New Al Qalam Sign Text and Full Diff

A revised historical sign has been posted for Al Qalam: Poets in the Park at Elizabeth H. Berger Plaza. The new text changes how the sign describes the first Arabic-speaking community on Washington Street and how it identifies the writers represented in the artwork.

For readers who want to see the exact textual changes, we have prepared a full side-by-side comparison:

View the Al Qalam sign text diff

The earlier sign described the community through the historical frame of “Greater Syria” and used “Syrian” several times as a collective label. The revised sign instead says that immigrants were “mostly from Lebanon and others from Syria and historic Palestine,” changes several collective uses of “Syrian,” and adds present-day national origins for named writers.

The revision followed public controversy and objections from Lebanese officials and diaspora advocates. Contemporary reporting described the issue as a dispute over whether writers such as Kahlil Gibran, Mikhail Naimy, Ameen Rihani, and Elia Abu Madi should be identified through the historical “Syrian” frame or through modern Lebanese national identity. See, for example, coverage in L’Orient Today, The National, and New Lines Magazine.

The Washington Street Advocacy Group has a view on the historical, interpretive, and civic questions raised by this change, but we are not prepared to publish that view yet. For now, the purpose of the diff page is narrower: to make the before-and-after text visible, accurate, and easy for others to review.