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Find Me at the Jaffa Gate: An encyclopaedia of a Palestinian family
‘If we were different people, to write down these words might be to leave them behind us. But words are our artifacts, and I am seeding a trail for the journey, home.’
What does the daughter of a Nakba survivor inherit? It is not property or tangible heirlooms, nor the streets and neighbourhoods of a father’s childhood and the deep roots of family who have lived in one place, Jerusalem, for generation upon generation.
Fixing her gaze on moments, places and objects – from the streets of Bethlehem to the Palestinian neighbourhoods of the New Jerusalem – Micaela Sahhar assembles a story of Palestinian diaspora. Find Me at the Jaffa Gate is a book about the gaps and blank spaces that cannot be easily recounted, but which insists on the vibrant reality of chance, fragments and memory to reclaim a place called home.
‘Micaela Sahhar’s Find Me at the Jaffa Gate is one of the most inventive, thought-provoking and captivating chronicles of Palestinian diasporic life I’ve had the pleasure of reading. It is a memoir written by a poet, poetry written by a novelist, literature written by an academic – it is all these things at once, insisting with a gentle yet unwavering confidence in the power of its unique, brilliantly evocative and genre-defying voice. Sahhar’s love for her family, homeland, the details and intimacies of everyday life; for language, history, archives, photographs and the treasured ephemera of a life in diaspora, shine through every line. The result is a book in which every word is deliberate, each line commands attention, each chapter is a world within a world.’ – Randa Abdel-Fattah, academic and writer, author of 11 Words for Love
‘Micaela Sahhar’s family history has everything that makes any Palestinian family history worth telling and reading about. On the one hand, a rich culture that ranges from distinctive culinary practices to a distinctive sense of humour, and on the other hand, a tragic settler-colonial history of dispossession and oppression leading to a transnational diasporic existence, and that makes for a characteristic sense of space and place. But this is not any book about Palestine. Sahhar is a superior storyteller with a knack for highlighting evocative details. Storytelling, like any craft, embodies in different degrees the labour of the many people who have told stories about one’s subject matter in the past. The more a writer is well-read the more this shows in the historical density and the social complexity of their storytelling. Sahhar’s book is definitely dense and socially complex in this way. This could make for ‘heavy’ reading if it wasn’t for Sahhar’s superior writing skills. Indeed, I would say that more than anything else, this is a book for people who enjoy good writing, regardless of what the story is about. But of course, it matters what this story is about. This is a book about Palestine and Palestinians, and in the way the book is grounded in both the Palestinian tragedy and the Palestinian unlimited capacity to affirm life, the spirit of anti-colonial resistance animates every one of its pages. Sahhar finishes the book saying that like Mahmoud Darwish’s father she hopes that one day she will be able to go to Palestine, to the streets where her family originates from, and shout I am I. And I am here. But in a way, by writing this book, she already does that, if not from Palestine at least from the position she occupies within the transnational space of western colonialism.’ – Ghassan Hage, professor of anthropology at the University of Melbourne and author of The Diasporic Ethnographic Explorations of the Lebanese in the World
What does the daughter of a Nakba survivor inherit? It is not property or tangible heirlooms, nor the streets and neighbourhoods of a father’s childhood and the deep roots of family who have lived in one place, Jerusalem, for generation upon generation.
Fixing her gaze on moments, places and objects – from the streets of Bethlehem to the Palestinian neighbourhoods of the New Jerusalem – Micaela Sahhar assembles a story of Palestinian diaspora. Find Me at the Jaffa Gate is a book about the gaps and blank spaces that cannot be easily recounted, but which insists on the vibrant reality of chance, fragments and memory to reclaim a place called home.
