Dr. Wahby Ibrahim Jabaji (b. 1911, Ramleh, Palestine 🇵🇸)
Pictured here with his wife in Jaffa during the 1940s, the distinguished Egyptian pianist of Lebanese origin Laila Freijeh, daughter of Amin Freijeh, a senior official at Egypt’s Ministry of Finance.
Dr. Jabaji’s path was marked by brilliance and resilience. He pursued medicine at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland, later specializing in Ophthalmology at the University of London - a trajectory emblematic of a generation of ambitious Palestinian intellectuals seeking world-class education abroad.
Upon his return, he founded a renowned private clinic in Jaffa, earning a reputation as one of the city’s most respected physicians. Yet history soon tested him.
During the 1936–1939 Arab Revolt, as Zionist militias hunted Palestinian leaders and intellectuals, he briefly took refuge in Egypt before returning once more to his homeland.
The Nakba of 1948 forced him into exile, this time to Beirut. By 1952, during a visit to Amman, Jordanian officials urged him to establish a clinic - making him Amman’s first ophthalmologist, a pioneer whose contributions shaped the future of eye care in the city. His legacy was later enshrined when he was honored at the 50th anniversary of the Jordanian Medical Association.
But perhaps his most enduring act of defiance was not in medicine, but in law: his groundbreaking lawsuit against the Ottoman Bank. This bold legal battle became a legendary precedent, empowering several Palestinians to reclaim their frozen assets after the Nakba and the systematic plunder by the Israeli occupation. It was a stand remembered not merely as a legal victory, but as a transformative act of courage and justice, echoing across generations.
Read more about the lawsuit in Sreemati Mitter’s doctoral dissertation, A History of Money in Palestine: From the 1900s to the Present (Harvard University, 2014): https://dash.harvard.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/eea6c8fe-3c70-4305-a1db-088ded82169f/content
