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Exploring Your Personal and Cultural Identity
Through Family History and Genealogy
By Leyla Zuaiter
July 2005
July 9, 2005
On five
days between June 14 and June 28, some 20
members of AEI’s Women’s Group attended my
workshop entitled, “Exploring Your Personal and
Cultural Identity through Family History and
Genealogy.” My challenge was to make the
workshop interesting, informative and relevant
enough for the women to feel that foregoing
their slower summer pace was worth it—a tall
order for 15 hours with a group of unknown
women.
How to convey
the excitement, the eternal state of pleasant
anticipation, the greater than average number of
surprises, adventures, mysteries, coincidences,
connections and intrigue which I had enjoyed
during my eight years of family history
research?
How
to prove my contention
that family
history was
like
a giant puzzle, a treasure hunt and a detective
story rolled into one?
 The
answer was to design the course as just that—a
giant puzzle, treasure hunt and detective story
rolled into one-- in the hopes that the women
would experience some of the excitement for
themselves. Yet equally important was to open
their eyes to the importance of family history,
genealogy, and heritage in general to the
Palestinian cause itself.
One
only had to look to the real and perceived
differences between the Palestinians of ’48 and
’67 to see how rapidly and insidiously
externally-imposed labels and barriers were
being internalized by Palestinians themselves.
How would Palestinians come to categorize
themselves in the light of ever-increasing
fragmentation on the ground? How soon would the
very concept of “Palestinian” start to erode?
Palestine was too broad an area to wrestle with
in such a short time-frame, however, so I
decided to focus on just the local level, which
happened to be Bethlehem. I was fortunate in
that woven into the well-known political and
religious history of Bethlehem, was the
little-known but fascinating history of its
families.
I
started by showing the women a few samples of
the documents, photographs, books, letters,
articles, and artefacts about my own family that
I had amassed in only eight years, including a
tree tracing one of my lines to about 1600.
Having demonstrated that given enough
determination, one could collect more than one
could ever imagine, I shifted the focus to them.
 “Who
are you?” I challenged them, as a prelude to
exploring the factors in identity formation.
“Can you prove who you are?” was the next
question, a crucial one, for family historians
anywhere, but most especially here, where not
only the right of Palestinians to exist, but
also the very fact their existence was
constantly questioned. A few shock tactics were
in order, I thought. To shake the women’s
complacency, I whipped out a “poster” I had made
labelling dinosaurs with the names of the
extinct families of Bethlehem—those families all
of whose members are now found in Chile or
elsewhere—on an imaginary but terrifying map.
The
Bethlehem Jeopardy game challenged participants
to identify what they already knew about their
families and communities-- not an abstract,
academic exercise in view of the presence of
many current Bethlehem families in the area for
centuries. Now it was time for an introduction
to the principal tools, strategies and
techniques for filling in the gaps in their
knowledge.
The
first step was the exploration of community
resources. Armed with photos, lists of
questions, and a mission, they engaged in the
treasure hunt I had prepared for them. With each
institution they visited and guest speaker they
heard, their level of interest in the subject
increased palpably. It was clear they were
making new discoveries about themselves, their
families, their neighbours and even their fellow
workshop participants. By the end of the
workshop, I felt certain that some of them at
least, would be moved to read some of the
written resources to which their attention had
been called.
 Perhaps
most satisfying was the discovery of one of the
women whose work commitments prevented her from
attending the workshop. Since I had first
introduced the topic, she recounted later, she
had started thinking about it and talking to
members of her family. They mentioned two
brothers who gone down on the Titanic bound for
Chile. In an illustration of the routine
co-incidences which I mentioned above, her words
called to mind the fact that I had just read
that many Arabs had been on board the Titanic—79
documented cases—but probably many more. How
exciting it was to go back to find the source*
to offer some confirmation, if not proof, for
her family story!
In preparing and
implementing the workshop, I was fortunate in
the generous help offered by numerous members of
the Bethlehem community. They unselfishly shared
their knowledge, offered advice, allowed me
access to their institutions, provided written
materials, and allowed me to take photographs
for use in the course. Some agreed to host the
participants at their institutions or serve as
guest speakers. Although various constraints
prevented me from availing myself of all of the
kind offers, their generosity and its enrichment
of the workshop, is a testimony to the power of
family history and genealogy to strengthen
community ties. I am sure that the workshop
participants will return to them in their
new-found quest, as will I, as AEI develops the
next phase of its Family History and Genealogy
Project.
* Ray Hanania,“The Titanic Arab Tale (1912)” in
Arab-American Almanac, 5th Edition,
Joseph Haiek Editor, News Circle Publishing
House; Glendale, CA. USA (p 27).
Acknowledgements
for Workshop
For the women's experience on one of the
fieldtrips, click here. This article
appeared in the November 2005 Issue of This Week
in Palestine.
To find out more, contact AEI at Tel:02-274
4030, fax 02-277 7554,
email: aei@p-ol.com.
Leyla Zuaiter conducted a workshop entitled
"Exploring Personal and Cultural Identity
through Family History and Genealogy" to a
women's group at AEI's School of Communication. |
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