From Jerusalem to a Kingdom by the Sea

First published 2021

by Zuleika Books & Publishing

Thomas House, 84 Eccleston Square

London, SW1V 1PX

Copyright © 2021 Adel Dajani

The right of Adel Dajani to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Cover based on a design by Rakan Dajani

Typeset by Euan Monaghan

To Awni, Salma and Mawlati, the inspiration for the journey and to all the family cast, the constellations during it.

1

Roots

Jaffa, Palestine, January 1948

According to my maternal grandmother Faika Husseini Dajani, the sound of gunfire and explosions in Jaffa in the last years of the British mandate over Palestine was becoming frighteningly common. The explosion from the recent truck bomb outside the three-storey Serrani, Jaffa’s Ottoman town hall in which fourteen Palestinians were killed on the 5th January 1948, shattered the calm of Faika’s manicured gardens. The writing was on the wall.

Palestine had been under the British Mandate since 1920, part of the spoils of the Allied winners of World War One. As a result of a series of conflicting promises made by the British colonial powers, it was open season between the indigenous Arab population of Palestine and the new wave of European Jewish immigrants who claimed the land.

As a young widow with a tribe of six children, my grandmother’s main concern was the safety of her family. Faika was a handsome aristocratic matriarch, a disciplinarian to her six children that reminded me of a female version of Captain Georg von Trapp in The Sound of Music. The furrows etched in her face had deepened since the untimely death in 1940 of her surgeon husband Dr Fouad Dajani, who founded Palestine’s first private hospital in Jaffa in 1933. He was only fifty and died from an infection during surgery. The burden of overseeing the hospital and keeping up the standards for her brood fell on her shoulders.

Her firstborn, my mother Salma, a beautiful and mischievous brunette, who as a child would dress up in surgical whites and pretend to be a doctor like the father she adored, married Awni, my father and a distant Dajani relative in 1942. The wedding took place in the gardens of the imposing Bauhaus-inspired family villa in Jaffa, adjacent to the Dajani hospital. Awni, a lawyer like his father, Aziz, before him, was a graduate of Oxbridge and the Middle Temple and had recently opened his own law practice in Jaffa. Times were good for both sides of the family. But, with the sound of gunfire and explosions rocketing the well-ordered calm of the Dajani family, Faika anxiously conferred with Awni and Salma, who was heavily pregnant with her second child.

The problem was that there was such a huge disparity in preparedness and strategy between both sides in the conflict. It was easy to understand why my family, like many other Palestinians, felt there was no one to protect them. According to my father, the bluster of the neighbouring Arab countries that they would safeguard the Palestinians was nothing more than hot air. The British had opened a Pandora’s box and decided it was just too difficult to manage the very expectations that they had created. They announced they would pack their bags and leave Palestine in 1947 – yet another notch in the colonial ‘divide and quit’ legacy. Palestinian families such as ours, supposedly secure in their own country, were left rudderless. After heated discussions, the family decided to go to Cairo, ‘for a short visit until things settle down’.

Before they left, Faika, being a meticulous lady who loved her precious carpets and objets d’art, cemented a staircase leading to the basement in which all the family’s prized possessions were put. She made sure to pack winter clothes for her children (no need for spring clothes as they would be back before the season changed), whilst calmly explaining the crisis to her elderly Turkish mother Tata Faik, in their secret language (Turkish), so that her children would not understand and panic. Tata Faik had pale eyes, long blonde plaited pigtails and spoke in broken Arabic. She had been married to the flamboyant mayor of Gaza, Fahmi al-Husseini, but was divorced when it was clear she could not bear him any male heirs after Faika, their firstborn.

Together with my three-year-old sister Abir, the family anxiously huddled onto a plane that was to take them from nearby Lydd Airport to Cairo. My aunt Najwa – Faika’s third child, who was thirteen years old at the time – still vividly recalls the trip to the airport when all of a sudden it dawned on her that she had left her favourite childhood doll in her bedroom. All her screams to retrieve the doll were to no avail. There was no time to lose.

