Name/Title
Certificate of Marriage (1955)Entry/Object ID
2021.026Tags
On ViewDescription
This is an official certificate of marriage between Suad Hanna Da'ood Sa'a to John George Peter, filed in the district of Jerusalem and solemnized in Ramallah. Mr. Peter was residing in Detroit, Michigan at the time, and Ms. Sa'a was working as a lawyer in Ramallah. This certificate demonstrates the nature of love and marriage between exiled Palestinians and those still living in Palestine.
Suad Hanna was born in Ramallah in 1936. Her parents married in Ramallah in 1934. In 1955 Suad married John George Peter in Ramallah. Their family now resides in the United States. In the marriage certificate, they identified religiously as Christian Orthodox. Palestinian Christians belong to one of a number of Christian denominations, including Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy, Catholicism (Eastern and Western rites), Anglicanism, Lutheranism, other branches of Protestantism and others. Bernard Sabella of Bethlehem University estimates that 6% of the Palestinian population worldwide is Christian and that 56% of them live outside of the region of Palestine.
It is also important to note that in the early 20th century, there were an estimated 73,000 Palestinian Christians in Palestine making up at least 10 percent of the total population, and 20 percent of Jerusalem. By 2019, barely two percent are Christian and only 2,000 Christians remain. The occupation of the Palestinian people by the Israeli government is not a religious problem, that the West often categorizes as "Muslims versus Jews". Palestinians are Muslim, Christian and Jewish. The Israeli military occupation and the violence against the Palestinian people is therefore a settler-colonial project, and one that is based in the oppression of indigenous people under apartheid.Collection
Permanent CollectionGeneral Notes
Note
Courtesy Hanna Butros (Peter) Family