‘Micaela Sahhar’s Find Me at the Jaffa Gate is one of the most inventive, thought-provoking and captivating chronicles of Palestinian diasporic life I’ve had the pleasure of reading. It is a memoir written by a poet, poetry written by a novelist, literature written by an academic – it is all these things at once, insisting with a gentle yet unwavering confidence in the power of its unique, brilliantly evocative and genre-defying voice. Sahhar’s love for her family, homeland, the details and intimacies of everyday life; for language, history, archives, photographs and the treasured ephemera of a life in diaspora, shine through every line. The result is a book in which every word is deliberate, each line commands attention, each chapter is a world within a world.’ – Randa Abdel-Fattah, academic and writer, author of 11 Words for Love
‘Micaela Sahhar’s family history has everything that makes any Palestinian family history worth telling and reading about. On the one hand, a rich culture that ranges from distinctive culinary practices to a distinctive sense of humour, and on the other hand, a tragic settler-colonial history of dispossession and oppression leading to a transnational diasporic existence, and that makes for a characteristic sense of space and place. But this is not any book about Palestine. Sahhar is a superior storyteller with a knack for highlighting evocative details. Storytelling, like any craft, embodies in different degrees the labour of the many people who have told stories about one’s subject matter in the past. The more a writer is well-read the more this shows in the historical density and the social complexity of their storytelling. Sahhar’s book is definitely dense and socially complex in this way. This could make for ‘heavy’ reading if it wasn’t for Sahhar’s superior writing skills. Indeed, I would say that more than anything else, this is a book for people who enjoy good writing, regardless of what the story is about. But of course, it matters what this story is about. This is a book about Palestine and Palestinians, and in the way the book is grounded in both the Palestinian tragedy and the Palestinian unlimited capacity to affirm life, the spirit of anti-colonial resistance animates every one of its pages. Sahhar finishes the book saying that like Mahmoud Darwish’s father she hopes that one day she will be able to go to Palestine, to the streets where her family originates from, and shout I am I. And I am here. But in a way, by writing this book, she already does that, if not from Palestine at least from the position she occupies within the transnational space of western colonialism.’ – Ghassan Hage, professor of anthropology at the University of Melbourne and author of The Diasporic Ethnographic Explorations of the Lebanese in the World
293 pages, Kindle Edition
Published May 1, 2025
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
June 2, 2025
An important and moving book that resonated with me in so many ways. An unforgettable tale of resilience and steadfastness in the face of unimaginable injustices, this is an outstanding work in every way. If you want to understand the experience of the Palestinian diaspora, I would simply implore you to read this brilliant work. Thank you Micaela for writing this book, your family is quite remarkable and I will forever treasure this work.
March 23, 2026
This was an incredible read about the authors family history, a story of Palestine and diaspora, ethnic cleansing, stolen homes and so much more. Hard to put down.
June 21, 2025
This is a beautiful book, a celebration of family and culture. Overlaid by the sadness of loss.
I was captured immediately by the depictions of post-war Williamstown and Newport in Melbourne, where the migrant family settled in the aftermath of the Nakba.
For those who might welcome a very human way into the Palestinian story, this might be your book.
I was captured immediately by the depictions of post-war Williamstown and Newport in Melbourne, where the migrant family settled in the aftermath of the Nakba.
For those who might welcome a very human way into the Palestinian story, this might be your book.
January 18, 2026
Wow. What a book.
February 3, 2026
I thought it was very creatively written. It was a way of storytelling that wasn’t familiar to me which was quite jarring, but I enjoyed getting her perspective as a Palestinian.
Read
May 24, 2026A moving family memoir, via a series of interconnected vignettes that cross time, memories, trauma and displacement, family and generations. The structure is unusual, and at times confusing as the stories cover different perspectives. The writing is from the heart.
April 4, 2026
I came to this book at a replacement to the cancelled Writers Week due to the political interference of our state's Premier. Ms Sahhar was on the first of three panel discussions organized under the banner of Rivers of Reason: Blak @ Arab Writers in conversation. Ms Sahhar's eloquence had be buy the book so I could get into it fairly quickly. The book expands on her discussion, in that it is a family history standing in as a recent history of the plight of the Palestinian people sold out by the British and to a lesser extent the French at the end of WWII, allowing for their forcible expulsion from their homes which had been in the family for generations - the Nakba. She notes of her Grandfather, who often talked of returning, looking at the deed to the family home in Palestine as well as the keys to the house. After the First Intifada, she made note of something Yitzak Rabin said, and should be remembered for, but is not: "We will fight with all our power against any element that tries by violence to upset our full control over Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip...I know the descriptions of what is going on in the territories, the way it interpreted in the media, is not helping the image of Israel in the world...But I am convinced that above and beyond the temporary problem of an image, the supreme responsibility of our Government is to fight the violence in the territories and to use all the means at our disposal to do that....We will do that, and we will succeed. - NY Times, Dec 24, 1987.
She discusses the generational trauma of the family, while relocated in Australia, as well as the USA that the desire to return to their homes is strong now into the third generation. In discussing her Australian citizenship, she makes comparisons to being yet another invader in this country, just as the British and later most of the Jewish population of what now is called Israel are settler- colonizers. What her family had done to them by British and Jewish imigrees to Palestine, they now did to the Aboriginal people here, and thus the trauma continues to spread. Which was why this collaboration between Palestinian and Blak authors was so important.