In Cairo on the 28th of January 1948 my mother gave birth to my brother Aziz. On the 14th of May 1948 the State of Israel was established, and the invasion of the Arab armies turned out to be what Awni had predicted – all bluster and fury leading to naught.

The penny slowly dropped for Faika, Awni and Salma that this wasn’t going to be a pleasant winter holiday break in Egypt. The ‘short visit’ would turn into a lifetime of wandering. Back in their homeland, the cemented basement in the house in Jaffa was discovered, the guardian who had been entrusted the house for safekeeping killed and the substantial properties that both sides of the family owned became worthless pieces of paper that were expropriated by the newly established Israeli State under an Absentee Property Act.

The umbilical connection with a country which was the Dajanis’ home for almost a thousand years was cut, and at a stroke, the family had lost most of its possessions, identity and the dignity of belonging. A whole people became refugees, many with nothing apart from the keys to their houses.

The genesis for the Nakba (‘the catastrophe’ in Arabic) in 1948 was partly seeded by a seemingly innocent and innocuous letter sent by Arthur James Balfour, Britain’s Conservative Foreign Secretary in his letter to Lord Rothschild on a wintery 2nd of November 1917.

His Majesty’s Government views with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.

Balfour explained his actions to the Prime Minister Lloyd George: ‘If the existing population were consulted, they would unquestionably return an anti-Zionist verdict.’ In reply to a letter from Lord Curzon, he wrote:

In Palestine we do not propose even to go through the form of consulting the wishes of the present inhabitants of the country… The Four Great Powers are committed to Zionism. And Zionism, be it right or wrong, good or bad, is rooted in age-long traditions, in present needs, in future hopes, of far profounder import than the desires and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who now inhabit that ancient land.

Our family was part of the population of 700,000 that were described by Lord Balfour as ‘the non-Jewish inhabitants’ of Palestine.

The consequences of the acts of politicians on the life of the ordinary citizen is a theme close to my heart which has a particularly strong resonance in our Brexit times. That piece of paper and declaration in 1917 of just sixty-seven words set in motion events over which the Palestinians had no control, and which changed the course of my family’s life and that of all Palestinians.

25 December 1915, Jerusalem

Two years before the Balfour Declaration, on the 25th of December 1915, my father Awni was born in Jerusalem. We had teased him that had he been born in nearby Bethlehem on that day then he would have had competition from another well-known Palestinian.

In 1915, the Dajani family was well entrenched in Palestinian society. Awni’s father Aziz was a famous judge in the country, and the Dajanis were one of the notable patrician families of Jerusalem rooted in this unique town for generations. The family had its own newspaper and football team that competed in national Palestinian football leagues. Just imagine the cool brownie points of having your own family football team when asked which team you support.

Awni was the eldest of three siblings, fair-skinned with dark hair, unlike his blue-eyed and blonde sister, Hind, and his brother, Jawad. Their childhood in Palestine surrounded by the ancient stones of Jerusalem, the orange groves of Jaffa, the date palms of Jericho and Lake Tiberias was an idyllic one. The epicentre of life was family, and the family home was in a cluster of Dajani houses in the heart of Jerusalem around the Nabi Daoud or the Prophet David’s tomb.

Awni’s father Judge Aziz was a pillar of the Palestinian community. Laconic in the way of most Jerusalemites with a reputation as a wise, incorruptible Solomon, he was known for his arbitration on land disputes within his constituency. In particular, his sense of fairness was appreciated by the minority Druze and Baha’i communities in Palestine, and the founder of the Baha’i faith – who is buried in a mausoleum on Mount Carmel in Haifa – was a close client and friend.

My grandfather also had an uncanny nose for property and in many cases where the claimants could not pay legal fees, he would accept land as a success fee. He was famous in the country for the many pro-bono cases he would take up as an obligation to the community he served, thus instilling in his children a strong sense of res publica.

My paternal grandmother, Aziz’s wife, Kowkab Sukar, was a modest and unassuming lady living in the oriental shadow of the patriarch, although behind this façade there was a strong mettle.

