Khalil Raad

Khalil Raad
Khalil Raad
Born	1854 Bhamdoun, Lebanon
Died	1957 Bhamdoun
Occupation	Photographer

Khalil Raad (Arabic: خليل رعد‎‎, 1854–1957) was a photographer, known as "Palestine's first Arab photographer." His works include over 1230 glass plates, tens of postcards, and as yet unpublished films that document political events and daily life in Palestine, Syria, and Lebanon over the course of fifty years.

Raad was born in 1854 in Bhamdoun, Lebanon. His father, Anis, had fled from the family's village of Sibnay after converting to Protestantism from the Maronite faith. During the 1860 sectarian strife afflicting the mountain regions, Raad's father was killed. Following his death, Raad's mother took him and his sister, Sarah, to Jerusalem where they resided with relatives.

Raad first studied photography under Garabed Krikorian, an Armenian-Palestinian graduate of a photography workshop established by Issay Garabedian, the Armenian Patriarch of Jerusalem. Raad opened his own studio on Jaffa Road across the street from that of his former teacher in Jerusalem in 1890, engaging in direct competition with him. After Garabed's son John assumed control of his father's studio in 1913 and married Raad's niece, Najla, known as the "peace bride," the two studios worked in partnership.

Raad married Annie Muller in 1919, a Swiss national who served as an assistant to Keller, a photographer who Raad studied with in Switzerland on the eve of World War I. He returned to Palestine with Muller to live in Talibiyya, then a village near Jerusalem in which Raad ran for mayorship and was elected.

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