Sami Hadawi - Early Life

Early Life

Hadawi was born in Jerusalem to Arab Christian parents. His father was a soldier in the army of the Ottoman Empire and died in combat during World War I. In 1915, after his father's death, Hadawi's family moved to Amman. Three years later he worked as an unofficial interpreter for the British Army and then moved back to Palestine the year after to work as a clerk for the Land Registration Office.

His interest in the structure of Arab villages began with his job there and then his job at the Land Settlement Department from 1920 to 1927. Hadawi eventually became an inspector and land value assessor from 1938 to 1948 and was the major contributor to the Village Statistics 1945: A Classification of Land and Area Ownership in Palestine which was a land and population census of the Arab localities in the British Mandate of Palestine. He lived in his grandfather's home in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City until 1948. In 1948, he, his wife Nora and their two children built a home for themselves in Katamon. That same year they were forced to leave with the advance of Israeli forces.