Halimeh’s Story 

قصة حليمة

2021

Halimeh Al Dajani along with her sister Ruqiya were the daughters of Sheikh Yussuf Al Dajani, the richest man in Beit Dajan, a village in Yaffa. In 1948 Beit Dajan inhabitants left in fear of an attack by Jewish forces nearby. Halimeh settled in Al Hussein Refugee camp in Amman. Back home, she was the center of a vivid social life in the village where she was also the fashion trendsetter for all the other women. She recalls the stories of her home back in Beit Dajan; her father’s generosity, the family’s white horse and their orange groves.

Many of us share similar stories that were inherited generation after generation that shaped our identity and its inherit revolutionary resistance. Beit Dajan became part of Israel and is named Beit Dagon, primarily inhabited by Yemeni and Ethiopian Jews while its indigenous people sought refuge around the world. Halimeh’s story of displacement is not for history, many stories have been written over the past 73 years till today with the apartheid state’s ongoing attempts of ethnic cleanses in Palestinian occupied territories of the West Bank and neighbourhoods like Silwan, Sheikh Jarrah and Beita.

Reading Halimeh’s story was not possible without Mrs. Widad Kawar’s decades long work in interviewing Palestinian women all over the region many of which can be found in her book, Threads of Identity. Mrs. Kawar has the biggest collection in the world for traditional thobes and garments holding over 3,000 pieces that are on display at Tiraz Centrewhich is a dedicated archive with important heritage and historical value, a space of remembrance and renewal.