Library Guides: Historical Primary Sources: Middle East & North Africa: Israel & Palestine

Regional collections

American Colony in Jerusalem, 1870-2006
Selected materials from the physical American Colony in Jerusalem Collection at the Library of Congress.
Center for Jewish History Digital Collections
Portal for digital collections of the CJH and its five partner organizations: American Jewish Historical Society, The American Sephardi Federation, the Leo Baeck Institute, Yeshiva University Museum, and YIVO Institute for Jewish Research.
Center for Palestine Studies Projects
Housed at Columbia University, the collections include oral history projects, films, maps, digitized newspapers, and more.
JDC archive
Online collections – and curated exhibits – from the records of the Jewish overseas rescue and relief organization. This rich trove of photos, artifacts, films, oral histories, name indexes is a valuable resource for the study of modern Jewish history.
National Library of Israel Digital Collections
Main page for the National Library’s rich digital resources, including: Historical Jewish Press and Bibliography of the Hebrew Book, as well as the Visual Memory photo collection, and more.

Records of Jerusalem, 1917-1971
Selected documents relating to the history of Jerusalem from post-Ottoman control to 1971.

Reports of the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry Palestine, 1944-1946
The Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry (AACI), formed in 1945, was created to study the situation of Jewish survivors in Europe and the problems connected with their resettlement in Palestine.

The survey of Western Palestine, 1882-1888
Call Number: Main (Gardner) Stacks DS102 .P3 1998 and online
The first detailed survey of the area that used to be known as Western Palestine: the whole country west of the Jordan from Tyre in the north to Beersheba in the south. This edition includes the original maps and plates and the nine text volumes, plus one volume on Eastern Palestine.

Israel: boundary disputes with Arab neighbours, 1946-1964
Call Number: Main (Gardner) Stacks DS119.7 .I823 1995 and online
This documentary study focuses on the borders of the Palestine mandate and the State of Israel. The documents reflect two different types of border: those coinciding with the British mandate for Palestine and the lines resulting from the war won divisions of land following the 1949 cease-fire.

Israel political & economic reports, 1948-1953 : Israel under the premiership of David Ben Gurion, 1948-1953
British government political and economic reports on the state of Israel from its creation in May 1948 to the end of the first premiership of David Ben Gurion.
Israel political & economic reports, 1954-1955: Israel under the premiership of Moshe Sharett
British political and economic reports that examine the premiership of Moshe Sharett in this crucial period.
Recognition of the State of Israel
The collection includes 87 documents totaling 351 pages covering the years 1943 through 1974. Supporting materials include photographs, oral history transcripts, audio clips and a chronology of events.

The Zionist movement and the foundation of Israel, 1839-1972
Contains documents that trace the origins and development of the Zionist movement in the 19th and 20th centuries. The bulk of the materials relates to the years 1916-1948.

Eltaher Collection
The collection documents the history of the Arab world from 1912 to 1974, with a focus on the life of a well-known Palestinian Arab journalist and newspaper editor, Muhammad Ali Eltaher (1896-1974). A subset of this major collection — more than 100 Palestinian pamphlets — is available in digital form through this web presentation.

Land legislation in mandate Palestine
Call Number: Main (Gardner) Stacks KMQ1068.3 .L36 2009 and online
This set consists of the texts of the major pieces of legislation that governed the rural land regime in Palestine between 1918 and 1948, as well as the key reports and memoranda produced by British officials during that period.
Mandate for Palestine by United States. Department of State. Division of Near Eastern Affairs.; League of Nations. Council.
Call Number: NRLF Shared Print (FedDocArc) D651.P3 U6 1927 and online
Publication Date: 1927
Material relating to the US Government's position during negotiations leading to the conclusion and exchange of ratifications of the American-British Palestine mandate convention of December 3, 1924.
Palestine and Transjordan administration reports, 1918-1948
Call Number: Main (Gardner) Stacks DS126 .P29 1995 and online
Material related to the British administration in Palestine and Transjordan and the tensions between Arab and Jewish populations.
Palestine boundaries, 1833-1947
Call Number: Main (Gardner) Stacks DS119.65 .P35 1989 and online
Includes copies of the historical documents that cumulatively defined the geographical and political limits of Palestine up to the end of the British Mandate in 1947.

Palestinian Digital Archive
Site dedicated to documenting the life of Palestinians over the past century. Documents collected include texts, photographs, videos, and recordings.
Palestinian Oral History Archive
A project to digitize, index, catalog, preserve, and provide access to an archival collection of around 1,000 hours of testimonies with first generation Palestinians and other Palestinian communities in Lebanon.

Political diaries of the Arab world: Palestine & Jordan
Call Number: Main (Gardner) Stacks DS126 .P55 2001 and online
These reports capture the developments that led to the idea of a national home for the Jewish people and the resulting conflicts that arose from its creation.

United Nations Information System on the Question of Palestine (UNISPAL)
The main collection contains the texts of current and historical United Nations material concerning the question of Palestine and other issues related to the Middle East situation and the search for peace.