Features / Palestine Museum
Commemorating the history of a single Palestinian village
Alissar Amali, a second-generation Palestinian, is one of 35 volunteers who run the Palestine Museum & Cultural Centre.
Founded on Broad Street in 2013, the museum’s patron is celebrated Israeli academic Professor Ilan Pappé, who co-wrote a book about Palestine with Noam Chomsky.
Alissar’s family fled to Syria via Lebanon after the Nakba, or “Catastrophe”, which saw Palestinians forced from their homes and lands by Zionist settlers.
is needed now More than ever
Alissar Amali (left) with fellow Palestine Museum volunteer Helen
She recalls how her father, after being evacuated, crossed the border from southern Lebanon back to Palestine on the back of a donkey under the cover of night to clandestinely collect more of his own belongings from the home he had lost.
Later bussed as a refugee to Syria, he then endured such poverty that he had just one shirt, which he swapped for his brother’s on his wedding night.
Alissar was born in northern Syria, although many of her relatives lived in Yarmouk refugee camp, the largest Palestinian camp in existence.
However, the current conflict that began six years ago forced most of her family to uproot once more.
Alissar had come to Bristol in 2009, before the conflict in Syria, and became involved with the Palestine Museum’s activities, driven by that universally Palestinian duty of keeping the story of their country alive.
On Sunday, May 14, Alissar is organising an event at the museum to commemorate the Nakba.
The special event will be held in the context of the village of her forefathers, Al Ja’una in the Upper Galilee on the eastern slopes of Mount Kna’an, which is now know by its new Israeli name of Rosh Pina.
Alissar wants the event to focus on the stories of a few, rather than many, of those affected. “Individuals are forgotten and disappear into the collective catastrophe,” she explains.
As such, the day will include personal touches like a Skype call with her cousin who had previously visited the village itself in 1984, and an actor reading the memoirs of a villager who recently passed away.
The event will run from 3.30pm on Sunday, May 14. Entry is free of charge (donations welcome) and includes Palestinian tea and light refreshments.
For more information, visit www.palmuseumbristol.org/index.php/events/eventdetail/11/-/nakba-commemoration
Read more: Banksy opens a hotel in Bethlehem
Our top newsletters emailed directly to you
