Memoir by Jacob J. Nammar recounting his childhood and youth in the Harat al-Nammareh neighborhood of al-Baq'a in West Jerusalem, documenting Palestinian daily life, community bonds, and the rupture of 1948 that left his family, among the very few Palestinian families remaining in West Jerusalem, confined for more than 2 years in a closed military zone in Baq'a. Nammar's account provides intimate detail on the texture of Palestinian neighborhood life in Jerusalem before the Nakba, including the social geography, family networks, and everyday routines of the neighborhood's residents before their displacement. Recommended for researchers and general readers seeking firsthand Palestinian testimony about pre-1948 neighborhood life in Jerusalem, with Nammar's Baq'a memoir filling an important gap in the English-language memoir literature on specific Jerusalem communities before their dispossession.
