Jahula

Jahula
Jahula
Arabic جاحولا
Name meaning Ain Jahula=The spring of the large rock[1]
Subdistrict Safad
Coordinates 33°07′29″N 35°34′02″E / 33.12472°N 35.56722°E / 33.12472; 35.56722Coordinates: 33°07′29″N 35°34′02″E / 33.12472°N 35.56722°E / 33.12472; 35.56722
Palestine grid 203/281
Population 420[2][3] (1945)
Area 3,869[3] dunams
Date of depopulation May, 1948[4]

Jahula (Arabic: جاحولا‎) was a Palestinian Arab village in the Safad Subdistrict. It was depopulated during the 1948 War on May 1, 1948 by the Palmach's First Battalion of Operation Yiftach. It was located 11 km northeast of Safad.

In 1945, the village had a population of 420. The village had one mosque and a shrine for a local sage known as al-Shaykh Salih.

Location

Jahula was situated in the foothills of the Galilee Mountains overlooking the Hula Valley plain, by the Tiberias— Al-Mutilla highway.[5]

History

The Jahula area had been occupied from the seventh through the third millennium B.C., according to archaeological excavations conducted in 1986.[5] Pottery remains from the Roman and Byzantine periods have also been found in the area.[6]

Ottoman era

Jahula was recorded in the Ottoman census of 1596 as belonging to the nahiya (subdistrict) of Jira under the liwa' (district) of Safad, and at the time it had 5 Muslim households; an estimated population of 28 inhabitants. They paid a fixed tax rate of 20% on crops such as wheat and barley, and reared goats, bees, and water buffalos. Total revenue was 1,550 akçe.[7][8]

In 1875 Victor Guérin report passing through the village (which he called Kharbet Djaouleh), finding only a few of the houses inhabited.[9]

In 1881, the Palestine Exploration Fund's Survey of Western Palestine found at Ain Jahula "a large perennial spring, with a stream flowing to the march of the Huleh; a large supply of good water".[10]

The villagers of Jahula were predominantly Muslim and worshipped at a local mosque, situated approximately 1 km north of the village site. A shrine there was dedicated to Shaykh Salih, a local religious preacher.[5] The houses in the village were made of masonry.[5]

Most villagers were engaged in agriculture, and a spring located on the north side of the village supplied the people of Jahula with drinking water.[5]

British Mandate era era

In the 1922 census of Palestine, conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Jahula had a population of 214; all Muslims,[11] increasing in the 1931 census to 357; still all Muslims, in a total of 90 houses.[12]

In the 1945 statistics Jahula had a population of 420 Muslims,[2] with 3,869 dunums of land, according to an official land and population survey.[3] 1,626 dunums were allocated to grain farming,[5][13] while 64 dunams were classified as urban land.[14]

Jahula. 1945. Survey of Palestine. Scale 1:250,000

Some villagers were also employed in the stone quarries north of the village.[5]

1948, and aftermath

Yiftach Brigade erecting fencing. Jahula. 1948
Yiftach Brigade defensive positions. Jahula. 1948

Jahula was depopulated during the 1948 War on May 1, 1948 by the Palmach's First Battalion of Operation Yiftach.[5][15] Benny Morris writes that the cause of depopulation is unknown, while the American Historian Rosemarie Esber gives as depopuation cause: "Direct mortar attacks on civilians, siege, shooting at fleeing Arabs".[15]

Presently, the Israeli Kibbutz of Yiftach is 2 kilometers (1.2 mi) northwest of the village site; there are no settlements on village lands.[5]

Of the village site the Palestinian historian Walid Khalidi wrote in 1992: "The only remains of the destroyed village are a few stone terraces. The site is enclosed by barbed wire, and cactuses and trees grow on it. The village spring is still in use by Israelis. Parts of the village land are planted in cotton and watermelons, while other parts are wooded and hilly.[5]

References

  1. ↑ Palmer, 1881, p. 62
  2. 1 2 Department of Statistics, 1945, p. 9
  3. 1 2 3 Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 70
  4. ↑ Morris, 2004, p. xvi, village #23. Morris gives date and cause of depopulation with a questionmark
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Khalidi, 1992, p.457
  6. ↑ Mokary, 2009, Yiftah Final Report
  7. ↑ Hütteroth and Abdulfattah, 1977, p. 178. Quoted in Khalidi, 1992, p. 457
  8. ↑ Note that Rhode, 1979, p. 6 writes that the register that Hütteroth and Abdulfattah studied was not from 1595/6, but from 1548/9
  9. ↑ Guérin, 1880, p. 354
  10. ↑ Conder and Kitchener, 1881, SWP I, p. 212
  11. ↑ Barron, 1923, Table XI, Sub-district of Safad, p. 41
  12. ↑ Mills, 1932, p. 107
  13. ↑ Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 119
  14. ↑ Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 169
  15. 1 2 Esber, 2008, p.391, village #158

Bibliography

  • Barron, J. B., ed. (1923). Palestine: Report and General Abstracts of the Census of 1922. Government of Palestine.
  • Conder, C.R.; Kitchener, H.H. (1881). The Survey of Western Palestine: Memoirs of the Topography, Orography, Hydrography, and Archaeology. 1. London: Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund.
  • Department of Statistics (1945). Village Statistics, April, 1945. Government of Palestine.
  • Esber, R.M. (2008). Under the Cover of War, The Zionist Expulsions of the Palestinians. Arabicus Books & Media. ISBN 0981513174.
  • Guérin, V. (1880). Description Géographique Historique et Archéologique de la Palestine (in French). 3: Galilee, pt. 2. Paris: L'Imprimerie Nationale.
  • Hütteroth, Wolf-Dieter; Abdulfattah, Kamal (1977). Historical Geography of Palestine, Transjordan and Southern Syria in the Late 16th Century. Erlanger Geographische Arbeiten, Sonderband 5. Erlangen, Germany: Vorstand der Fränkischen Geographischen Gesellschaft. ISBN 3-920405-41-2.
  • Hadawi, S. (1970). Village Statistics of 1945: A Classification of Land and Area ownership in Palestine. Palestine Liberation Organization Research Center.
  • Khalidi, W. (1992). All That Remains: The Palestinian Villages Occupied and Depopulated by Israel in 1948. Washington D.C.: Institute for Palestine Studies. ISBN 0-88728-224-5.
  • Mills, E., ed. (1932). Census of Palestine 1931. Population of Villages, Towns and Administrative Areas. Jerusalem: Government of Palestine.
  • Mokary, Abdalla (2009-09-30). "Yiftah Final Report" (121). Hadashot Arkheologiyot – Excavations and Surveys in Israel.
  • Morris, B. (2004). The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-00967-6.
  • Palmer, E.H. (1881). The Survey of Western Palestine: Arabic and English Name Lists Collected During the Survey by Lieutenants Conder and Kitchener, R. E. Transliterated and Explained by E.H. Palmer. Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund.
  • Rhode, H. (1979). Administration and Population of the Sancak of Safed in the Sixteenth Century. Columbia University.
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