Welcome to the Masquerade

Oranges, Parties, and Resistance

Alfred Roch was an affluent Palestinian businessman, a crucial Palestinian politician who supported the resistance, and a supporter of culture- and he excelled in all three. While a member of the Palestinian National League and at the height of WWI, a photograph of a masked ball held in his home at Easter in 1942 shows a group of wealthy Jaffans posing in their costumes. Contemporary artist Joumana Manna’s  “A Sketch of Manners (Alfred Roch’s Last Masquerade)” is a short video recreating this photograph. Who is this Palestinian?

Alfred Roch, 1882-1942 was one of the biggest citrus exporters in Jaffa, involved also in the Palestinian shipping industry, and was a member of The Citrus Board of Jaffa. Roch was one of the most prominent Jaffan Palestinian leaders during the British Mandate or the British occupation. He was also a renowned figure in the Roman Catholic community in Palestine and actively opposed Zionism and colonialism. 

Roch attended the Collège des Frères in Jaffa and his secondary education was in Aintoura in Lebanon. He then studied at the agricultural institute of Beauvais in France, where he received a degree in agricultural engineering. And was set out to improve the cultivation of Jaffa oranges and conducted extensive experiments in his orchard until he became an authority on the cultivation and marketing of oranges.

The Roch family was one of the biggest land and orchard owners and owned numerous mansions, villas, houses, and Well Houses in Jaffa. In addition to business and politics, Alfred Roch was part of the cultural and urban life of his city. In 1911, he established “Circle Sportive” a sporting club in Jaffa, and his house parties and soirés were famous. Alfred and Olynda had two daughters Fortunée and Paulette*. Olynda was born in Jaffa and her father Emile was in the beekeeping and honey culture, was born June 15, 1858 in Jerusalem and died in Jaffa in 1946.

Olynda’s cousin Lisette Baldensperger

Alfred Roch actively campaigned to get public support for the Arab Revolt in 1916 and the Ottoman authorities exiled him to Anatolia. After the end of World War I, he returned to his hometown and became an exporter of Jaffa oranges, especially to Britain. In 1927, Roch participated in founding the Palestine Free Party in Jaffa aiming at “complete independence [for Palestine] by realizing Palestinian national aspirations and sovereignty; defending personal freedoms of all kinds; [and] moving the country towards social and national unity.” On 21 January 1930, he was then chosen by the Executive Committee of the Palestinian Arab Congress as a member of the Palestinian delegation that went to London to hold talks with British Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald and the Minister of Colonies, Lord Passfield, about the repercussions of that uprising and demanded an end to Jewish immigration to Palestine, the confiscation of lands, and the transfer of their ownership to Zionist organizations. Roch was vice-president of the Palestine Arab Party.

On 20 April 1936, Alfred Roch signed a statement drafted by prominent Jaffa figures, which called upon residents to participate in the general strike and was appointed to the committee overseeing the implementation of the strike. Alfred Roch became a member of the Arab Higher Committee, which led the general strike and the Arab Revolt (1936-39). 

When the British Mandate authorities dissolved the Arab Higher Committee on 1 October 1937 and exiled some of its members to the Seychelles Islands, Roch was in Geneva, attending the proceedings of the League of Nations and campaigning for the Palestinian cause and did not end up in the Seychelles Islands. He was barred from returning to Palestine for five years. Two years later, Roch was a member of the Palestinian delegation to the London conference held in February 1939 at St James’s Palace in London. 

On 22 April 1942, just after Alfred was allowed to return to Jaffa after 5 years of exile, Roch suffered a heart attack near the Apollo Cinema in the Ajami neighborhood of Jaffa, while he was on his way to his office. He was rushed to the city’s French Hospital, where he died shortly after arriving. The French hospital (built in 1887) was one of the best hospitals in Jaffa and had accommodated nearly all its affluent inhabitants who slept there as patients and many died there. The hospital and its chapel were turned into a hotel by Israelis. His funeral procession was held the following day in Al Ajami, and he was buried in the Latin Cemetery of Jaffa where his grave stands today. Although Roch died at the age of sixty years, he was lucky because he was saved from witnessing the Nakba, the ethnic cleansing and destruction of his city, the loss of his Jaffa orange groves, shipping businesses, workers, mansions, homes, and friends. All the people in his party photos were turned refugees. He was spared from witnessing the loss of the land he worked hard to make independent and was exiled for, Palestine. Very few of the family photographs are all that is left of Alfred Roch’s legacy. His home has been taken over. His family is in the diaspora. The hospital where he died is a hotel and the chapel where he received his last rites before he was buried, is now a bar for tourists.

Alfred Roch’s daughter Paulette Roch 1913 – 2002 

Paulette was Roch’s second daughter born in Jaffa, Palestine in the Al Ajami neighborhood in 1913. There is not much public knowledge of his first daughter Olynda Roch. Alfred Roch’s wife and daughters turned refugees in 1948 and live in exile. Paulette married Mr. Michel Tadros and her children are: Marie-Claude, Nadim, Nabil, Samir, and Raji. Alfred Roch’s grandchildren from Paulette’s side are Jean-Loup, Julien, Yasmina, Karim, Tarek, Théo, Roch, Hugo, Michel, Marc, Luana, and Marie-Reine, his great-grandchildren are Jana and Maude. Paulette Roch Tadros died in Montreal on August 28, 2002, at the age of 88 years and 8 months (from Paulettes’ obituary).