The Storyteller of Jerusalem: The Life and Times of Wasif Jawhariyyeh, 1904-1948
Wasif with his father, Jerusalem circa 1900
The Storyteller of Jerusalem, The Life and Times of Wasif Jawhariyyeh, 1904-1948 is the English language edition of Wasif Jawhariyyeh’s three volume memoirs, entitled Books I, II, and, III, accompanied by seven photographic albums. Scholars Salim Tamari and Issam Nassar edited the English version, reducing the original, handwritten, Arabic version into a single volume with special emphasis on Jawhariyyeh’s musical life. The author of the memoir, Wasif, is a Greek Orthodox Arab and Jerusalemite, born in 1897. He lives through the Ottoman and Mandate years in Jerusalem, where he both works as a fiscal manager at the Finance Department under the British Mandate Government, and also becomes a part of the music scene as a well-versed musician. These two aspects of his life are highlighted by Wasif in the prologue section of his memoir, as the main two realms of his life. It is through these realms that he got to witness “situations, surprises, and incidents” and documenting them was the main reason he felt compelled to write this memoir. In contrast to general assumptions about memoirs, and in contrast with Wasif’s stated goal of merely documenting what he had witnessed; I argue in this paper that behind this seemingly ‘passive’ position, Wasif tells the story of the gradual formation of his own artistic persona. Wasif’s memoir is comprised of three parts: the first two give vivid details of urban life in Jerusalem in the Ottoman era (1904 -1914), and the Mandate years (1917-1948), while the last, very brief part gives a glimpse of his life in Beirut as a refugee towards the end of 1960s.
First Part: The Ottoman Era, 1904-1914
Wasif starts telling his story chronologically, with minor shifts in time, beginning from his childhood in Jerusalem. His narrative is indeed very much like a collection of “situations, surprises, and incidents” as they are mostly put forth without much interpretation. He gives details of his family record, his house Dar al-Jawhariyyeh, his parents - with an emphasis on his father, his neighbourhood and the different schools that he attended. He also gives an account of certain modern western inventions that came to be used in Jerusalem, like electricity and the phonograph.
Wasif’s father’s, and consequently Wasif’s own close relationship with the al-Husseini family is underlined in various sections of the whole memoir, especially in the first part, the Ottoman era. In Wasif’s words, the al-Husseini family is one of the “notable, well-known families” of Jerusalem just like the al-Khalidi and al- Nashashibi families. Other sources also corroborate that they are one of the feudal landlords and patricians of Jerusalem. Wasif’s close relationship with the al-Husseini family often re-appears throughout the memoirs, first with Hajj Salim al- Husseini and later with his son Hussein Hashem al-Husseini. Both men have served as the mayor of Jerusalem in Ottoman and Mandate eras.
Another subject described at large is the religious festivals celebrated by Muslim, Christian and Jewish communities in Jerusalem. Wasif dedicates a good portion of the first part to describe the details of these celebrations. According to these descriptions, these festivals were celebrated all together under the Ottoman rule. Under the title “Celebration of Easter Week by Jerusalem’s Christian, Muslim and Jewish Communities between 1900 and 1914” he writes:
“Having lived under both the Ottoman rule and the British Mandate, I decided to describe the religious feasts as celebrated by all three religions during Easter Week, in order to provide a clear depiction of the Ottoman rule and way of government. I do not deny that the Turks, too, were considered colonialists. But what is important is that the individuals— whether governors, directors, and police—were among the city’s most honourable citizens, and so problems were solved amicably, quickly, and fairly. Only a few Turks were sent to our country, and with the exception of the governor, they mattered little. It is amazing to see how the huge festivals and wide national celebrations of each religion and every confession followed one another in this small region, in peace and security.”
In his delineation of different religious communities living ‘in peace and security’ under the Ottoman rule, Wasif hints at the governance of Jerusalemites themselves, rather than the Turks. This assertion suggests that Jerusalem can only be in peace, when it is governed by its own, ‘most honourable citizens’. Written with hindsight, Wasif seems to long for times when the three religions lived together. This nostalgia sounds less like a tribute to the Ottoman rule and more of a yearning for a unified Jerusalem. His depiction of the religious festivals celebrated in harmony among the individuals of each community certainly challenges the notion of segregated religious and ethnic habitat usually ascribed to Ottoman cities. Not only the celebration of religious festivals, but also Wasif’s vivid description of the intermixed urban life in all quarters of inner-city Jerusalem and at times outside the city walls, seems to reinforce the idea of loose communal boundaries between different religious groups. Tamari, in his introduction for the memoir, suggests that division of inner-city of Jerusalem into four confessional quarters (Muslim, Christian, Jewish, and Armenian) may have been a later development, a demarcation introduced by the British.
