Bayt Jibrin

Template:Infobox Former Arab villages in Palestine Bayt Jibrin (Arabic: بيت جبرين, also spelled Beit Jibrin) is a former Palestinian town located Template:Km to mi northwest of the city of Hebron. In the latest census of Palestine in 1945, the town's population was 2,430. Its total land area consisted of 56,185 dunums, of which 287 were built-up areas and most of the remainder agricultural land.

Bayt Jibrin, in Arabic, means "house of the powerful" and may have been derived from Aramaic. Regional folklore had it that the village originally was inhabited by Canaanites who were said to be a race of "giants".

Bayt Jibrin, believed to be originally inhabited by the Canaanites, was known as Ginabrin during the First Jewish-Roman War. After the Herodian period the town's name was Hellenised to Eleutheropolis at the time of the Bar Kokhba Revolt. The immediate vicinity is rich in natural and artificial caverns (approximately 800) and as "ḥorim" means "caverns" in Hebrew, and "ḥor" also signifies "free," the Greek name; Eleutheropolis (Gr. EX€vOEparrbXcs, “City of the Free”), may be founded on a confusion of, or a conscious play upon words. Eleutheropolis was identified by E. Robinson with the modern Bayt Jibrin on the basis of biblical references and the writings of Josephus and Eusebius.

Under the Roman Emperor Septimus Severus, in the Late Roman period (circa 200 A.D.), Eleutheropolis was turned into a Roman colonia (colony). As a major administrative center, Eleutheropolis was expanded to included the land stretching from Ein Gedi on the Dead Sea coast to Gerar and became a bishop's seat.

In the Islamic conquest of Palestine by the Rashidun Caliphate, Bayt Jibrin is mentioned as one of ten towns in area conquered by Amr ibn al-A'as. According to later Arab legend, the town serves as the burial place of Tamim Abu Ruqayya a companion of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. It continued to serve as the emporium of nearby towns and villages during its rule by the Arabs and the Crusaders, however it fell into economic decline. After its capture by the Mamluk sultan Baibars, Bayt Jibrin prospered, but during its rule by the Ottoman Turks in 1596 it was forced to pay taxes on several grains, honey and livestock.

By the 19th century, the Egyptian al-'Azaa family took control of Bayt Jibrin and 16 other villages. They waged rebellions against the Ottomans but were eventually exiled or executed. During the British Mandate of Palestine, Bayt Jibrin served as a commercial and service center for the area´s villages. Its population consisted entirely of Muslims. It had two schools, a clinic, a bus stop, and a police station. A weekly market was held there on Tuesdays that attracted customers from neighboring communities. The 1947 UN Partition Plan allotted Bayt Jibrin to the Arab state, but the town was captured from the defending Egyptian army by Israeli forces at the onset of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. During the Israeli assault on the town, its inhabitants fled to the east. Many of these refugees or their descendants today live in the al-'Azza and Fawwar camps in the southern West Bank. The Jewish kibbutz of Beit Guvrin was established Bayt Jibrin's lands in 1949.

History

Biblical and Roman eras

Main article: Eleutheropolis

Mareshah/Maresha is mentioned 8 times in the Bible, in the Book of Chronicles, it is said to have been built by King Rehoboam. Also where Asa defeated Zerah the Ethiopian in the valley of Zephathah Maresha was conquered by the Edomites and then in the 4th century BCE it was settled by the Greeks and people from Sidon in southern Lebanon. Because of Greek enterprise, Maresha became an important business town, particularly involved in the slave trade with Egypt. During the Hasmonean wars Maresha was used as a base for attacks against Judea and eventually suffered retaliation from the Maccabees. The Hasmonean king John Hyrcanus I conquered the city in the mid-2nd century BCE, and forced the conversion of it's pagan citizens to Judaism. Mareshah was destroyed by Parthians c40 BCE, the population center moved two miles north to Bayt Jibrin.

Bayt Jibrin was mentioned as Ginabrin by the Roman historian Josephus in his account of the First Jewish-Roman War, as being a village on one side of the "Great Plain", and was also mentioned by Roman geographer Ptolemy who records the name as "Baitogabra" prior to the Bar kokhba Revolt, Bayt Jibrin covered an area of 650 dunams,

Eleutheropolis flourished in the Roman period with the construction of several large public buildings, including ones for the administration of the city and daily life, military installations and a 3,000 m² amphitheater. When describing Palestine, Ammianus Marcellinus — a 4th century Roman historian — listed Eleutheropolis as one of the five "Cities of Excellence", which excluded a destroyed Jerusalem.

