mandate. His work looks at how the British created a state based on intelligence and control where Jerusalem was at the center of the political drama that unfolded between 1918 and 1948. We also discussed several interesting...

The lives of this trailblazing dynasty of royal women, and the crusading Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine, are the focus of Katherine Pangonis's book. In  QUEENS OF JERUSALEM we explored the role women played in the governing of the Middle East during periods of intense instability, and how they persevered to rule and seize greater power for themselves when the opportunity prese...

Karene Sanchez is an expert of so many fields in the history of Jerusalem and Palestine that it is hard to summarize our discussion. As usual we started with a chat on how Karene has come to work on Palestine and Jerusalem and from there we explored the question of languages spoken in the region, the local Christian communities, particularly the Catholics, both Latins and...

In this episode Andrew Lawler presents his new book: Under Jerusalem. In 1863, a French senator arrived in Jerusalem hoping to unearth relics  dating to biblical times. Digging deep underground, he discovered an ancient grave that, he claimed, belonged to an Old Testament queen. News of his find ricocheted around the world, evoking awe and envy alike, and inspiring others to ex...

In this episode Dr Sarah Irving tells us about her work on Palestinian history that started first with activism and then continued in the academic world. In the first part of this episode we discussed the question of translation as a profession embraced by a number of liminal figures but also the political strings attached to the act of translating volumes from and to Engl...

Children are the often neglected population of every city, they are invisible, they leave very little records and unless of tragic events once children are adults their youth is forgotten. Julia Shatz tells us about her work trying to bring back to life the children of Jerusalem during the British Mandate. Most of the material is to be found in the American Colony archives...

The opening of season 3 is dedicated to the history and legacy of Islamic Jerusalem with Professor Suleiman Mourad. What does it mean Islamic? How did Jerusalem become an Islamic city and how was the city transformed after the 9th century conquest by Muslim armies? With Suleiman we discussed these questions but more importantly we looked at how the various historical layer...

In the last episode of season 2, Abigail Jacobson, Senior Lecturer at the Hebrew University, shares with us the view of the city from Mount Scopus. The Hebrew University has in the last decade or so diversified its student population, yet the various communities may not necessarily coming together and the only experience is of sharing the same space. Abigail, the author of...

The Nabi Musa festival dates back centuries, an Islamic celebration of the Prophet Moses that started at the end of the Crusader period. While the festival was abolished by the British during the Mandate it had been revived later under the Jordanians and more recently under the umbrella of the Palestinian Authority. The festival is deeply connected with Nabi Musa, the alle...

In this special episode of Jerusalem Unplugged with no guest, I will tell you the story of a neglected and forgotten event that took place during the First World War in Jerusalem and might have changed the course of the city's history. In 1916 the Ottoman Military Governor and Commander of Syria and Palestine, Cemal Pasha, offered to Albert Antebi, a local Jewish represent...

McLean, Ashbee and Geddes may not be household names for many in Jerusalem and those who are in various way interested in, or attached to the city.  Yet, these British urban planners had a major influence in the development of Jerusalem and its design since the British conquered the city in December 1917. Dr. Noah Hysler Rubin, an urban planner and geographer at Bezalel Ac...

The Palestine Exploration Fund is a familiar name to many who work or visited Jerusalem. While the general sense is that it was a branch of British colonialism in the region, its origin and institutional life are not necessarily located within the machinations of the British government. The PEF was born in the late 19th century with the idea to promote the scientific disco...

Matthew Teller, writer, documentary maker and BBC Radio contributor, tells us about his personal journey and experience in Jerusalem and of Jerusalem. Matthew has recently finished a new book on the city and he talks about it with us: Nine Quarters or Jerusalem. 'Jerusalem is under intense pressure. Stories from its Indian and West African communities, its Dom Gypsies, its&nbsp...

How many people would know that there was a Greek Jerusalem? In fact there is still a Greek Jerusalem buried in the multilayered society of the city. Kostantinos Papasthatis brings back the history and politics of this neglected but crucial community in the city. Starting the discussion with an overview of the Greek Orthodox Church in Jerusalem and its structure - a Greek...

Nadi Abusaada, architect, urbanist and historian, discussed the role of British urban planning for Jerusalem in the early 1920s, particularly the work of Charles Ashbee. Architecture and urban planning are more than just an exercise in beautification or urbanization of space in Jerusalem, it is a question of ethno-politics. We then discussed the Arab Fair that took place i...

In the first episode of 2022, Professor Menachem Klein, author of the acclaimed book 'Lives in Common', takes us through the changing politics of Jerusalem since the 1990s. Prof. Klein has been involved in several rounds of peace talks offering his expertise and knowledge about Jerusalem. While currently, peace seems to be far away, Klein has been writing extensively on th...

Jerusalem, Palestine and Israel have been built with cement, a material that carries an important and heavy socio-political history. In this episode Nimrod Ben Zeev tells about this material and its use in Palestine and how cement has become a central component in the ongoing conflict. We also discussed the question of racialization of construction work particularly in Isr...

In this third installment of the Jerusalem's Old Past series, Dr Valentina Covaci takes us back to medieval Jerusalem, mostly in the period when the city was under Mamluk rule. We first discussed what medieval Jerusalem means in terms of chronology and of local inhabitants and how the demographic picture changed throughout the medieval centuries. We then moved to discuss F...

In this episode Maria Chiara Rioli, author of the wonderful work A Liminal Church, Refugees, Conversions and the Latin Diocese of Jerusalem 1946-1956 (Brill), tells us about her personal path that brought her to work in Jerusalem and later to work on Jerusalem. We discussed her work with the Open Jerusalem project and the question of archives and what archives mean for Jer...