Shortly after the coup d’etat in 1908 by the Committee of Union and Progress, which in Wasif’s narrative is celebrated as an end to the “thirty-three years of brutality, injustice, and despotism” of Sultan Abdul- Hameed, the first part of the memoir ends with the entry of the Ottoman Empire to the Great War in 1914.
Second Part: The British Mandate Era, 1917-1948
The second part of the memoir starts directly with the British occupation of Jerusalem in 1917, marking the end of Great War for the city. Other than a few mentions here and there by Wasif throughout the memoir, the details of Great War years (1914-1917) have been left out by the editors of the English edition. Wasif recalls the occupation as a very fortunate event, which declared the end of the Ottoman rule and tyranny that took place especially during the war years. He recalls dancing and drinking in the streets with his friends to celebrate British occupation. He then adds:
“We did not realize that, thanks to this occupation, Zionist dreams would come true. The Arabs had fallen victims to a shameful trick which put an end to our being and to the future of our children and grandchildren, and we lost what was dearest to us.”
Most of the political events of Mandate years, mentioned in the second part by Wasif, are tinged with an Arab nationalist sentiment. Nassar, in his introductory article, suggests that relatively royal Ottoman subjects gradually moved on to being Arab, Syrian, or Palestinian nationalists. A larger collective Arab identity was born through fostering local identities in places like Jerusalem. Wasif’s Arab and Jerusalemite identities seem to surpass his Greek Orthodox identity. Given that, he mentions some of his memories within this community. He marries Victoria, the step daughter of Patriarch Damianos, the Patriarch of Jerusalem at the time. All and all Wasif is not a politically active man, he doesn’t have affiliations with any political party, but he dedicates a good portion of the second part to the developments leading towards the establishment of Israel, which result in leaving him and his family no choice but to flee from Jerusalem. He gives details of the effects of the Balfour declaration, the uprisings starting from early 1920s, the bombings in Jerusalem by both Arabs and Jews, and lastly the partition decision of Palestine.
The Mandate Era is also marked by Wasif’s position as a civil servant under the Mandate Government. Starting in 1918 at the Justice Department, then in the Military Governate of Jerusalem, Translation Department and Pro Jerusalem Society in charge of the restorations and repairs in the city. He finally took up office at the Finance Department in 1924, where he continued to work until he left Jerusalem with his family in 1948.
Wasif’s Musical Journey
Alongside the stories of events, anecdotes, relationships, people, and institutions told by Wasif, the story of his musical development builds up throughout the memoir. Wasif’s engagement with music starts with singing and is followed by making his own jury rigged instrument out of can and wooden sticks around the age of seven. One of Hajj Salim al-Husseini’s keepers, Hajj Mohammad, offers Wasif to make him a tanboor out of a dry pumpkin, after seeing young Wasif’s ‘tin instrument’. Hajj Mohammad also teaches Wasif to play this tanboor, which becomes his first real instrument at the age of nine. Wasif writes:
“I started playing the Jerusalemite music that I already knew, “Rozana,” “Akh Mash‘aal,” and other songs, and was soon able to play these taqtuqas with a remarkable skill that impressed Hajj Mohammad.”
He acquires his second instrument rebeck , also through the al-Husseini family. Hussein Effendi’s Greek mistress, Persifon, buys Wasif a rebeck and also arranges a musician to teach him how to play. Later Wasif’s father buys him an Indian rebeck made of coconut, leather and hair strings. Other than singing, playing the tanboor, and rebeck, Wasif also learns to dance dabkeh and performs his skills in celebrations and evening gatherings, for his family and neighbours. In one of these gatherings at Dar al-Jawhariyyeh, Wasif sings along with a band, who was invited to play at this gathering, and the band members offer to give him some parts of their spare musical instruments, to make a three string tanboor, a rather more advanced instrument than the ones he owned. Wasif regards this day as the day he joined the musical profession, at the age of ten, with his new tanboor, which had “earned him a higher status in the field of music”.
In three years, after acquiring enough virtuosity in all of his instruments, the two tanboors and two rebecks, Wasif decides to learn to play the oud, which in his belief “has a special status in Arabic music”. His father finds him one of the finest amateur oud players in Jerusalem to teach him play the oud, and for Wasif this was the first time he started to learn to play artistically.
