Orient House, the unofficial town hall of East Jerusalem

10 February 2026 | Author/Destination: | Category: General, Union for the Mediterranean Reading Time:  7 minutes

© Yoavd

© Yoavd

Orient House is a building located in East Jerusalem that served as the headquarters of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in the 1980s and 1990s. Built in 1897 by Ismail Musa Al-Husseini, it has been owned by the Al-Husseini family since. Originally intended to serve as a family residence, it was at times vacated to host important guests, such as Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany in 1898 and Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia in 1936.   read more…

SS Exodus 1947

27 January 2026 | Author/Destination: | Category: General, Union for the Mediterranean Reading Time:  19 minutes

Exodus 1947 after British takeover © National Photo Collection - Frank Scherschel

Exodus 1947 after British takeover © National Photo Collection – Frank Scherschel

Exodus 1947 was a packet steamship that was built in the United States in 1928 as President Warfield for the Baltimore Steam Packet Company. From her completion in 1928 until 1942 she carried passengers and freight across Chesapeake Bay between Norfolk, Virginia and Baltimore, Maryland.   read more…

Church of the Pater Noster in East Jerusalem

29 December 2025 | Author/Destination: | Category: General, Union for the Mediterranean Reading Time:  6 minutes

© W. Robrecht/cc-by-sa-3.0

© W. Robrecht/cc-by-sa-3.0

The Church of the Pater Noster (French: Église du Pater Noster) is a Catholic church located on the Mount of Olives in East Jerusalem. It is part of a Carmelite monastery of cloistered nuns, also known as the Sanctuary of the Eleona. The Church of the Pater Noster stands next to the ruins of the 4th-century Late Roman/Early Byzantine Church of Eleona. The ruins of the Eleona were rediscovered in the 20th century and its walls were partially rebuilt. Today, France administers the land on which both churches and the entire monastery are standing, following the Ottoman capitulations, as the Eleona Domain (French: Domaine de l’Éléona), part of the French national domain in the Holy Land, which has been formalised by the Fischer-Chauvel Agreement of 1948-49, though the agreement has not been ratified by Israel’s Knesset.   read more…

Church of Nativity in Bethlehem

25 December 2025 | Author/Destination: | Category: General, UNESCO World Heritage, Union for the Mediterranean Reading Time:  21 minutes

© Thaler Tamas/cc-by-sa-4.0

© Thaler Tamas/cc-by-sa-4.0

The Church of the Nativity, or Basilica of the Nativity, is a basilica located in Bethlehem, West Bank, Palestine. The grotto holds a prominent religious significance to Christians of various denominations as the birthplace of Jesus. The grotto is the oldest site continuously used as a place of worship in Christianity, and the basilica is the oldest major church in the Holy Land.   read more…

Balfour Declaration

9 November 2025 | Author/Destination: | Category: General, Union for the Mediterranean Reading Time:  9 minutes

Balfour Declaration © British Library

Balfour Declaration © British Library

The Balfour Declaration was a public statement issued by the British Government in 1917 during the First World War announcing its support for the establishment of a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine, then an Ottoman region with a small minority Jewish population. The declaration was contained in a letter dated 2 November 1917 from Arthur Balfour, the British foreign secretary, to Lord Rothschild, a leader of the British Jewish community, for transmission to the Zionist Federation of Great Britain and Ireland. The text of the declaration was published in the press on 9 November 1917.   read more…

Qabatiya in the West Bank

25 August 2025 | Author/Destination: | Category: General, Union for the Mediterranean Reading Time:  6 minutes

© A abualrob

© A abualrob

Qabatiya (Arabic: Qabatia, Qabatya, and Kabatiya) is a city in Jenin Governorate, West Bank, Palestine. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) census, the town had a population of 19,197 in 2007 and 24,439 by 2017.   read more…

Tiferet Yisrael Synagogue in the Old City of Jerusalem

30 June 2025 | Author/Destination: | Category: General, Union for the Mediterranean Reading Time:  4 minutes

Tiferet Yisrael Synagogue model © Talmoryair/cc-by-sa-4.0

Tiferet Yisrael Synagogue model © Talmoryair/cc-by-sa-4.0

The Tiferet Yisrael Synagogue (Ashkenazi Hebrew: Tiferes Yisroel), most often spelled Tiferet Israel, also known as the Nisan Bak Shul, after its co-founder, Nisan Bak, is a former prominent Hasidic Jewish congregation and synagogue, located in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem. Designed by Nisan Bak, the former synagogue was completed in 1872 and partially destroyed in 1948.   read more…

Jerusalem Day

26 May 2025 | Author/Destination: | Category: General, Union for the Mediterranean Reading Time:  4 minutes

© Hoheit/cc-by-sa-2.0-de

© Hoheit/cc-by-sa-2.0-de

Jerusalem Day (Hebrew: Yom Yerushalayim) is an Israeli holiday. It occurs on the 28th of Iyar according to the Jewish calendar.   read more…

Beit Lahia in the Gaza Strip

3 April 2025 | Author/Destination: | Category: General, Union for the Mediterranean Reading Time:  9 minutes

Match in Beit Lahia © flickr.com - Heinrich Böll Foundation Palestine & Jordan/cc-by-2.0

Match in Beit Lahia © flickr.com – Heinrich Böll Foundation Palestine & Jordan/cc-by-2.0

Beit Lahia or Beit Lahiya is a city in the Gaza Strip, north of Jabalia, in the North Gaza Governorate of the State of Palestine. It sits next to Beit Hanoun and close to the border with Israel. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, the city had a population of 89,838 in 2017.   read more…

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