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Emile Touma

Emile Touma was an Arab Israeli historian, journalist and communist leader from Haifa who co-founded the newspaper Al-Ittihad in 1944.

1919 to 1985Co-founding Al-IttihadLeading the Palestine Communist PartyWriting on Arab nationalism

Born: 16 March 1919, Mandatory Palestine
Died: 27 August 1985, Hungary
Occupation: historian, writer
Party: National Liberation League in Palestine, Maki, Palestine Communist Party
Education: University of Cambridge
Founded: Al-Ittihad (1944), National Liberation League in Palestine (1944)

Emile Touma was born in 1919 in Mandatory Palestine

Touma was born in Haifa in 1919 to a wealthy Orthodox Christian family. He studied at a school in Haifa and finished high school at Bishop Gobat's School in Jerusalem.

He went to Cambridge University and was active in the British Communist Party there. He returned to Haifa when World War II broke out in 1939.

In 1939 he joined the Palestine Communist Party and later helped lead it. In 1944 he co-founded Al-Ittihad with Fuad Nassar and Emile Habibi, and he also helped found the National Liberation League. He opposed the partition of Palestine and was arrested in Lebanon in 1948.

In 1949 he returned to Haifa and edited Al-Ittihad. He earned a PhD in history in Moscow with a dissertation on Arab nationalism. He was a member of the Maki political bureau and wrote many books and articles.

He married the ceramic artist Chaia Touma in Moscow in 1962, and they had a son. Touma died in Haifa in 1985. An institute was named for him in 1986 and a street in Wadi Nisnas in 2004.