Paul Calvert spoke with Julia Michelle Dabdoub from the Arab Women's Union about their museum, an archaeological find and how they have helped local families for over 60 years.

Julia Dabdoub

Bethlehem Arab Women's Union is a charitable, social and cultural society, founded in 1947 in Bethlehem. Its first mission was to support needy Palestinian women by providing them with jobs and so enabling them to have a decent life.

They currently offer promotion and support of local handicrafts, promotion and support of Palestinian folklore and culinary tradition and help for needy women and children.

Paul Calvert spoke with Julia Michelle Dabdoub from the Arab Women's Union about the history of the Palestinian people, the Union and the museum. The museum was launched in April 2015. Sadly Julia didn't live to see the dream of the Arab Woman's Union to open a museum become a reality.

Paul: What sort of activities do you do here?

Julia: We started in 1947 as a first aid centre. It was the war of Palestine and after the war was over we started by helping the refugees and feeding the children mostly. We had 20 years of having 500 children every day from 10am till 1pm. They were all ages, from 10 months to five years. This was one of the big projects. After times got better we started helping students and school children financially. We also had a doctor coming to visit the sick for free. We started making cultural activities and we always did special donations to help the children on the feasts of Christmas and Ramadan. We used to make them a party and gave 200 children clothes, toys and sweets every year.

Paul: Were there many refugees in 1947/48?

Julia: The three camps are still there today. They did not move. The people, the refugees that came are helped by UNRRA, but they stayed because the United Nations has agreed of the return. This is why they stayed, with the encouragement and help of the UNRRA and others that they have the right to come back to their land. This is the big problem now, because their land is no more found. I don't know if they have their documents. They want to come back and so we have to solve this problem, because if we don't solve it, the problem will continue.

Paul: What was the mood and the feeling like in 1948 when all of this happened?

Julia: When something happens that you never expected, you don't know what was going on, so we thought it was a question of a few days. Many people left their homes in Jerusalem and Jaffa because there was shooting and problems. They thought that they would come back. They just took things like they were going on holiday, or only a weekend. They just took the necessities of clothes and closed their houses and left and they never came back.

Paul: Was it a surprise to the people here that Israel became a nation?

Julia: Surprise? It was unbelievable that they became a nation. In our own land we were nobody. The command was that we were an ethnic group; we were never anybody. I don't know, I cannot explain to you. It's very hard. Even I know many Jewish writers and many Jewish people who don't like this idea. They write and they criticize. You know we were two people who lived very well together and I was married already in 1946. I know very well Jerusalem and Jaffa and Tel Aviv. I knew some Jewish people and we were doing very well. We should have continued together to be in this country and not one to eliminate the other. We still, when we meet a Jewish person, we feel we have something in common and we don't hate them as Jews. We have nothing against them except for the political side.

Paul: Here at the centre you have embroidery. Embroidery is important and I can see some beautiful embroidery. When was the embroidery project started and why was it started?

Julia: We started in 1967. After the war we felt that we really lost everything. The only thing we kept is our tradition and our culture, so we started re-copying what was already done by our people. This is how we started this museum. It's because we wanted to keep for our children and grandchildren, our history, our belonging, our tradition and our identity.

Paul: You obviously have women coming here to work on the embroidery. Do they work in their homes, or in a factory? How do they do this?