Palestinian identity encompasses the heritage of all ages from biblical times up to the Ottoman period.
In this article you can see the collection of beautiful photos from the beginning of the 20th century sharing the atmosphere of Palestinian land and its people that time. Palestinian Christians and Muslims constituted 90% of the population of Palestine in 1919. Famous professions among Palestinians of that time were: specialists in agriculture, traders, doctors, engineers, and artists. Palestine had a rich culture that is still respected today: beautiful hand-made embroidery, poetry, art, music, and cuisine. The city of Yaffa was a center of economic land in Palestine, it was a main producer of oranges to the world markets. Investment companies and transport companies worked in Yaffa. This town was also famous with production of crockery, ceramics, iron, textiles and pastry and more. There was a famous Palestinian family (Gargura) that exchanged 500 boxes of oranges on Mercedes car (see the photo). Later this family became the first agent of Mercedes in the Middle East.
The economic side of Yaffa also relied on the following businesses: companies specialized in import, export, land/sea transport, logistics, exchange and tourism sector services. There were 3 daily newspapers in Yaffa «Palestine», «Defense» и «Al-Shaab». These were also theaters and five cinemas: «Farouk», «Al-Shaqk», «Al Hamra», “Nabil” and “Rachid”. (Last two opened two years before Nakbe - beginning of ethical cleansing of Palestine “catastrophe”) Cinema Al Hamra was famous with its luxury interior - the walls were decorated with black Italian marble and the chairs were covered with the a high-quality velvet. Palestinian towns had a Levantine architecture with its own authentic touch. The population kept strong family traditions and loved to spend cozy cultural evenings in the local museums and theaters. Palestinian traditions are being kept and respected today - you can still see Palestinian women wearing national dress (Thobe) on a daily basis and a new generation of Palestinians implementing traditions in a modern way. In the last decades, Palestinian history was erased from many archives, now it starts to come up thanks to the private family archives. Photos from archives
