People sometimes ask me what's the weirdest thing I've ever found in an #archive. I once found a porn magazine cutting (in a folder from the 1930s) and a friend stumbled upon a letter bomb, undetonated but duly filed.

Here's an absurd highlight from the #Jerusalem Municipality Archive: A short note from the #Sephardic Cheif Rabbi to the #Saudi Consul in #Palestine, conveying his best wishes to the King for the 1942 Christmas holidays. Of course, neither of them celebrated Christmas!

Why on earth would a rabbi send Christmas greetings to the Arab world's most conservative muslim state? I'm open to theories.

Happy holidays, be that #Christmas or #Hannukah!

#histodons #history #jewishstudies #middleeasternstudies @histodons

Okay, time to share some actual research with the #histodons and all you other dons.

This is my first journal article and it just came out a few weeks ago.

"The Manama riots 1947: Bahraini Jews between Palestine and Gulf labour politics" in British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies. #bjmes

https://doi.org/10.1080/13530194.2022.2128720

Dealing with the riots in #Bahrain in 1947, it explores the wider connection between Palestine/Israel and the #Persian Gulf, looking at Jewish history, social history and British imperial rule in the #Gulf.

Hoping to hear your thoughts and comments!

Primary source work is the most fun part of being a historian. Here's a little gem for all you #histodons

Ever wondered what #Palestinians used to drink before WW1? Of course you have!

Turns out they were drinking @Tuborg , a Danish lager from 1873. Tuborg's agent in #Jaffa, Yusuf al-Bina was one of the main sponsors of Palestine's first national newspaper, appropriately named Filastin.

Edited by 'Isa al-'Isa, the paper ran some of the country's first public debates on Zionism, the Ottoman Empire and Palestinian identity.

Tuborg was never my favorite (way too watery), but in the hot summers of late-Ottoman Jaffa, sure why not! All found in the British Library