Christianity penetrated the city quickly due to its location on the crossroads of the route between Jerusalem and Gaza. Christian missionaries and messengers could enter the city through the Beisan road, the Hebron road or the mountain route west of Bethlehem. Its first bishop was Justus, one of the 70 Disciples. In 325 CE, Eleutheropolis became a bishop's seat with Bishop Macrinus — a partisan of Orthodox Christianity — being present at the First Council of Nicaea. Bishop Epiphanius of Salamis — who would be nominated as the Bishop of Constantia (Cyprus) — was born in Eleutheropolis in 310 CE.

The ruins of three Byzantine-era churches are located in Bayt Jibrin. The church located on a northern hill of the town had elaborate mosaics depicting the four seasons until it was defaced by Israeli forces in the 1948 War. The church south of the town was dedicated Saint John and today its remains only consist of an apse with arched windows.

Arab, Crusader, Mamluk and Ottoman rule

The Muslim Rashidun army conquered the region towards the end of the reign of the first caliph Abu Bakr al-Siddiq (d. 634). The 9th century historian Biladhuri mentions Bayt Jibrin as one of 10 towns in Filastin ("Palestine") conquered by the military commander 'Amr ibn al-'As. Biladhuri furthermore writes that ibn al-'As enclosed a domain to Bayt Jibrin, to which he gave the name ´Ajlun, after one of his freemen. After its capture by Arab forces, 46 soldiers who defended the city were forced to apostatize, but refused; they were subsequently taken to Jerusalem and hanged. Arab legend claims Bayt Jibrin was the burial place of a companion of the prophet Muhammad, Tamim Abu Ruqayya. Other tombs in the village include one for a local resident Sheikh Mahmud and one for Sheikha Ameina.

In 796, Bayt Jibrin was destroyed by Muslim forces as a part of wider effort to combat Christian influence in the region. According to a monk and author of the time named Stephen, "it was laid waste, and its inhabitants carried off into captivity". However, this view is contested. According to the Muslim traveller al-Muqaddasi, writing in 985, Bayt Jibrin "is a city partly in the hill country, partly in the plain. Its territory has the name of Ad Darum (the ancient Daroma and the modern Dairan), and there are here marble quarries. The district sends its produce to the capital (Ar Ramlah). It is an emporium for the neighbouring country, and a land of riches and plenty, possessing fine domains. The population, however, is now on the decrease...."

Bayt Jibrin was later conquered by the Crusaders — who at first mistook it for Beersheba, and called it Bethgibelin. In May 1123, the Muslim Fatimids invaded the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem and captured the coastal city of Ascalon; attempts by the Crusaders to retake the city failed. In 1134, Bethgibelin became an episcopal see, as appears from documents which mention at least five successive bishops. A large church was erected, which later went by the name of qal'a or "fortress" and was used by Arab families after the fall of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. The next year, the Crusaders embarked on a programme of fortifying the city to prevent the Ascalon-based Fatimids from conquering the city, and it was entrusted to the Hospitallers. They finished building a castle there in 1137.

Yaqut al-Hamawi, writing at the beginning of the 13th century, referred to Bayt Jibrin as one of the 11 principal towns in Palestine, with a Crusader castle that had been destroyed by Saladin. The Mamluk sultan Rukn ad-Din Baybars (1223 –1277) captured Bethgibeling, restored its Arabic name (Bayt Jibrin) and ended the Crusader control of the city. It prospered during the Mamluk period and served as a postal station between Gaza an al-Karak. In 1596, Bayt Jibrin was a village in the Ottoman nahiya ("subdistrict") of the (liwa´ ("district") of Gaza, with a population of 275. It paid taxes on a number of crops, including wheat, barley, and sesame, as well as on other types of produce, such as goats and beehives.

19th century

In 1838, the American scholar Edward Robinson visited the Bayt Jibrin, and identified it with ancient Eleutheropolis. The Scottish painter David Roberts visited Bayt Jibrin on March 19, 1839, and made a sketch there. The lithograph based on the drawing was published with the title Beit Jibrin, or Eleutheropolis, in his book Holy Land, Syria, Idumea, Arabia, Egypt & Nubia London 1842-1849.

In the 19th century, the village's local leaders, or shaykhs, were from the ´Azza family, which controlled the district of Qaysiyya al-Tahta from Bayt Jibrin. The family had migrated to Palestine "a long time ago" from the Egyptian province of al-Shaqiyyaa. In the mid-late 19th century, the family became involved in Ottoman attempts to crush the local leaders in the Hebron region for upheavals and resistance of taxation. The ´Azza family had aligned itself to the leader of the ´Amr clan of Hebron. In 1846, Muslih al-´Azza (nicknamed "the giant of Bayt Jibrin") was deported together with ´Abd al-Rahman of Hebron and other shaykhs. However, by the beginning of the 1850´s, the shaykhs of the Hebron Hills were able to return. Relative calm reigned in Jabal al-Khalil ("Mount Hebron") for four years, and Muslih al-´Azza remained as nazir.