She often has to defend her answer to the question of where are you from? As often, when she will reply truthfully that she is from Palestine, the response is often surprise and then denial - you cannot be from there as it does not exist, or some other form of denial. A never ending battle for her and all Palestinians. "The first Prime Minister of Israel, Ben-Gurion, is also patently aware of us (Palestinians): 'If I was an Arab leader, I would never make terms with Israel. That is natural; we have taken their country. Sure, God promised it to us, but what does it matter to them? Why should they accept that?'"
And she points out, that just like the Aboriginal people of Australia, the Palestinian people, who lived in the Levant region for thousands of years, have deep roots and connection to the land and are attached to it, to the soil itself. And to lose it by force does not change that attachment.
She discusses the generational trauma of the family, while relocated in Australia, as well as the USA that the desire to return to their homes is strong now into the third generation. In discussing her Australian citizenship, she makes comparisons to being yet another invader in this country, just as the British and later most of the Jewish population of what now is called Israel are settler- colonizers. What her family had done to them by British and Jewish imigrees to Palestine, they now did to the Aboriginal people here, and thus the trauma continues to spread. Which was why this collaboration between Palestinian and Blak authors was so important.
She often has to defend her answer to the question of where are you from? As often, when she will reply truthfully that she is from Palestine, the response is often surprise and then denial - you cannot be from there as it does not exist, or some other form of denial. A never ending battle for her and all Palestinians. "The first Prime Minister of Israel, Ben-Gurion, is also patently aware of us (Palestinians): 'If I was an Arab leader, I would never make terms with Israel. That is natural; we have taken their country. Sure, God promised it to us, but what does it matter to them? Why should they accept that?'"
And she points out, that just like the Aboriginal people of Australia, the Palestinian people, who lived in the Levant region for thousands of years, have deep roots and connection to the land and are attached to it, to the soil itself. And to lose it by force does not change that attachment.
April 15, 2026
The author, Micaela Sahhar, comes from a Christian family: at first an Orthodox family, then later some family members were born again into a more evangelical brand of Christianity. Following the Nakba her extended family has splinters: some come to Australia and settle in Newport and Williamstown, many others emigrate to America, and some stay. Michaela herself was born in Australia, and does not subscribe to any particular faith. Her father is Palestinian but was born in Jordan, because he was born within days of his family fleeing Jerusalem in the wake of the bombing of the Semiaris Hotel by Jewish terrorists, the Haganah, as part of the 'de-Arabization' of West Jerusalem. Just as important in this book are her grandparents, particular Pa and Ellen, who emigrated to Australia as part of the family shift. She has grown up with the stories of her grandparents, aunts and uncles, and great-grandparents, and the photos that testify that - yes- the family lived in Jerusalem, no matter how much their presence and identity as Christian Palestinians has been denied.
This book is a piecing together of the stories of the different generations of her family, with stories and photographs interwoven. The subtitle of the book is 'An Encyclopedia of a Palestinian Family', and it does reflect the fragmentary, all-embracing nature of an encyclopedia. But few of us would read an encyclopedia by choice, and this does not have the genre-structure of an encyclopedia: it is not alphabetical, there is no index. There are 48 chapters, between 5-10 pages in length. The chronology and setting skip about, and right up to the end of the book I found myself having to refer to the family tree at the back of the book to work out who this person was because there were just so many, and only a few were fleshed out to be instantly recognizable.
For my complete review please visit https://residentjudge.com/2026/04/15/...
This book is a piecing together of the stories of the different generations of her family, with stories and photographs interwoven. The subtitle of the book is 'An Encyclopedia of a Palestinian Family', and it does reflect the fragmentary, all-embracing nature of an encyclopedia. But few of us would read an encyclopedia by choice, and this does not have the genre-structure of an encyclopedia: it is not alphabetical, there is no index. There are 48 chapters, between 5-10 pages in length. The chronology and setting skip about, and right up to the end of the book I found myself having to refer to the family tree at the back of the book to work out who this person was because there were just so many, and only a few were fleshed out to be instantly recognizable.
For my complete review please visit https://residentjudge.com/2026/04/15/...
April 30, 2026
Micaela Sahhar’s debut defies genre categorisation. It is part memoir, part history and is brilliantly structured. Broken into 48 ‘chapters’ or entries that read like short stories, these segments symbolise the Nakba of 1948.
As well as covering the tragic dispossession of her own family, and the violent oppression which continues today unabated, the catastrophe is magnified to reveal her family’s personal experience of identity and incorporate how this identity is forged into a transnational diaspora.
