A Cry For God – Adel Bseiso
About The Song I saw a horrific video of a Palestinian man who was on his knees holding his dead child in his arms, holding him or her up to the sky, crying hysterically, with the haunting sound that sounded like his soul was in deep pain. It sent shivers down my spine and tears down my face as he was pleading shouting, and crying, "Where are you God?" This Palestinian man lost his entire family. All 8 members, of which 3 were babies 2-3-5 years old, and his mother, father, sister, brother, sons, and daughters. One of many Palestinians to lose everything including their families, while the world watches this horrific genocide and they do nothing. I
Introduction
Streaming Audio Interview Transcript Ron Stockton: Greetings everyone. This is Ron Stockton. I’m a retired professor of political science from the University of Michigan Dearborn. I want to tell you about an amazing and unique project involving Palestinian history. In 2021, my former student, Amine Zreik, contacted me and suggested that I meet Mr. Adel Bseiso. Adel was in possession of scores of deeds and proof of purchase agreements to property his family owned in pre-state Palestine, the area of what is today Beersheba. He was hoping to figure out a way to make this amazing treasure of data available to the public. The three of us later met several times by Zoom and worked on
Family History
Streaming Audio Interview Transcript Ron Stockton: Hello everyone, this is Ron Stockton once again. This is the second of three interviews on this amazing archive project. This time we will interview Mr. Adel Bseiso, the creator of this archive. We will focus on his family and upon himself. The third interview will focus on the archive. Mr. Bseiso, are you ready to start? Adel Bseiso: I am sir, good morning to you. Ron Stockton: Good morning. Tell me about yourself. Where were you born, what is your occupation, your education? Adel Bseiso: Thank you sir. I was born in Al-Bireh, Palestine, also known as Birra, a suburbs of Ramallah. My occupation is entrepreneur businessman. My disciplines
Archive Overview
Transcript Ron Stockton: This is Ron Stockton. I’m here with Adel Bseiso. We’re discussing the Bseiso Family Archive at Columbia University. It is available online to any person anywhere in the world. I think the potential of this archive for students, researchers, historians, and just regular people interested in Palestinian history is enormous. You told me about this collection of documents in our last conversation. How your grandfather built up a vast economy in the Beersheba area. He fled with these documents when the Jewish forces arrived in 1948. He hid the documents in the clothing of his children, assuming they were less likely to be searched. Now, you are the family custodian of that remarkable
From the Translator
Working on the Bseiso family documents provided us with an exceptional opportunity to access this set of well-preserved archives from an often-overlooked place and time in Mandatory Palestine. The archive is in an excellent state of preservation despite its history and journey. The fact that it is now being presented to the world should be of interest to students of politics, history, sociology, and many more fields. The archive represents a snapshot of the socioeconomics of Beersheba pre-1948 and presents to the reader the changing administrative hands over southern Palestine, from the Ottoman, to the British, and finally to the Israeli. For us, we found great pleasure in working with the legal terminology and conventions used in the contracts
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