JERUSALEM — Leading Bedouin scholar Clinton Bailey has amassed hundreds of hours of recordings about the nomadic society’s poetry, history and legal system, in a career that began while jogging through Israel’s Negev desert.
Bailey’s unique Arabic audio archive is now being transcribed and digitized by Israel’s National Library, a project aimed at enriching Bedouin scholarship in Israel, the Arab world and beyond.
“I find that in understanding Bedouin culture… you understand human nature, how people adjust to living under very difficult circumstances,” Bailey told AFP.
There are some 250,000 Bedouins living in Israel, part of the mainly Palestinian-Arab community that st…
Keep on reading: Rare Israeli Bedouin audio archive sheds light on nomadic society