Leila El Khalidi

Born in Jerusalem in 1927, Leila Hussein Fakhri El Khalidi graduated from the American Junior College in Beirut before working, from 1943 and 1946, under the Palestinian Mandate Government. From 1971 to 1978 she was the head librarian at the PLO Research Centre in Beirut, then joined SAMED (the Palestinian Martyrs’ Works Society), founding the Society’s Central Library and heading a research unit for Folklore and Folk Arts and Crafts. Her efforts resulted, in late 1971, in recognition of the PLO Research Centre Library as the national library of the Palestinian people, and, in 1986, in the establishment of a folk museum collection within SAMED.