Jerusalem Unplugged

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 Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem, tells about the role these individuals played in re-imagining and planning the city once the British took over. Their legacy is particularly visible in the city outside the walls where they had been able to accommodate various ideas, their own, the desire of the British administrators and finally of the Zionists - local Arabs were essentially excluded from the process. With Dr Rubin, we then discussed the question of the Jerusalem Municipal Archives, a rather neglected, underfunded and hard to access institution that could provide invaluable material in order to write a more comprehensive history of modern Jerusalem. In the end Dr Rubin hopes that her work will help many to understand the various layers of Jerusalem and began to be more inclusive and remember those who have been excluded in the past.

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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 Islamic Sufi mystics, its Syriac and Armenian churches – all these and others are being overlooked. The women who shaped Jerusalem’s architectural legacy. The artists at work today. Tailors. Coffee-roasters. Social activists. Sellers of silk, books or onions. Jerusalem is not my city, but it’s a privilege for me to be able to amplify Jerusalemite voices, help them to be heard above the clamour.'

Matthew is writing a book of stories to help illuminate a walk – on foot, or in the mind – through the Old City of Jerusalem. The Nine Quarters of Jerusalem: A New Biography of the Old City, it uses individual voices from the communities who live – and have lived – inside Jerusalem’s walls to explore the city’s sense of itself, challenge prevailing narratives and paint a new, intimately personal picture of social and cultural diversity.

https://www.matthewteller.com/work/nine-quarters-of-jerusalem-a-new-biography-of-the-old-city/

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We open season 5 without any celebration. The current war on Gaza, the brutal killings of civilians perpetrated by Hamas and the equally brutal response by the State of Israel carpet-bombing Gaza indiscriminately and essentially pushing Palestinians towards a second Nakba could not be a good time to celebrate 100 episodes of Jerusalem Unplugged.

In this new release I talked to Noa Shaindlinger, author of an amazing book about post-Nakba Jaffa. She explores the ways in which Palestinians negotiate physical and symbolic erasures by producing their own archives and historical narratives. With a focus on the city of Jaffa and its displaced Palestinian population, Noa argues that the Israeli state ‘buried’ histories of mass expulsions and spatial appropriations. Based on a wide-variety of sources, this book brings together archival, literary, ethnographic and oral research to engage with ideas of settler colonialism and the production of history, violence and memory, refugee-hood and diaspora.

Before all of this we exchanged view about current events, a possibility for Jerusalem Unplugged to clarify its position.

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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 alleged tomb of Moses and developed through the centuries as a display of local Islamic and then civic identity of Palestine. In this episode Awad Alaby tells us everything about Nabi Musa and the festival, its origin, development and sadly its end. With Awad, we also discussed his family history and how important will be in the future to develop a strong family history of Palestine, a way of preserving Palestinian heritage and celebrate life. In the end we also discussed the question of the podcast as a public history tool, one that can discuss the complex history of Jerusalem and its people without making it simplistic.

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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 representative (well respected and openly anti-Zionist) the possibility to purchase the area in front of the Western Wall and to demolish the houses owned by the local Moroccans. In this podcast I will recount the story of the offer and the subsequent debates amongst the member of the Zionist organization. While the money to complete the purchase was collected, many in the Zionist camp were not so eager to move forward and eventually the combination of this factor with a change of mind by Cemal Pasha, the affair did not materialize. Zionist leaders swore to keep the story secret and the story did indeed remain buried in the archives for a long time. While the documents were available, no historian of Zionism ever reported this. It is hard to speculate 'what if' the Western Wall had been sold during the war, what would have happened may not have an easy answer, but if anything else this event tells us that there is a lot more we don't know.

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