The Elusive Home

The Sophie Ernst-Haya Touma interview

“I have loved my people with a love that dominated all my sentiments and believed deeply and unreservedly in the fraternity of all peoples.”

—Words inscribed on the tombstone of Emile Touma (1919-1985)

Born in Haifa, Israel, Touma was a Palestinian and Israeli Arab political historian, journalist and theorist. He was one of the most prominent Palestinian Marxist leaders who contributed to the preservation of the Arab identity of the Palestinians in Israel. A distinguished historian and eminent literary critic, he has written many books and hundreds of studies and articles.

In 1937, Touma travelled to Cambridge University to study law, but returned to Palestine after the outbreak of World War II. After the 1948 Nakba—the Palestinian catastrophe that led to the displacement of a majority of the Palestinian Arabs—Touma’s family was forced to take refuge in Lebanon.

In 1949, he decided to return to Haifa, his hometown, which had fallen under Zionist control. His home, too, was taken over by the government. Touma could never enter his home again. Just like millions of Palestinians, who, even today, are longing for the right to return to the hometowns of their grandparents.

For him, home was elusive. However, his wife Haya Touma has kept the memories alive. Born in the town of Orgeyev in Moldova in 1931, she immigrated to Eretz Israel with her family in 1934. In 1941, the family moved to Haifa. Haya met Emile when she was 18. They married a couple of years later. Haya’s marriage with Emile, an Arab Orthodox Christian, is an example of Jewish-Arab unity.