In 1855, the newly appointed Ottoman Governor of the Jerusalem district, Kamil Pasha, exerted a more serious effort to subdue the district's rebellious Hebron region, which included Bayt Jibrin. Pasha and his army marched towards Hebron in July 1855, and took an oath of loyalty from the local shaykhs, including those under the rule of Muslih al-´Azza in Bayt Jibrin Muslih himself, however, did not appear. Kamil Pasha asked the British consul in the area, James Finn, to act as an envoy and arrange a meeting with Muslih. Finn sent his vice-consul to assure Muslih of his safety in Hebron and convinced him to meet with Pasha. Muslih was well-received in Hebron and returned to Bayt Jibrin escorted by twenty of the Pasha´s men. Kamil Pasha soon came to Bayt Jibrin to settle the terms of his agreement with Muslih, collect taxes owed by the town, and settle any political arrangements between the Ottoman administration and the local leaders

Bayt Jibrin stood on the edge of Jabal al-Khalil and was well-concealed and well-protected. In the middle of the locality stood the two-story stone house of the shaykh. The remains of the Crusader fortress still served for defensive purposes. The Swiss writer Konrad Furrer was very impressed by the "castle" or "manor," as well as by the shaykh of Bayt Jibrin, when he visited in 1863. According to the shaykh, he was in command of 16 villages and was pledged "to provide as many as 2,000 men to the government if necessary."

H. B. Trisram writes that in 1864 he encountered Mohammed Isa — brother of Jellah, Bayt Jibrin's shaykh — at Bir-es-Seba. Mohammed informed Trisram, that Jellah had been seized by the Pasha to extort money on false accusations of treason, and under promise of safe conduct had been banished to Cyprus, where he had been at once beheaded, and all his property confiscated. Mohammed, on hearing the news had retired into the wilderness, and the authorities had thereupon seized his family and all of his possessions. He returned to Bayt Jibrin with a band of around 4,000 men.

1948 War and aftermath

During World War I, the British captured Palestine, including Bayt Jibrin from the Ottomans and in 1922, it became a part of the British Mandate of Palestine as a town in the District of Hebron. Bayt Jibrin was in the territory allotted to the Arab state under the 1947 UN Partition Plan. During the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Bayt Jibrin became a front-line village after the second phase of the war, ending on July 18. Egyptian Army fortifications were established throughout the village.

In his report on September 16, United Nations Security Council mediator Count Folke Bernadotte suggested trading the Negev to the Arabs in exchange for the Western Galilee, a suggestion which the Israeli political and military leadership found unacceptable, and which made them focus their attention on the south.

In October the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) launched a new offensive, named Operation Yoav on the 15-16. The offensive was radically different from the operations only three months earlier; the IDF now possessed bombers and fighters, field artillery, mortars and tanks. These were deployed against a number of towns and villages, including Bayt Jibrin. Most of the attacked communities had never experienced air attack and were not prepared for it, neither psychologically nor in terms of shelter or ground defences. Panic flight therefore started from Bayt Jibrin on October 19, after Israeli Air Force bombing.

On October 23, there was a UN-imposed ceasefire, however, within days there were a succession of IDF "nibbles" at the Arab-occupied areas. More villagers fled from Bayt Jibrin following an IDF raid on the neighbouring police fort on the night of October 24. On the 27th, IDF units then occupied Bayt Jibrin and its police fort.

An eyewitness survivor of the assault, Afif Ghatashe, now a refugee in al-Fawwar Camp in the West Bank, explained:

"In the 1948 war, the village was attacked by Zionist military units and bombed by Israeli aircraft. By that time, Beit Jibreen already hosted many refugees from neighboring villages. The fighting and bombing frightened the people. They escaped the fighting and sought shelter in the surrounding hills. The family of the child found protection in a cave 5 km east of the village. They had left everything in their home, hoping to return after a few days when the attack would be over. The Israelis, however, did not allow them to return. Several men of Beit Jibreen were killed when they tried to go back. The father of the child, then 24 years old, and his uncle returned to the village together so as to bring wheat, food, clothing and other necessary items. But the Israeli units had mined the village paths, and the two men stepped on mine just in front of their house. The mine exploded, walls of their house collapsed, and the two men died. The child was eight months old when his father was killed and he became an orphan. At that time, his family lost the hope to return home. They joined a refugee camp located eight kilometers south of Hebron. This child is me and this is my story."