Other than his own musical formation, Wasif also gives a detailed overview of the music scene in Jerusalem between the years 1900 and 1914, which probably also includes second hand information, as Wasif was only three years old in 1900. As for the musicians Wasif mentions: a band called Sons of Abu al-Sibaa, an oud player Abu Khalil, a percussionist and singer Abdul- Salam al-Aqraa, a qanun player Khayzaran, two female singers Asmaa al-Qaraa and Thuraya Qaddoura, a dancer and singer Amina al-Ammawiya, and a female oud player and singer Frusu Zahran, who performed at evening parties, cafés and celebrations. Finally Wasif also mentions a variety of Jewish bands from Aleppo known for their ‘instrumentalist ensembles’, who played Arabic music, and whom Wasif went to listen in Jewish neighbourhoods.
Even though it’s not part of the English edition memoir, we find out in Tamari’s article in the introduction that Wasif kept his good relations with Hussein Effendi during the Great War. Just like his father, Hussein Effendi also hired a master oud player, Omar al-Batch, to give Wasif oud lessons four times a week, further contributing to Wasif’s artistic development.
Wasif learns to play the violin on his own, while keeping an eye on some of Hussein Effendi’s properties in the villages. Hussein Effendi passed away in 1918 after losing his mayor’s office during the British occupation. Later, Wasif starts working as a civil servant under the Mandate Government and through his work he gets to meet high ranking officials. He takes part in many parties and evening gatherings, playing his instruments and singing for his audience. He writes songs about the worsening political situation and even sings them at the parties of some British officials, such as Ronal Storr. One of his songs goes:
“Do not say “Christian and “Muslim,” now that they sold us all away.
How are we going to surrender to those who bought us?
They will force us to say “Shalom,” brother,
And also “Mashlomcha,” may God end our ordeal.
Instead of Anwar and Jamal, our rulers will be
Shabtai, Sholem, and Haim, who hate us.
What a pity to lose you, dear homeland, and to lose our men”
Just like he did in the Ottoman era, Wasif continues to follow, spend time, and at times play with many famous musicians, who come to perform in Jerusalem, especially from Egypt, such as singer Sheikh Ahmet Al-Tarifi, Badi’a Masabni and her husband Najib al-Rihani, Zaki Murad, and Umm Kulthumm, with great joy and excitement.
The Formation of Wasif’s Artistic Personality
The memoir of Wasif Jawhariyyeh, much like what he tells in the prologue section, is like a collection of “incidents, events, and surprises”, some of which he didn’t take part in. Photograph albums accompanying the memoir also have a similar trait, consisting mostly of pictures of important figures, and events, whereas personal pictures remain a rarity. The albums seem to contribute more to Wasif’s “role as a self-declared chronicler of the city”, rather than a reflection of his personal feelings, or ties. Both the albums and the memoir seem to testify to the general assumptions about memoirs, which suggest that memoirs are a product of passive relationship with the world and that writers of memoirs “introduce themselves…as merely observers of the events and activities of which they write, and if they join as active participants it is only in minor parts..”. This assumption stems from the secondary position attributed to memoirs in comparison to autobiographies. According to Julie Rak, early autobiography theorists have related autobiography to concepts that find their origins in Romanticism like ‘uniqueness of the self’ and ‘the creativity of the artist’. What they claimed the authors of autobiography could do, was to reveal their individuality, while looking at their past retrospectively: ‘…the existence of an essence, a personality, which unfolds in the narrative of the past’. This was defined as an active relationship with the world, rather than a passive, observer’s position. Such a relationship, however, was allegedly missing in other life narratives – memoirs, diaries, confessions, journals - according to the early theorists.
