Item: Personal Journal

Date: Around late 1890s

Origin: Yafa, Palestine

Original Owner: Issa Halabi

Current Keeper: Issa Raouf Halabi (Grandson)

Current Location: Issa Raouf Halabi's home in Amman, Jordan

Material: Paper, A5, clothbound, written in with black ink

Description: A dark brown clothbound notebook containing aged and browning paper, some separating from the spine. The corners have begun to curve and the lamination has separated from the surface.

Story: Issa Halabi was a pharmacist who lived and worked in Yafa in the late 1800's to early 1900's.

Mr. Halabi kept this journal/ notebook with him throughout the years, meticulously documenting events, as well as his thoughts, and memories. He wrote with black ink, making strokes in beautiful cursive writing, filling almost every page within it. The journal is now held close by his grandson, Issa Raouf Halabi at his home in Amman, Jordan, where it has place of honor as it rests on a beautiful damascene carved chest in the main hallway of the house.

Issa the grandson tries to preserve the time-worn pages, which with time have separated from the journal's inner spine. The lamination has also begun to wear out, ripping from the corners and unsticking from the material. Issa is hesitant to make any repairs to the journal, preferring to leave it as is.

Note: Raouf Halabi, the son of Issa the grandfather and father of Issa the grandson, was brutally murdered by Israeli forces in 1972 because he was one of the first landowners and farmers who returned to al-Shouneh al-Shamaliyyeh in the Jordanian Ghor to reclaim the land and cultivate it with citrus groves.