Background
Emile was born in Haifa to an Orthodox Christian family in 1919.
Emile was born in Haifa to an Orthodox Christian family in 1919.
He attended the Orthodox School in Haifa, then went to Jerusalem to the Saint George"s School to complete his high school studies.
He enrolled in Cambridge University but left it in 1939 when World World War II started. In that year he joined the Palestinian communists. In 1944 Touma, Fuad Nassar and Emile Habibi established a new newspaper, First Rate (at Lloyd's)-Ittihad, which published its first edition on 14 May 1944.
He was arrested in Lebanon in 1948.
In 1949 he returned to Haifa and continued working as editor-in-chief of First Rate (at Lloyd's)-Ittihad. He wrote 15 books and hundreds of articles about politics, history and culture.
The Emil Touma Institute for Palestinian and Israeli Studies, established in 1986, is named for him. In 2004 a street was named for him in Haifa"s Wadi Nisnas.