The Great Book Robbery

“The Great Book Robbery,” a fim by Benny Brunner (it comes to us courtesy of the Al Jazeera’s news magazine “Witness”). The film documents the theft of tens of thousands of Palestinian books and manuscripts by Jewish officials after ethnic cleansing operations by Israeli forces in 1948-49. 750,000 Palestinians became refugees during the war for Palestine and hundreds of their villages were destroyed. Their books and manuscripts—labeled “Abandoned Property”—were systematically looted by Jewish librarians and others who followed in the wake of conquering Jewish soldiers. Most were deposited in Israel’s National Library. If you are interested in a detailed expose of this act of cultural genocide, please read “Overdue Books: Returning Palestine’s ‘Abandoned Property’ of 1948” by Adalah-NY activist and school librarian Hannah Mermelstein.