Dr. Adnan Mussallam

Dr. Mussallam was born and raised in Bethlehem until the 11th grade. He completed his high school diploma, B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. in the United States. Dr. Mussallam has been teaching history and cultural studies at Bethlehem University since 1981. He served several times as chairperson as well as acting dean and dean of the faculty of arts at the university. He was president of the university's employees union for several terms and a member for many years and works now as an adjunct associate professor, having retired in 2009.

Dr. Mussallam has written several books on Bethlehem and Palestine, and his doctoral work has been expanded and published in the United States in 2005 and in Germany in 2011. His work deals with sayyid qutb, the ideology of the current jihadists such as Ayman al-Zawahiri. He is currently working on his and his wife's web site Bethlehem-holyland.net. He is active in Al-Liqa center, Areej, and the board of the Assooj School. He is married to Salwa Sayeh and has 5 daughters, 9 grandchildren and 3 great grandchildren.

Mr.Khalil Shokeh

Mr. Khalil was born in Bethlehem and graduated from Bethlehem University with a B.A. in sociology and psychology. He completed his M.S. degree in higher education at the University of Southern Illinois at Carbondale in the U.S.

Mr. Shokeh is a well known researcher in the area and has been working at Centre for Cultural Heritage Preservation (CCHP) since 2012. Previously he was the managing director at Bethlehem Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BCCI) from 1998-2003, and he was Director General of Students Affairs at the Ministry of Education and Higher Education in Palestine (MoEHE). Mr. Shokeh is one of our primary academic staff members and is a widely experienced lecturer on the history of Bethlehem.

Mr. Shokeh has written and books including:

The Commercial Center in Bethlehem (Al-Madbasseh), published In Arabic, September 2014

Bethlehem from 1880-1967: Origin and Development of Bethlehem Municipality’, 2012