History & Culture
The Moghabghab Family in Cyprus,New York and Madeira, 1878-1974
Nicholas Stanley-Price first encountered the name of Theophilus Mogabgab when doing archaeological fieldwork in Cyprus for his doctorate from Oxford University. His career since then has been mainly in international organizations dedicated to cultural heritage preservation. He lives in Rome, […]
Syrian Families in the Colorado Coal Mining Communities
Since the 1980s, Bob Rossi has been working on a social history of Colorado coal mining communities and an account of the 1927–28 Colorado mine workers’ strike. A part of this work has entailed documenting the lives of Syrian and […]
My Mother’s 78 RPM Arabic Record Collection
In 2020 the Khayrallah Center Archive was gifted 32 vinyl records of Arabic music from Kail Ellis as an addition to the Angele Hobeiche Kmeid-Ellis Collection, which can be viewed here and over the course of the past year the […]
Alan Jabbour, “A Cultured Man”: Foodways, Music, and Syria Dreamin’
This blog was written by Folklorist, Sabra Webber. Webber is a professor emerita at The Ohio State University in the Department of Comparative Studies and the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures. She visited the Khayrallah Center in the […]
Letters from Afar: New Khayrallah Center collection of letters from West Africa to Lebanon
Introduction In 1936 Nadim Attallah, a Lebanese immigrant living in Conakry, Guinea (West Africa), wrote an exasperated and desperate letter to his father, Maronite Rev. Tobia Attallah of Bayt Shabab village . He chided him: “I am astounded that after […]
Announcing the Angele Hobeiche Kmeid-Ellis Collection
The Khayrallah Center is excited to announce a three part project centered on an extraordinary collection of over three-hundred letters received by Angele Ellis from friends and family in Lebanon, Cuba, Canada, Chile, and France. They are written in Arabic, […]
The Second Jabbour Immigrant: Albert Jabbour and His Courtship Story
This blog was written by Folklorist, Sabra Webber. Webber is a professor emerita at The Ohio State University in the Department of Comparative Studies and the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures. She visited the Khayrallah Center in the […]
Announcing “The Romey Lynchings” Website
On May 17th, 1929, two Lebanese immigrants in Lake City, Florida were murdered in a tragic tale of racial violence against Arab immigrants. Hasna Romey was killed by police while defending her husband and business, and her husband, N’oula, was […]
Passing a Camel Through Ellis Island: Arab-American Press and the Immigration Act of 1924
This post was written by Diogo Bercito, a Brazilian journalist who worked as a foreign correspondent in Jerusalem, Beirut, and Cairo. He is currently pursuing an M.A. in Arab Studies at Georgetown University, where he researches Arab migration to Latin America. He […]
A Waking Dream: Syrian Migrants’ Journey to the Americas
This post was written by Randa Tawil, a PhD candidate in American Studies at Yale University. Tawil’s dissertation focuses on early 20th century migration routes from Syria to North and South America, and explores how constructs of gender and race […]