30 Facts About Khalil Sakakini

Khalil Sakakini was a Palestinian teacher, scholar, poet, and Arab nationalist.

Khalil Sakakini's younger sister Melia Sakakini was born in 1890.

Khalil Sakakini received his schooling in Jerusalem at the Greek Orthodox school, at the Anglican Christian Mission Society College founded by Bishop Blyth, and at the Zion English College where he read Literature.

Later, Khalil Sakakini traveled to the United Kingdom and from there to the United States to join his brother Yusif, an itinerant salesman living in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Khalil Sakakini supported himself by teaching Arabic and working in a factory in Maine; he worked as a street vendor.

Khalil Sakakini contributed to Al Nafais Al Asriyyah, a literary magazine based in Jerusalem.

Sari Khalil Sakakini's sudden death of a heart attack in 1953 at the age of 39 was a devastating blow.

Khalil Sakakini died three months later, on 13 August 1953.

Hala Khalil Sakakini edited her father's journals, published in 1955, and wrote two memoirs in English, Jerusalem and I and Twosome.

In 1909, Khalil Sakakini founded the Dusturiyyah school or National School, which became known for its Arab nationalist approach.

Khalil Sakakini pioneered a progressive education system: no grades, prizes or punishments for the students, and emphasis being placed on music, education and athletics.

Khalil Sakakini introduced new methods of teaching Arabic, and made it the primary language of instruction instead of Turkish.

Mr Khalil Sakakini taught us Arabic in a way that was very popular with the students.

Khalil Sakakini used a method which, to my knowledge, few teachers in the East liked to use.

Khalil Sakakini's lessons included anecdotes which the students of this great educator received with eagerness and excitement.

Khalil Sakakini led a movement to reform and change into a more Arab approach to what he considered to be a corrupt Greek Orthodox Church of Jerusalem, and wrote a pamphlet in 1913 titled "The Orthodox Renaissance in Palestine", which led to his excommunication from the Greek Orthodox Church.

Levine became an enemy when the United States joined the Allies of World War I Even so, Levine and Sakakini became close friends during their incarceration.

Khalil Sakakini was visited in prison by his wife and his sister Melia.

Khalil Sakakini later became Inspector for Education in Palestine, a post he held for 12 years, until his resignation in protest of the appointment of a Jew as High Commissioner of the Palestine Mandate, Herbert Samuel.

In May 1934, Khalil Sakakini built a home in the Katamon neighborhood which was completed in three years.

Khalil Sakakini was an advocate of Pan-Arabism and envisaged Palestine united with "Greater Syria".

Khalil Sakakini saw Zionism as a great threat before the First World War and believed that the Jewish right to the land had expired while the Arab right was "a living one".

Khalil Sakakini, listing some of the punishments to be meted out: bomb and shoot the British and Jewish invaders, torch Jewish fields and orange groves, ambush routine traffic, block roads, derail trains, cut power lines.

Therefore, Khalil Sakakini had to conclude, that 'the sword was mightier than the book'.

Khalil Sakakini wrote that Adolf Hitler had opened the World's eyes to Jewish world power, and that Germany had stood up to the Jews and put them in their place, much like Mussolini had done with the British.

Khalil Sakakini vehemently opposed allowing Holocaust survivors into Palestine, arguing that a human problem needed to be solved by all humanity.

Khalil Sakakini believed that the Holocaust was being exploited parasitically by Jews demanding a homeland in Palestine, who he said would throw the Arabs out as soon as they got their homeland.

Khalil Sakakini's published work includes educational treatises, poetry collections, literary, philosophical and political essays, and his diaries.

Khalil Sakakini's publications are now at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

In 2003 too, Khalil Sakakini's heirs bequeathed the center his collection of publications, books, and personal effects.