The family had a strong sense of place, and this historic connection with Jerusalem rooted the Dajanis and reinforced their sense of belonging and identity. History and heritage were a living parts of their existence as a family, and Awni was brought up by his father on stories of our ancestors. His favourite – which he would recount to us with a twinkle in his eye – was about how the Dajanis had become the custodians of the Tomb of David, the prophet of the Jews, Moslems and Christians. Perhaps it was lore but Awni clearly enjoyed recounting the tale.

It had all begun in the 1500s when one of our ancestors, a Sufi mystical leader called Sheikh Ahmad met Roxelana, the favourite wife of Sultan Suleiman who ruled over the vast Ottoman Empire from 1520 to 1566 and who was one of the most powerful men in the sixteenth century. He was known as Suleiman the Magnificent, or the Lawgiver (el Kakuni), famous both for his military achievements and his remarkable set of canonised legislation that would govern his 25 million subjects. His contemporaries were also a well-known bunch – Henry VIII, Ivan the Terrible of Russia, Charles V and Francis I. None could, however, shine a light on Suleiman’s official designation ‘Commander of the Faithful, Shadow of God on Earth, Protector of the Holy Cities of Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem, Lord of Lords of the World, East and West’!

Roxelana was a fascinating character, and my father would repeat what his father had told him about how she was born Aleksandra Lisowska in Rohatyn, in the Kingdom of Poland (now part of Ukraine) but had been captured by pirates and sold into slavery to the Ottoman court. With her beguiling looks and charm, she had managed to rise through the ranks of courtesans and wives to become the most powerful woman in the Empire – the ultimate femme de coeur and femme de tête. The relationship between Suleiman and Roxelana was a passionate love story with an effusive exchange of poetic declarations of unbridled love. Their words put to shame our contemporary expressions of courtship and one-liner emails.

Roxelana to Suleiman: ‘My soul, my sultan, sun of my state, treasure of my bliss, my heart burns with your absence. I beg of you to free me from this longing, this sea of waiting.’

Suleiman to Roxelana: ‘My sheer delight, my revelry, my feast, my torch, my sunshine, my sun in heaven, my orange, my pomegranate, the flaming candle that lights up my pavilion.’

Into this maelstrom of powerful and passionate personalities wandered our ancestor Sheikh Ahmad, a Sufi teacher. The lore continued with the first meeting between the Sultana and the Sheikh, who recounted his dream that he had been asked by the Prophet David to tend to his tomb in Jerusalem that had fallen into neglect. She was entranced by this pious man, and when the Sheikh pointed out to Roxelana that the Prophet David was mentioned several times in the Quran, she reacted with the religious zeal of many converts and was swayed: O David we have appointed you our Deputy on Earth and so rule the people with righteousness.

Her entreaties were heeded by the Sultan and in 1529 the custodianship of the Tomb was granted in an official firman or declaration from the Sultan to Al Sayyid Sheikh Ahmad al-Sharif and his descendants. The family was hereafter to be known as the Dajanis or the Daudis (‘Daud’ is David in Arabic) as an honorific emblem for the Moslem family entrusted with looking after the Tomb of the Prophet David.

Prophet David was recognised and revered by Jews, Moslems and Christians. Although not fashionable nowadays in the black-and-white sound bite of political correctness, these monotheistic religions had at least agreed on their prophets.

From that date onwards, the Dajani family had tended to the upkeep of the tomb and to the needs of pilgrims visiting it. The Quranic verses about the Prophet David were sewn into the family’s heraldic flag, which was hoisted on religious occasions.

In addition to this, the Cenacle – the Room of the Last Supper, which is considered a symbolic and significant holy site for Christianity in Jerusalem – was reputed to be located on an upper floor of King David’s Tomb and was also under the custodianship of the Dajani family.