Sahhar in Arabic means magician and the author’s magical rendering of her entire family’s experience is in turns tragic, infuriating, sobering and finally, uplifting. There is grief, humour and courage in the memories shared by the author. Indeed, the prose is often poetic, primarily because this work is layered, containing the many voices of her family that articulate their experiences. These experiences transcend not only time but also place.
Racism and ignorance in the Australia classroom is exposed, when as a little girl Sahhar’s identity was questioned by a horrified teacher, who mangled the pronunciation of her name. The impact of culinary traditions are gleefully related and so too the significance of the Catholic faith. Indeed, Sahhar identifies as Christian Palestinian but does so more to honour her family rather than any personal beliefs. Certainly, many readers will be surprised that Palestinians are also Christians.
The author is not only an intellectual but also a gifted story teller. She does not spew hatred but the indignation of her family’s dispossession and her people’s trauma is palpable. Her grandfather, who carried the key to his home in Jerusalem until the day he died, did so as if the key was a talisman of his soul, and memories.
This is essential, if not imperative reading for our world which continues to deny Palestinians their due.
5 splendid 🌟
As well as covering the tragic dispossession of her own family, and the violent oppression which continues today unabated, the catastrophe is magnified to reveal her family’s personal experience of identity and incorporate how this identity is forged into a transnational diaspora.
Sahhar in Arabic means magician and the author’s magical rendering of her entire family’s experience is in turns tragic, infuriating, sobering and finally, uplifting. There is grief, humour and courage in the memories shared by the author. Indeed, the prose is often poetic, primarily because this work is layered, containing the many voices of her family that articulate their experiences. These experiences transcend not only time but also place.
Racism and ignorance in the Australia classroom is exposed, when as a little girl Sahhar’s identity was questioned by a horrified teacher, who mangled the pronunciation of her name. The impact of culinary traditions are gleefully related and so too the significance of the Catholic faith. Indeed, Sahhar identifies as Christian Palestinian but does so more to honour her family rather than any personal beliefs. Certainly, many readers will be surprised that Palestinians are also Christians.
The author is not only an intellectual but also a gifted story teller. She does not spew hatred but the indignation of her family’s dispossession and her people’s trauma is palpable. Her grandfather, who carried the key to his home in Jerusalem until the day he died, did so as if the key was a talisman of his soul, and memories.
This is essential, if not imperative reading for our world which continues to deny Palestinians their due.
5 splendid 🌟
December 8, 2025
A family memoir, piecing together memories, archives, family stories, and recent and current travels, to tell the story of Palestine. From before, the point of the Nakba, the after, the dispossession and displacement, and the longing to return.
Through mostly small chapters, Michaela shares her family's story, and stories. Intergenerational, across lifetimes and the globe. Tracing her father's family and his own story, she also forges her own through visits to Palestine.
The sights, the streets, the characters and every day life. The family connections, and fractures as some flee and find themselves so far away, making a new life.
A read that brings to life multi-generations from a Palestinian family, making it feel like you are there with them, that you know them, that you are sitting with them absorbing their stories.
Through mostly small chapters, Michaela shares her family's story, and stories. Intergenerational, across lifetimes and the globe. Tracing her father's family and his own story, she also forges her own through visits to Palestine.
The sights, the streets, the characters and every day life. The family connections, and fractures as some flee and find themselves so far away, making a new life.
A read that brings to life multi-generations from a Palestinian family, making it feel like you are there with them, that you know them, that you are sitting with them absorbing their stories.
February 13, 2026
I did enjoy this book and think the author painted a really visual picture of her family which I enjoyed, but the format was a bit confusing for me and I found myself losing the thread of what was happening. I appreciate though the depiction of a Christian Palestinian family, very interesting. #FreePalestine
September 3, 2025
This book is important. An exploration of all of the ways being forcibly displaced from your homeland influences a person, a family and a people. And a documentation of one family’s web of connection to their country, their culture and to each other. Free Palestine.
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June 28, 2025Sahhar focused on what was lost as a Palestinian and wrote to ensure that the beauty of her family and culture is not forgottten.
June 16, 2026
Just so full of detail, history, poetry, emotion, power - impossible to read fast but so so rewarding.
April 2, 2026
This was a lovely family memoir that pieced together memories, archives, family stories, and recent and current travels to tell the story of Palestine. While I enjoyed it, I found it a little confusing/hard to follow at times, and there were places where I’d lose interest.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews