Dar Al Qanawati: The Story of the House

The Turath Center is located at the Dar Al-Qanawati in the heart of old Bethlehem just a few hundred yards from the Church of the Nativity. The history of the house and its owners are intertwined with its neighbor, the Church of the Nativity. The original house was built on this site over 300 years ago and the current structure was built in 1870’s. The Qanawati family has lived in this house and the house next door for more than five generations.

For centuries the Qanawati family have been farmers in the Bethlehem area. More recently they have contributed priests to the Church of the Nativity, the first in 1870 and later a Greek Orthodox High Priest in 1939. The Qanawati family was reputed to have been the builders of the water system between Bethlehem and Jerusalem over 2,000 years ago. It was this canal that gave the family their name, Qanawati or Canal Builders.

In recent years the house fell into disrepair and the family wanted to find a partner who had the means and the skill to undertake a careful restoration. In 2002 the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem became the leaseholder of the house and restoration work began. In less than a year the house has been fully restored and modern utilities and telecommunications infrastructure retrofitted. Now the house serves as the base for the handicrafts marketing partnership under the Latin Patriarchate, with the Holy Land Christian Ecumenical Foundation, United Nations Development Program and USAID Market Access Program/DAI.

Because of Turath Center’s mission to support and promote Palestinian arts, crafts and design, the Center has engaged the latest methods for marketing and communications, notably a Web site with a powerful E-commerce engine. This dynamic relationship between the old world and the wired world is an aspect of the project that is truly innovative. Now this old house in the heart of the Holy Land is ready to welcome customers and build a community of interest, with in-person or on-line visitors.