February 10, 2025

Lavender Boutique Hotel, Ramallah

Dear Friends,

If you missed the first blog post about my travels to the Dead Sea and from there to the West Bank, you can find it here. In short, I journeyed across the King Hussein/Allenby (Dignity) Bridge to arrive in Ramallah, a Palestinian city just about 10 miles north of Jerusalem.

After a long and somewhat difficult journey, I arrived in the late afternoon at my destination, the Lavender Boutique Hotel. (Thank you Diana for the recommendation!) I was exhausted, and the staff could not have been more kind or gracious. This was the first day they had been open since October 2023, because there have been so few international travelers since that time. I was honored to be here for their re-opening, and very sad they’ve had to be closed so long.

The hotel serves breakfast only, but when I asked where I could just get some toast, they made a lovely platter of toast, butter, cheese, jams, and turkey - just what I needed. 

It's a charming hotel that used to be a private home. The hotel lobby includes family photos, and many special family treasures.

So I decided to asked the proprietor, Abla Nasir, about the family history here. Abla said that in her childhood in the 1950s, she played at the house next door, which belonged to her grandparents. Her other grandparents lived in Haifa, and they came to visit the family in Ramallah occasionally. Abla and her family were not allowed to go to Haifa, which a few years earlier had become part of the State of Israel, which Palestinians from the West Bank were not permitted to enter.

In 1965, Abla, her 5 siblings, and her parents, Issa and Ellen Kassis, moved from another home in Ramallah to this house. (At the time, the land was controlled by Jordan.)

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Abla went to high school in Beirut. So she was away from home in 1967 when war broke out and Israel subsequently occupied the West Bank. Just 17 years old and unable to return to her family, Abla traveled to Jordan to be with her aunt who lived there. Every day she begged the Israeli authorities for permission to cross the bridge - the same bridge I crossed to arrive here - but she was refused. Desperate to reach her parents, Abla decided to try to sneak across the border along with another family. They waded across a shallow part of the Jordan River, even though they knew the risk: if the Israeli soldiers on the west side of the river caught them, they might have been shot. That was the fate that met the corpse Abla remembers seeing in the river. Fortunately, the group evaded capture, and Abla returned to her family - just in time. It was two weeks later that Israel conducted a census, and determined which Palestinians would be permitted to live in the West Bank. Residents who were away from home at the time would not be eligible to return. Abla and her siblings lived in this house until they married.

Following their mother’s passing, the family decided to hold onto memories by keeping the home, but converting it into a hotel. They added two floors to the building, to increase the number of guest rooms and to add a beautiful conference space - where I’ll be working and Zooming. They named the hotel (Lavender) after Abla’s mother’s favorite scent.

Before I arrived, my plan was to stay in the hotel for about a week, and then to move to an apartment. But I’ve decided to stay here instead. I’m near the center of town, everything is so comfortable, and the staff make me really delicious breakfasts every day! Abla generously offered me a long-term rate, and they continue to provide help with everything I might need - ordering food, shopping, calling a taxi, and even finding curly hair care products, and a pilates studio.

I don’t think I’m going to want to leave! Very big thanks to Abla, Miral, Haya, Majdal, Amjad, Mireille, and Muna for making me feel so welcome at my home away from home.

In the next post: why am I here?

Salaam,

Nancy