While both Wasif’s reasons for writing – to document incidents, events, and surprises that he “had come to witness or hear about” - and the general collection-like narration in his memoir seem to comply with the assumptions of the early autobiography theorists’, within this ‘collection’ lies the story of Wasif’s musical journey, which in itself builds-up like a Bildungsroman or a coming-of-age story. The most specific characteristic of a Bildungsroman is the formation of an identity through steady growth, a common feature of life narratives. In Wasif’s narrative, his artistic formation starts to take shape in his home environment as a child, which is directly related to his father. Wasif’s father, Jiryis Jawhariyyeh, is portrayed as a man of many talents. Apart from being a lawyer, a civil servant at the municipality in charge of parks, and head of the Greek Orthodox community in 1884, ‘he was an art-loving person’, who was good at painting, well-versed in poetry and had proper knowledge of fine music, appreciative of the rules of singing. According to Wasif his father was the first person in Jerusalem, who owned an oud in his house. He was such an enthusiastic music lover that he would get acquainted with all the musicians from the Arab world who visited Jerusalem. He would host them in their house, Dar al-Jawhariyyeh, located in the Saadiyeh Quarter. As mentioned above, Wasif’s father was very supportive of his musical advancement. Wasif thinks he owes his musical interests and artistic competence to his father and considers himself his heir, as opposed to his brother Tawfiq. We learn later in the memoir that Tawfiq is a talented painter, nay player, and music lover, who worked at the Broadcasting House in Jerusalem. Wasif’s early portrayal of his brother sharply contrasts with his own self perception, omitting any mention of his artistic interests or capabilities:
‘He was very intelligent and skilled at manual work, able to repair all sorts of clocks and machines. But, as the saying goes, he was a jack-of-all-trades and master of none. He did not succeed at a single job, and his skills, frankly, did not yield any fruit throughout his entire life.’(p.15)
This quote is followed by a scene, where his father tells Tawfiq off for being unable to hold a job of any sort. Right from the start of the memoir, Wasif secures himself the position of carrying his father’s artistic legacy by ruling out Tawfiq, who is probably his only sibling to rival this position.
Wasif situates Dar al- Jawhariyyeh as the cradle of his artistic personality, where two aspects of his artistic-self, namely his musical life and his collection, first took off. The Jawhariyyeh Collection was also inspired by his father’s own small collection, to which Wasif included pieces he inherited from his father. He explains its role in the following quote:
‘My home environment added to my knowledge. My late father played the principal role in my musical training, directing me in the footsteps of the old school in playing tarab instruments, performing, and choosing quality music. I often watched him as he showed his friends rare manuscripts in the reception room. I inherited from him some of these documents.... I used to stare at each item my father showed his visiting friends, explaining each one as I passionately looked and listened. When I married in early 1924,1 took all these artefacts as souvenirs of my father...I put them on display in the reception room where they formed the starting point of the Jawhariyyeh Collection.’ (p.172)
Hussein Effendi is the second important figure in Wasif’s life in terms of the construction of his artistic-self. Right from the prologue section of the memoir, he relates the roots of his involvement with music to the al-Husseini family, and especially to Hussein Effendi. He explains that he ‘came to know the customs and music of villages of Jerusalem district, and later those of Jericho, the Dead Sea, and al Karak’ through accompanying ‘this man of great personality’ (meaning Hussein Effendi) on his trips to the villages both as a child and later as an adult. He also relates the opportunity to make acquaintances with upper-class families in the parties and evening events to al-Husseini family. Both Hussein Effendi and his father are portrayed as foundational figures in the formation of Wasif’s artistic personality. They lay the groundwork for the musician and all-around artistic person that Wasif is to become.
As Wasif learns to play the tanboor, rebeck, oud, violin, and sings along, we witness his gradual musical growth, intertwined with other events unfolding in the memoir. He plays at parties, evening gatherings, celebrations with other musicians and becomes, in his narrative, inseparable from the music scene of Jerusalem. Even his political stance manifests itself in his music by writing songs and playing them at the parties of Mandate officials, as quoted above. The artistic figure that he has become is acknowledged and appreciated by the prominent figures of his community, as reflected in the following quote:
‘I love music. At the same time, I appreciate poetry without being a poet, and I can be an art critic, if need be, without being a painter. But there is nothing surprising in that, for all arts are members of one family. In the golden book of the collection, my brother Omar al-Husseini wrote, “To those seeking fine taste in all kinds of art, come to Wasif and you will find without doubt what you are looking for.” (p.172)
Wasif had reached the peak of his artistic persona in Jerusalem, for which he longs in Beirut. The last part of his memoir is titled ‘Coda: Beirut’, referring to the concluding passage of a musical piece, as for the end of his artistic personality. In this last part Wasif recalls an event, when he incidentally comes across an oud of a friend and plays the instrument for the first time after a very long time. Having left the Jawhariyyeh Collection in Jerusalem, in which he had seventy-two Western and rare Eastern musical instruments, he decides to rent the oud, which takes him back to his childhood, when he had first held this instrument.
While documenting the vivid urban life and animated musical scene of Jerusalem, Wasif implicitly tells the story of his self-realisation through his music and the Jawhariyyeh Collection. These two aspects of his life shaped the artistic persona that came into being gradually in Jerusalem, only to be left there along with his beloved personal collection.