A Jerusalem Family Room

The social life of the closely knit middle class families in Jerusalem before 1948 necessitated a communal space for families and friends to meet. The family room was a focal point  in their lives,   where during  traditional and personal family  occasions such as religious  feasts,  births,  wedding celebrations,  baptisms,  circumcisions  and  funerals, family members, neighbors,  friends and relatives would gather in this room  to celebrate  these occasions together. The family room reflected the social status and taste of the times, it also reflected the standing of Jerusalem - a multi cultural city, a city which embraced people from many different nationalities,  backgrounds,  traditions, historical and religious creeds. This social, ethnic and religious diversity had its mark on the way the Palestinian family decorated its living room or “Salon” between the turn of last century and the mid forties. The markets were also filled with an amalgam of goods and merchandise  brought to the Holy City from the different corners of the earth , thus making available a wide assortment of household items,  furniture, textiles, functional or decorative  objects etc. : in one room one could see  carpets from Persia or Turkey, inlaid cabinets and brass vessels  from Syria, European painted tableaux , locally manufactured wooden chairs, china plates, swords from Saudi Arabia,  silver cutlery from Iraq, French Bohemian glass,  Palestinian cross-stitched cushions and so on.  The overall formed a unique mixture, revealing through the things the Jerusalem people collected and used , the richness  and diversity of their lives.

Now and despite  the ongoing rupture of the social and political structure of the city, the Jerusalemites  still  share and cherish  their family’s  objects and things, as these  are mementoes  of  living traditions that for the most part  continue until this day.