The Collections

An Endless Richness

Since 2014, the Open Jerusalem project has conducted widescale research on Jerusalem’s archives, both in the city and abroad, in order to identify the sheer richness of sources and to analyze them through the prism of the concept of citadinité.

At this juncture in the research process we envisioned different paths, each of which assumes working on specific documentary archives:

Municipal and Imperial Archives. Jerusalem municipal council (majlis baladiyya, meclis-i belediye) came into existence in the early 1860s. Jerusalem was, in fact, one of the very first cities within the Ottoman Empire to form a municipality, which was further consolidated after the Ottoman law on municipalities in 1877. From the 1880s onward, the municipal council was composed of nine to twelve members, elected for a renewable mandate of four years: there were generally six Muslims, two Christians, and one or two Jews on the council (depending on the period), in addition to a maximum of four ex officio members. These were drawn from the city’s professional ranks, such as engineers, doctors, and veterinarians, as well as the head of police. The Ottoman government chose the council president from among the elected members. The minutes of city council meetings from the late Ottoman period (1892–1917) – held at the Historical Archives of Jerusalem’s Municipality – are invaluable in putting the urban and material facets of Jerusalem’s history front and center and to making a first attempt at a connected history of the city. They provide a fascinating glimpse into the inner workings of this mixed institution, which ran the city’s day-to-day business. The publication of this collection – making available to scholars the complete series of volumes in Arabic and Ottoman, and a selection in English, accompanied by images of the microfilmed minutes, represents one of the core aims of the Open Jerusalem project. Taking the municipal minutes as a starting point gives rise to questions that can be answered by consulting other primary sources, such as the Ottoman Imperial Archives (Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi), one of the main depositories of Jerusalem history. An intense and large-scale survey of the enormous mass of documents preserved at the BOA is now available to scholars and amateurs though the Open Jerusalem database, providing Turkish and English descriptions and granting access to more than 5,000 digitized documents.

Mandate Archives. The British Mandate administration produced a large amount of documentation, disseminated in a constellation of archives. The British National Archives obviously constitute a mine of sources: a selection of these records enriches the catalog. But the Mandate period can be analyzed also through different types of records, such as the collections contained in the Historical Archives of Jerusalem Municipality, a first description of which has been conducted by the Open Jerusalem team, thus allowing scholars to consult a brand-new rigorous inventory.

Consular Archives. The growing presence in Jerusalem of foreign actors and the increasing attention of the Western powers in the city during the 19th century is evidenced by the establishment of consulates in the city from the mid-1800s. The various consular archives provide an internal and external perspective on events, processes and change in Jerusalem, connecting local, imperial and foreign actors. French, British, Italian, Greek and United States records are therefore described in the catalog, contributing to the remapping of the archival archipelago of consular sources for this period.

Local Islamic Institutions Archives. Shari’a court records (sijillāt maḥkama sharʿīyya) constitute one of the richest sources for the social and economic history of Jerusalem. These records deal with all realms of human interaction, from personal issues, sales contracts, building permits to civil and criminal cases. They represent the oldest and most complete collection of Ottoman-era court registers in Palestine, covering the period from 1529 to 1917. Microfilms of material dating from the Ottoman period are accessible in the Islamic Archives in Abu Dis, at the Center for Manuscripts and Documents of the University of Jordan in Amman, in the library of the University of Al-Najah in Nablus and in the library of the University of Haifa. The Open Jerusalem catalog contains a series of the digitized volumes of the sijillāt maḥkama sharʿīyya, now available to scholars for new studies.

Jewish Archives. The records produced over the centuries by the various Jewish communities in the city have been object of a large preservation, description and digitization effort by numerous institutions and associations in Jerusalem. Open Jerusalem adds a further piece in this composite mosaic, providing a new catalog for the collections of the Sephardi community held by the Historical Archives of Jerusalem Municipality.

Christian Archives. Christian churches have figured among the main protagonists of Jerusalem landscape for two thousand years. Their complexity and multiplicity has been object of many studies, but their archives are still often underestimated. Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Protestant, Ethiopian, Armenian and Syriac archives shed light on uninvestigated angles of the Christian presence in the City and the interactions between members of the churches and other communities.

Private Archives. Jerusalem was (and is still) made by its women and men, citizens and travelers. Private archives constitute an immense depository of its history and story. Our collections enable researchers to discover well-studied protagonists or lesser-known figures through their personal papers, contributing to the opening of new historical itineraries of a city through the people who inhabited it.