Identity area
Reference code
Title
Date(s)
- 1948-07-02-1967-07-24 (Creation)
Level of description
Fonds
Extent and medium
774 minutes of meetings split in 26 folders and contained in three boxes (B936 to B938).
Context area
Name of creator
Administrative history
In June 1948, during the war for Palestine, a group of Mandate municipal employees carried out municipal tasks, whose existence dated back to the late Ottoman period. The new Arab Municipal Council of Jerusalem worked until June 1967, when Israel dissolved this Arab municipal council following the Israeli occupation of the Old City, East Jerusalem and the West Bank.
Repository
Archival history
The minutes of meetings were originally located in the Arab Municipality building in folders identified by reference codes. After the dissolution of the Arab Municipality, those documents were moved to the Jerusalem Municipality Archive and the current reference codes were added, replacing the old ones when referring to these minutes. The first part of this codification refers to the box containing the document and the second one to the number of the folder inside this box (e.g. B937-2 refers to the second folder of the box B937).
Immediate source of acquisition or transfer
Content and structure area
Scope and content
This fonds consists in the minutes of meetings of the Arab Municipal Council of Jerusalem from its creation in 1948 to its dissolution in 1967. In most cases, one minute matches one meeting, except for one relating to meetings held during three days in a row (1961-04-16 to 1961-04-18 - B937-3). The lacks observed in the original numbers given to these meetings and documents point out that one minute is missing for the beginning of summer 1955 and another one for autumn 1955 (B936-7). Moreover, the minutes of the meetings held between January 1958 and December 1959 could not be found. Therefore, a chronological gap exists between the folders B936-11 and B937-1.
Order numbers were given by the Arab Municipality itself to each of these meetings, apparently starting back from 1 when a new council was composed, except for opening sessions and irregular meetings which were named as such and not counted. From December 1963, confidential debates could occur during a meeting. In this case, two minutes were issued with the same meeting order number: a regular one and a confidential one (e.g. minutes of the meeting of the Municipal Council held on 1963-12-11 – B938-2).
The fonds allows to retrace not only the creation of the Arab Municipal Council of Jerusalem after 1948, but also the relations established with other political, social, religious institutions, its humanitarian action and its ordinary management until the 1967 war.
Appraisal, destruction and scheduling
Accruals
No further accruals are expected.
System of arrangement
Original arrangement according to chronological order.
After the first period of one year and a half (the first meeting was held in July 1948 – B936-1), from 1950 to 1955, each folder matches one year (B936-2 to B936-7). The following folders match half a year approximatively, with a transition between one folder and the next between June and August or at the close of the year. This arrangement does not take account of the changes known by the Arab Municipal Council in its composition and its denomination. Therefore, it is does not discriminate the series established by the meeting order numbers either. This archival description follow this intellectual and physical arrangement consisting in a sole series. As some folders cover periods in which the Municipal Council changed its denomination, the titles stated for the files (i.e. folders) do no mention it. The consecutives names are indicated in the items titles (see the authority record for their chronology).
Conditions of access and use area
Conditions governing access
Conditions governing reproduction
Language of material
- Arabic
Script of material
Language and script notes
Physical characteristics and technical requirements
Finding aids
Allied materials area
Existence and location of originals
Existence and location of copies
Related units of description
Publication note
Haneen Naamneh (2021) Navigating the Time of Arab Jerusalem: A Perspective from Within, Journal of Palestine Studies, 50:3, 52-55; Haneen Naamneh, “A Municipality Seeking Refuge: Jerusalem Municipality in 1948,” Jerusalem Quarterly, no. 77 (Spring 2019): pp. 110–21, https://www.palestine-studies.org/en/node/235018; Ali Jarbawi, “Al-baladiyyat al-filastiniyya: Min al-nash’at hatta ‘am 1967” [Palestinian municipalities: From establishment to 1967], Shu’un Filastiniyya, nos. 221–22 (1991): pp. 49–72; Maria Chiara Rioli (2020), A Liminal Church: Refugees, Conversions and the Latin Diocese of Jerusalem, 1946–1956, Brill: p. 191.
Notes area
Note
For each minute, this archival description lists the members of the Arab Municipal Council who are present or absent, as well as the topics debated with their related page numbers.
Alternative identifier(s)
Access points
Subject access points
Place access points
Name access points
Genre access points
Description control area
Description identifier
Institution identifier
Rules and/or conventions used
ISAD(G), second edition, Ottawa 2000.
Available online : https://www.ica.org/en/isadg-general-international-standard-archival-description-second-edition
For dates : ISO 8601, 2nd edition, 2000.
Status
Level of detail
Dates of creation revision deletion
Archival description prepared in 2021, entered on 2022-09-29.
Language(s)
Script(s)
Sources
Archivist's note
Archival description prepared by Archival City and DHMoRe.
Archivist's note
Some fields are filled in English, but not in Arabic. In these cases, when visualizing the archival descriptions in Arabic, the punctuation in the fields in English may be incorrect, due to technical failures of the software.