The Bethlehem University Oral History Project

The Bethlehem University Oral History Project is part of the Planet Bethlehem Archive. The project consists of digitised versions of tapes and CDs recorded by undergraduate students at Bethlehem University during the period 1992-2008. The original project was led by Dr Adnan Musallam, Chair of the Department of Humanities at Bethlehem University. Dr Musallam encouraged students to interview elderly individuals in Bethlehem and across the West Bank about their recollections of major events in Palestinian. The resulting interviews include recollections of the late Ottoman period, World War I, the Nakba of 1948, the 1967 War and the First Intifada. The interviews were conducted in Arabic and were usually supplemented by a transcript and/or written description (also in Arabic) of the interview. ______________________________________________________________________ The Planet Bethlehem Archive team has selected for digitisation all of the interviews that cover the late Ottoman and early British Mandate periods, focusing only on those interviewees who lived in the Bethlehem area during that time. The complete collection of original tapes and CDs is housed at Bethlehem University. ______________________________________________________________________ The project is divided into two collections (click on the links below to explore each collection): ______________________________________________________________________ 1. The Ottoman Empire and World War I ______________________________________________________________________ 2.The 1920 Great Snow & the 1927 Earthquake.