Pharmacy of Superpower
Three Jaffan generations of pharmacists studied abroad and returned to Jaffa:
Kamel Geday studied and worked in Adana, Turkey
Fakhri Geday studied at St. Joseph’s University of Beirut, Lebanon
Yousef Geday studied at the University of Liverpool, the UK
The Kamal Pharmacy is the oldest continuously serving pharmacy in historic Palestine.
In 2024 the Jaffan pharmacy in Al Ajami neighborhood will celebrate 100 years since its establishment.
“Staying in Jaffa was considered to be akin to having superpowers,” Said Yousef Geday. Al Kamal Pharmacy stands to this day in Al Ajami as the only Pharmacy on Al Hilweh Street (renamed in Hebrew Yeffet Street). In his conversation with Al Jazeera, Yousef Geday says: “It’s a miracle this pharmacy stayed.” With about a hundred thousand Jaffans expelled from the urban port city, the pharmacy survived but lost all its clientele. Yet it stands, with its exterior and interior almost completely unchanged as a consoling reminder for Jaffans of the vibrant city that once existed.
Opened in 1924, Al Kamal pharmacy was run by 3 generations of the Geday family (Kamel, Fakhri, and now Yousef). The pharmacy has seen Al Ajami in its various stages, from being home for the bourgeois rich people of Jaffa to becoming ghettoized by the occupiers, and now in the midst of ethnogentrification. Yousef Geday can trace his family in Jaffa for 8 generations. The pharmacy was built by Kamel Geday, who had built other pharmacies in other places too. Al Kamal pharmacy stood on one of Jaffa’s main streets, al-Hilweh Street, now dubbed “Yeffet Street” near the first Jaffan cinema Apollo (which was destroyed). Al Kamal and the pharmacists knew the Jaffans, their illnesses, and their medications. They knew the age of the Jaffans, which medications worked and which did not, who could afford their medications and who could not. Before establishing the pharmacy in Jaffa, Kamel Geday was recruited as an officer in the Turkish military and was a pharmacist in Adana. His son Fakhri was born in Jaffa in 1926 where he attended the Freres School. Fakhri continued his studies at St. Joseph University of Beirut (also known as the French University) where he received his M.S. in Pharmacy.
The Nakba surprise
In an interview with Zochrot, Fakhri Geday recalls how he returned from Beirut to Jaffa. In 1950, he was able to return to Jaffa as part of the family reunification law because his absence from the country was due to his education. When Fakhri left his Jaffa, he was a young man traveling abroad to study to come back and continue the family legacy of the pharmacy on the main street. When Fakhri returned, he found only one neighborhood left from the main Palestinian city. Fakhri’s parents, as all of the 3,700 remaining Jaffans were living behind barbed wire after the new Israelis expelled them from their homes. Fakhri’s parents survived the ethnic cleansing and fall of Jaffa. Shortly after his return, the reunification law was cancelled and no one for any reason ever, was allowed to return. Back to Fakhri, after two years of absence and war, he describes his city as “a body without a soul”. Fakhri arrived on the 16th of October on a Sunday. The next morning on Monday, he was awakened by his mother asking him to open up the Pharmacy as his father was now too old. The two years living in a prison camp had taken its toll and the pharmacy was a way to deal with the traumatic situation in Jaffa. Fakhri’s son, Yousef, who now runs the pharmacy, explains that working for his father helped alleviate the pain of watching Jaffa disappear. Fakhri was known for writing fiercely-worded correspondence to politicians who expressed pro-occupation sentiments in public speeches, such as the British Prime Minister and various US Senator members. He often started his letter with: “Let the dogs bark, the caravan will proceed…” Fakhri refused to connect his pharmacy to Israeli health organizations, an entity that had destroyed and emptied his city; missing out on serious economic benefits. Fakhri wrote a book “Yaffa, Bride of the Sea”, in the book he listed the original Arabic names of streets, neighborhoods, institutions, buildings, theatres, cafes, sports and social clubs, and cinemas. Having not missed a single day of work at his pharmacy, Fakhri Geday passed away at the age of 87; leaving the pharmacy to his pharmacist son Yousef, who studied at the University of Liverpool.
Fakhri Geday contributed most of his personal collection of pharmacy-related items of photographs, documents, transcripts, and antique recipes of medications to the Palestinian Pharmacy Museum at An-Najah National University.
References
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/5/30/the-legacy-of-the-oldest-palestinian-pharmacy-in-jaffa
https://yaffa48.com/?mod=articles&ID=13661
https://www.aljazeera.net/misc/2006/9/16/%D8%B5%D9%8A%D8%AF%D9%84%D9%8A%D8%A9-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%83%D9%85%D8%A7%D9%84-%D8%A8%D9%8A%D8%A7%D9%81%D8%A7-%D9%85%D9%8A%D8%B1%D8%A7%D8%AB-%D8%A3%D8%AC%D9%8A%D8%A7%D9%84-%D9%88%D8%B0%D9%83%D8%B1%D9%89https://www.najah.edu/en/news-archive/the-university-honors-dr-fahkry-juday-from-jaffa/