Encounter with a Lost Land

Synopsis

French citizens who lived in Palestine from the 1920s recall life before 1948 through previously unseen personal and diplomatic archives.

Drawing on private and consular correspondences, rare audio-visual records, newspapers, diaries, and first-hand testimonies, Maryse Gargour (The Land Speaks Arabic, 2007) delivers a rich portrait of the cultural and social life of Mandate Palestine as experienced by French nationals – the sons and daughters of diplomats, priests, surgeons, and traders who lived in Palestine between the 1920s and 1950s. These rarely heard testimonies provide a unique perspective on cosmopolitan life in the wealthy urban centres of Jaffa, Jerusalem, and Bethlehem during the colonial era.