This project came together because so many Berouti family descendants and friends were willing to share their photos, documents, memories, and insights. Here, I want to thank them for their help and support, in no particular order:
Nasri Talamas, my dad’s best friend, who generously gave hours of his time to speak with me over Zoom, sharing memories of the past, both joyous and painful, and patiently answering every question I had about the family and his recollections of Jaffa.
My cousin on my paternal grandmother’s side, Pablo Rosetti, for kindly and generously allowing me to share here a poignant letter sent to his grandparents during the Nakba.
Yossi Granovski, a contact in Jaffa, who graciously took the time to photograph Emile Nicolas Berouti’s house and to share the relevant pages from Yitzhak Rokach’s book with me.
My Berouti Relatives: Randa Beyrouti, Alain Beyrouti, Alex Allam, Alex De Taranto, Loutfi Aboussouan, René Berouti, Chérine Haddad, Patrick Beyrouti, Raja Beirouti, and Michael Beyrouti—for all the wonderful pictures and artifacts they shared with me.
My friend Andrea Stanton, for coming up with the idea of creating this website to store and display all the family discoveries.
My friend Adrien Zakar, for pointing me toward archival resources I hadn’t known about, which led to the discovery of valuable new documents.
My mother, Maureen Atallah Beyrouti, for kindly listening to me on the phone as I shared new discoveries, and for passing along the stories she remembers about the Berouti family—stories once told to her by her own mother, Claire Kayaleh, who was a close friend of Salma and Najla Berouti during their years in Jaffa.
My husband, Sammy Zahran, for patiently listening to every minute detail of my research and insights, for helping me sift through documents and decipher clues, for getting just as excited as I was about new findings, and for being by my side every step of the way.
The late George Emile Berouti and his nephew, the late Antoine Gelat, who created the first and second versions of the Berouti family tree, laid what was likely the most important foundation behind this entire project. Their careful work gave me a starting point and the structure I needed to continue the research. Without the family tree that one built and the other expanded, none of this would have been possible.
Finally, the memory of my father, Jacques Berouti, has accompanied me all along on this beautiful yet bittersweet journey. The way his face lit up every time he talked about Jaffa and the Palestine he knew before the Nakba will forever be etched in my memory.