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Bethlehem's
Traditional Holy Land Handicrafts and My Old
Bethlehem Home
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The Role of Women in Museum
Management
Julia Dabdoub
President of Arab Women’s Union,
Bethlehem
The description in this report
of the founding and of the running of “My Old
Bethlehem Home” provides an example of the role
of women in museum management.
My Old Bethlehem Home: a
successful women’s project
 After the
1967 Arab-Israeli War,
the Arab Women’s Union (a charitable society
whose Bethlehem branch was established in 1947)
started its Embroidery Centre. The purpose was
to provide jobs for the needy women. Jobs are
better than charity; they provide the woman with
an income as well as self-respect. Embroidery is
an area which most women are proficient in as
most of the Palestinian women’s traditional
clothes are embroidered, and there are a number
of villages and Bedoui women who still wear
traditional dresses. The project was successful;
we sold our products at local exhibitions and
the more we sold, the more job Opportunities
were created. Then we realized that it was
necessary to purchase traditional Bethlehem
clothes and copy the designs. This was the start
of our collection.
In 1970, the ladies of the
Women’s Union accepted my proposal which
suggested the restoration of the ground floor of
the Embroidery Centre in order to use it not
only to house our embroidery collection, but to
exhibit all kinds of items that represent our
cultural heritage; the site was ideal as the
house is located in the “Old City of Bethlehem”,
near the Church of Nativity, and is one of the
oldest types of architecture in the town.
The ladies took to the idea,
with great enthusiasm. The ground floor was
immediately restored, then the campaign with the
Bethlehem families was launched. We explained
our idea of starting a heritage museum to
preserve our history. We encouraged the families
to donate their traditional belongings to the
museum and we promised to exhibit each item with
the name of its donator. The response to the
campaign was spontaneous; old treasures were
unearthed (most of the items had been put away
in storerooms or left outside to rot as they
were considered old fashion).
It took us one year to establish
the museum; we called it “The Old Bethlehem
home”. The items are exhibited in five rooms:
the costumes and jewellery room, the living room,
the bedroom, the kitchen, and the taboun (the
traditional oven) which is located in the
courtyard. There arc some photographs and a few
items in the corridors. We have a good
collection of old photographs: we asked some
elderly people from Bethlehem who were able to
identify the people appearing on those
photographs to help us.
In 1983, the curator Anne Saurat
was in Palestine restoring the Islamic Museum in
Al-Aqsa Mosque. The French consul general at
that time, M. Jean Gueguinou. decided that Mrs
Saurat would help us to classify and organise
our collection. We also published a booklet
about the objects and the photographs in the
museum. Mrs Saurat wrote the text and Father
Claudio Barotto, a Franciscan Father, served as
consultant. A local translator translated the
booklet into Arabic.
In 1984, the “Old Bethlehem
Home” was extended. We bought an adjacent old
house and had it restored. The sum needed for
the restoration was donated by Mrs Leila Wilson
in memory of her husband who once served as the
American Consul in Jerusalem. This new house is
one of the few authentic old houses left in
Bethlehem. It might be similar to the house in
which Jesus was born. The ground floor “Al Rawya”
was the place where sheep and goats were kept.
On top of this room is “Al-Sala” or the
“all-purpose” room. This room was used as living
room, sitting room and bedroom. Saint Joseph
might have come to Bethlehem and stayed with
Mary in such a house; the Virgin would have thus
given birth to Jesus in “AlRaywa” since it was
the only private room. Both Father Vesco, and
Father Benoit of the French Archaeological
School in Jerusalem seem to support this
hypothesis. Father Benoit had already noticed
that the word “kataluma” which appeared in the
translation of St Jeromc means a “big room” and
not a “hotel”.
In 1992, I donated my fourty-year
collection of photographs, furniture and works
of art to furnish the tipper room or “Al Illiya”.
The room shows how the people of Bethlehem lived
between 1900-1932. I bought my collection either
from people who were leaving the country, or
from those who wanted “to get rid of their old
things”.
“The Old Bethlehem Home” is
visited by quite a number of tourists as well as
by local people. It is adverted In local
hotels. We have a full-time woman employee who
shows the visitors around.
We have tried to preserve some
of our heritage for our children and
grandchildren. We hope that other women will
benefit from our experience and replicate our
work.
BETHLEHEM,1347-1947:RICORDO DEL VI CENTENARIO
DELLA
STABILE RESIDENZA DEI PP. FRANCESCANI CUSTODE
DEL LUOGHI SANTI
IN BETLEMME,Jerusalem, 1947.
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