The culture archive
The people, not the headlines
Palestine is a kitchen, an embroidery hoop, a wedding line of dabke, a city with four thousand years on the clock. This archive keeps those things where they belong: in the present tense.
Food and the table
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Cookbooks worth your shelf
The Gaza Kitchen and The Palestinian Table: two books that document the home cooking.
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Jaffa oranges
The Shamouti orange that put Jaffa's name on grocery crates from Britain to Australia.
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Knafeh nabulsih
Nablus's sweet: brined cheese under orange pastry and syrup, sold by the tray from shopfront pans.
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Maqluba
Rice, eggplant, and meat layered in a pot and flipped at the table. The name means upside down.
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Musakhan
Sumac chicken on taboon bread, eaten by hand from a shared platter. The dish most often called Palestine's national table.
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Olives and olive oil
Nearly half of Palestine's cultivated land is olive groves. The oil is food, medicine, and inheritance at once.
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The Gaza table
Maftoul, sumagiya, dagga, and fish from the only Palestinian coast. Gaza cooks differently, and the dill proves it.
Craft and making
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Hebron glass and ceramics
Blue-tinted vessels blown from recycled scrap, from one of the oldest workshops in the city.
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The keffiyeh
Fishnet, olive leaf, and comb: the black-and-white scarf that became the world's shorthand for Palestine.
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Nablus soap
Cubes of pure olive-oil soap, stamped by hand and stacked in towers to cure, made since roughly the 10th century.
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Bethlehem olive-wood carving
Rosaries and boxes carved from pruned local wood, a trade fed by pilgrims for centuries.
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Tatreez
Cross-stitch that used to name your village. UNESCO-listed in 2021, and now a flag you can sew.
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Traditional dress
Every district dressed differently before 1948. The thobe read like a dialect of place.
Music and dance
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Dabke
Linked arms, stamping feet, and a lawweeh calling the steps. UNESCO-listed in 2023.
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Mohammed Assaf
The wedding singer from Khan Younis camp who won Arab Idol in 2013, and the night Gaza celebrated.
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The oud
The fretless lute at the centre of Arabic music, and the Joubran brothers who carried it to the concert halls.
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Voices of Palestine
Rim Banna, Reem Kelani, Amal Murkus, and DAM: four ways the songs travel.
Poetry and stories
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Fadwa Tuqan
Nablus's poet, the Grandmother of Arabic poetry, who wrote love first and occupation after.
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Ghassan Kanafani
The novelist of exile, author of Men in the Sun and Return to Haifa, killed in Beirut in 1972.
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Mahmoud Darwish
The national poet, displaced in 1948 at seven years old, whose lines are quotable in every Palestinian home.
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Najwan Darwish
Jerusalem's poet, editor of a major Arabic publishing house, writing defeat and endurance without decoration.
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Refaat Alareer
Gaza's professor of literature, whose six-line poem 'If I Must Die' circled the world after he was killed in December 2023.
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Samih al-Qasim
Short, cutting verses people carry in their heads. The Galilee's poet of everyday defiance.
Celebrations and the year
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A Palestinian wedding
Henna night for the bride, a drumming zaffa procession, and dabke until very late.
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Land Day
30 March, for the six killed in 1976 protesting land expropriation, and marked every year since.
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Nakba Day
15 May, for the 1948 displacement of some 750,000 people. The keys to lost houses are still kept, and worn.
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The olive harvest
Every October and November, families climb their groves together. A social season as much as an agricultural one.
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Ramadan in Gaza
Lanterns in the lanes, the musaharati's drum before dawn, and qatayef for dessert.
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The two Eids
New clothes, ka'ek cookies, and eidiya money for the children. Both days are measured by how full the houses are.
Places and cities
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Acre (Akka)
Crusader halls under a living old town, a fishing harbour, and hummus people drive across the country for.
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Bethlehem (Bayt Lahm)
Manger Square, the Church of the Nativity, olive-wood workshops, and tatreez heartland.
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Gaza City
'Azza, the strong: a historic port with a fifth-century church, the Great Omari Mosque, and the sea at the end of every street.
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Haifa
Steep Carmel slopes, the markets of Wadi Nisnas, and a byword for mixed city life.
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Hebron (Al-Khalil)
The Ibrahimi Mosque, glassblowers' kilns, and a UNESCO-listed Old Town with settlements above the market.
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Jaffa (Yafa)
The ancient port of fishermen and oranges, clock towers and sea-wall cafes.
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Jericho (Ariha)
Tell es-Sultan, among the world's oldest towns, and date palms below sea level.
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Khan Younis
A Mamluk caravanserai grown into a southern market town, and Mohammed Assaf's hometown.
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Jerusalem (Al-Quds)
The Old City's lanes, the Dome of the Rock, and the city every Palestinian poem argues with.
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Nablus
Knafeh steam, soap factories, Roman columns, and an Old City that has survived earthquake and siege.
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Nazareth (An-Nasira)
The Basilica of the Annunciation above the largest Arab city in Israel.
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Rafah
The southernmost town in Gaza and its border crossing, heir to ancient Rafia on the road to Egypt.
Language
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The hikaye
Winter-evening storytelling, carried mostly by older women, inscribed by UNESCO in 2008.
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Palestinian Arabic
A Levantine dialect with a b- prefix on the present tense, three registers, and poetry in daily use.