There were more family legends, spanning centuries because the Dajani family’s direct uninterrupted connection with Jerusalem dated back to AD 637 when our ancestor Sheikh Al Mansi accompanied the Caliph Omar when he received the surrender of Jerusalem by the Patriarch Sophronius in April 637. My father used to joke that the Caliph Omar forgot to take Al Mansi back after his conquest of Jerusalem, hence his name, which means ‘forgotten one’ in Arabic.

It always amuses me when many of my English friends boast of their lineage and their family coat of arms with their signets on their pinkies. We have ours originally dating back to the seventh century and to the site of Jesus’s Last Supper – beat that if you can!

But this line was about to be broken. On the 11th of December 1917, when my father Awni was almost two, my grandparents witnessed General Allenby walking symbolically into Jerusalem’s Jaffa gate, reputedly proclaiming that the ‘wars of the crusades are now complete’. Prime Minister Lloyd George described the capture of Jerusalem as a ‘Christmas present for the British people’.

The first to be offered Jerusalem however was Private Murch, a British cook bivouacked in the north of the city who had been sent on the 9th of December by his commanding officer to the nearby village of Lifta to find some eggs for breakfast on what was a typically cold and nippy Jerusalem morning. The mayor of Jerusalem – who was a relative from another notable Jerusalem family, Hussein Salim al Husseini – was on horseback flying a white flag and offered to hand over the keys to the city to Private Murch. Astounded, Private Murch replied, ‘I don’t want yer city – I want some eggs for me officers!’

Two days later, Allenby’s entry into Jerusalem must have been perceived by my grandfather Judge Aziz Dajani as another blip in the collective family memory – another conqueror – another stone in the history of a city the Dajanis have called home for generations…

But it wasn’t just a blip: General Allenby’s entry into Jerusalem marked the end of the 400-year Ottoman era in Jerusalem. Although at the time, the family were blissfully ignorant, Allenby’s entry on that wintery day in December 1917, preceded by the Balfour Declaration a month earlier, would unleash events over the following thirty years that would sever this umbilical cord with both the city and the country.

I feel like going back in time and shouting – ‘guys, do you know what’s happening behind your backs’, especially when I look back at a black-and-white photo of my father Awni as a young man taken sometime in the 1930s in the family orange grove in Jaffa. He was wearing a straw hat, staring blissfully into space with no worries at all. Everything then was under control: money, status, family, prospects, innocence. I wish I could warn them to prepare for a massive upheaval – for a tsunami. But like all films where people go back in time with the benefit of hindsight, no one would have listened. You know that feeling when events are being crafted that you’re powerless to change or even influence – events that are cataclysmic but so subtle that you’re not even aware of their existence.

2

Crescendo

My father Awni and his siblings Hind and Jawad, however, were unaware of the black swans on the horizon and their childhood in Jerusalem continued on its even keel. They were brought up in a traditional and prosperous household where learning, knowledge and intellectual debate in the age-old Sufi tradition were lauded and encouraged as an indispensable emblem of a well-rounded education. In the tradition of many notable Palestinian families and in a social environment where the best education was proudly vaunted, many of the leading families in Palestine were educated in what my father would later jokingly describe as ‘colonial products of the British imperialism’. In Awni’s case, his first placement was at the St George’s Mutran School in Jerusalem. Founded in 1899 by the Anglican Church, it was located just outside the walls of the Old City. A quick walk from Nabi Daoud would take Awni into an Anglican boys prep school redolent with uniforms, chapels and teachers such as the Rev. Wilbert Awdry, the author of the famous Railway Series, featuring Thomas the Tank Engine. St George’s was the address for Jerusalem’s Christians and Moslems, and our family penchant for bellowing out hymns that has passed down three generations was probably first kindled there.

The Prophet Mohamad was reputed to pronounce in a hadith or holy saying, ‘Seek knowledge even if you have to go to China’ and also the less well known hadith that ‘the ink of the scholar is holier than the blood of the martyr’. Mindful of those teachings, the next step in the education of Awni after primary and secondary schooling in Jerusalem was university. And the best that the ‘blad al inglis’ (country of the English) could offer was Oxbridge and so it was to be. After one year at the multicultural American University