East Jerusalem book lovers' haven is more than just a bookshop

JERUSALEM LETTER:For 25 years, the Educational Bookshop has been striving to be a 'space . . . for the people of Jerusalem'

WITHOUT ASKING Israeli permission, the Muna brothers roped off a rectangle of Salah ad-Din Street last Friday evening to celebrate the 25th birthday of the Educational Bookshop, an enduring fixture in this sector of the bitterly contested holy city.

The party was held outside the upmarket bookshop and gourmet cafe, which opened in 2009, across the street from the original stationery and school supplies store, which was established in 1986.

Invited Palestinians, UN internationals resident in Jerusalem and journalists mingled with tourists who stumbled upon the gathering on the footpath’s elegant gold and pink Ottoman paving stones, polished smooth by centuries of shoes, boots and sandals.

Overflow from the party occupied the roped enclosure, festooned with floating balloons, as cars, motorbikes, minibuses and a growling bin lorry slowed to afford drivers a glimpse of the festivities.

Guests sipped soft drinks and snacked on pastries, spicy chicken wraps, cheese canapes and cake.

Children slithered between adults, perilously balancing full plates of tabbouleh, or slipped into the corner of the bookshop harbouring picture and story books.

Jerusalem worthies, including former mufti Ikrima Sabri, the city’s senior Muslim cleric, settled on plastic chairs for a series of brief speeches delivered from a carpet-covered platform. Senior brother Imad Muna, who manages the stationary shop, proudly revealed that the Educational Bookshop had been declared the best in Palestine-Israel by Lonely Planet travel guides and observed that the family intended to remain steadfast in its mission to provide books and services to the beleaguered citizens of east Jerusalem.

“We survived two intifadas and the peace process,” he quipped, eliciting a burst of applause.

The shop did so without closing. But no one knows what challenges the Munas will face over the next quarter of a century.

Towering over the heads of most guests was Stephen Farrell, a New York Times correspondent carrying Irish and British passports who was kidnapped in Iraq in 2004, rescued in 2009 by British commandos after being seized by the Afghan Taliban, and detained in Libya in March this year. Not deterred by personal peril, Farrell and his wife and child have settled in another theatre of conflict. He cheerfully signed a copy of his book on Hamas bought by a customer, while I selected a film on Budrus, a West Bank village that mounted peaceful resistance to the Israeli wall snaking across the West Bank and isolating Palestinian towns and villages.

The original stationery store continues to stock notebooks, pens, pencils and files. Visiting correspondents and television teams rely on the shop for Arabic dailies, the Jerusalem Post, the International Herald Tribuneand the English edition of Israel's Haaretz.

The outpost, a haven for book lovers, is the brothers’ pride and joy. Tomes on regional history, politics, geography, culture and art abound. DVDs and CDs – including Palestinian rap and hip-hop – grace the shelves on the ground floor. Upstairs, there are tables and chairs where customers tap at their computer keyboards while feasting on smoked-salmon sandwiches.

“This shop is more than you see in [similar shops] in Britain or France,” says Mahmud Muna.

“We have book launches here. Downstairs are the Arabic books in a room where teachers give English and Arabic lessons, the [Palestinian] Jerusalem press club meets weekly and we hold a monthly discussion programme on Jerusalem – free of charge. This space is for the people of Jerusalem.”

He says a few leftist Israelis are beginning to come to the shop, adding that “they have to brave psychological barriers” when crossing from the Jewish western sector to the Palestinian east.

Occupied and annexed in 1967, Jerusalem remains two cities for two peoples who live separate lives and rarely meet across the long-obliterated “Green Line”.

Yesterday was an exception. The bookshop hosted an event to mark the publication of a controversial title, Israeli Rejectionism: A Hidden Agenda in the Middle East Peace Process, by Zalman Amit and Daphna Levit.

The authors are Israeli scholars sharply critical of the policies adopted by successive Israeli governments. It is a book that is likely to sell well in Palestinian east Jerusalem.