Summary
Lawyer from Al-Rama (born 1926) whose return to the Galilee in August 1952 — as a “new immigrant” on an Israeli entrance visa in his Jordanian passport, aboard a ship carrying Libyan Jews to Haifa — Manna calls an atypical return, set against the hundreds of Palestinian students abroad whose return Israel banned (Nakba and Survival, PDF p.208-210).
Details
- ‘Abbud, an only son whose father Tuma died when he was nine, went to London in 1945 on a mandatory-government scholarship to study law at University College London; when war broke out he had one more year to finish, and said: “I did not think at the time that there would be problem concerning my return to the country after I completed my studies.” (Nakba and Survival, PDF p.208).
- His Palestinian passport useless after the Mandate ended, he took a Jordanian passport (no. 033001, 5 January 1950), travelled to Brazil, then via Europe, Damascus and Amman to Tripoli, Libya, where he worked as a legal consultant for the new Libyan government (Nakba and Survival, PDF p.209).
- In Tripoli, Shawqi Bey al-Sa’d of Haifa — head of the general security branch, and the official who extended the residence visa of Meir Shelon, Israel’s consul in Tripoli charged with arranging Libyan Jewish emigration — telephoned Shelon on his behalf; an entrance visa (no. 41227) was issued, and ‘Abbud sailed on the ship Artsa via Naples to Haifa, his Jordanian passport’s first page recording in Hebrew: “Mr. ‘Abbud Khalil relinquished his Jordanian citizenship in order to obtain Israeli citizenship.” (Nakba and Survival, PDF p.209-210).
- Back in the Galilee, he became a lawyer and a teacher, and then a judge in Israel (Nakba and Survival, PDF p.210).