RAP - RECLAIMED ABANDONED PROPERTY

“A NATION THAT DOES NOT RESPECT ITS PAST WILL HAVE A DULL PRESENT AND AN UNCERTAIN FUTURE”. We face a fact: a full array of books, manuscripts and journals, which belonged to arab families, were left behind in the tumultuous time of the 1948 Independence War, which were collected and kept in different locations at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. This project is a gate opener for a people (palestinians) to a past that has remained secluded all these years, in a separate area of the National Library (סיפרייה לאומית), under a common name: Abandoned Property (AP). Each person, each people, each nation has the right to know its past, its origins, the place they came from. These books are cultural heritage, a past and history that belongs to a group, one that enables a people to approach their roots, to embrace and use them to define their future. The project aims to give a people's past a place of their own, a place of respect, a place to reunite past, present and future.