In 1949, the Jewish town of Beit Guvrin was founded on the former town's lands.

Geography

Bayt Jibrin was located in a plain just west of the Hebron Hills Template:Km to mi northwest of Hebron. It had an elevation of around Template:M to ft above sea level. Nearby localities included the depopulated villages of Kudna to the north, al-Qubayba to the southwest, al-Dawayima to the south and the existing Palestinian towns of Beit Ula to east and Idhna to the southeast.

In 1945, Bayt Jibrin's total land area was 56,185 dunams, 98% of which was Arab-owned. Its built-up area consisted of only 287 dunams, while cultivable land consisted of 33,278 dunams and non-cultivable land made up 21,612 dunams. Cereal crops were planted on 54.8% of the town's land, 6.2% was planted with olives and 4.4% was irrigated land.

Demographics

During the Roman period of rule, Bayt Jibrin had a mixed population of Jews, Christians and pagans. Gradually, however, Islam became the dominant religion of the town throughout the centuries of Muslim rule.

In Ottoman tax records from 1596, the town had a population of 275 inhabitants. In the 19th century its population reached 900. This rose to about 1,000 in 1912 and to 1,420 in the next decade. According to a British Mandate census in 1931, Bayt Jibrin's population was 1,804. Later, in a 1945 land and population survey by Sami Hadawi, the town's population dramatically increased to 2,430. The general pattern of increase over every 9-11 years from 1912 to 1945 was around 400-500. In 1948, the projected population was 2,819.

There was about 17,310 Palestinian refugees and descendants of refugees from Bayt Jibrin in 1998. Many of these refugees live in the al-'Azza and Fawwar camps in the southern West Bank.

Culture

Bayt Jibrin was, together with Hebron and some surrounding villages, known to produce some of the richest and most beautiful forms of Palestinian embroidery.

An example of this is a woman's jillayeh (wedding dress), from Bayt Jibrin, about 1900, in the Museum of International Folk Art (MOIFA) collection at Santa Fe, USA. It is of handwoven indigo linen and has very long, pointed wing-sleeves. The qabbeh (=chest-piece) is embroidered with several patterns: the qelayed pattern, a pattern with inverted, smaller chevrons; the so-called maya ("water") motif, el-ferraneh ("the bakers wife") pattern, and the saru ("cypress") motif. The side panels of the dress are completely covered with embroidery. The motifs include: mushut ("combs"), qubur ("graves"), fanajin qahweh ("coffee cups"), and rukbeh ("knee"). There are some shajarat el-hub ("trees of love") embroidered on to the red and orange silk on the front of the skirt. The embroidery is silk cross stitch, mainly in red, with some orange yellow, pink, and purple.

Bride's wedding attire from Bayt Jibrin in an exhibition at Oriental Institute, Chicago

MOIFA also has a shambar (large veil) from the late 19th century from Bayt Jibrin. This veil would be used with a jillayeh as above, for weddings and festivals. It consists of 3 sections of handwoven black silk (each the width of the loom) embroidered and joined together lengthwise with Cretan stitch. There is a heavy red silk fringe which was made separately and added to the embroidered end.

Picture to the right shows a bride's wedding attire ("thob") from Bayt Jibrin, heavily embroidered with cross-stitch on the enlarged chest panel, and on the sides and the back panels with various floral and geometric motifs. The front, from the waist to the hem, is densely decorated with colorful taffeta appliqué covered with motifs embroidered with the Bethlehem-style couching. The yoke and narrow sleeves are adorned with silk overlaid with the stars and watches motif of Bethlehem in couching stitch. The chest panel resembles that of Ramallah, especially the presence of the arch motif. The patterns and motifs on the chest panel are repeated on the side and ba ck panel of the thob.

The head veil (shambar) is a very heavy piece of black silk crepe, one end of which is almost completely embroidered with magenta-red cross-stitch and embellished with sequins. Thick tassels adorn the end of this section. A woman wore the shambar mainly on her wedding day, positioned so that when she covered her face the embroidered end would show. The headdress (iraqiyeh) is embroidered with cross-stitch and decorated with Ottoman coins minted in AH 1223, corresponding to AD 1808, as well as Maria Theresa coins. The iraqiyeh was worn by married women and elaborate pieces were passed down through the family to be used by several generations. Long embroidered headbands made of heavily embroidered cotton hanging from both sides were wrapped around the woman's braids to facilitate the bundling of her hair, then secured to the back of the headdress.

See also

• List of villages depopulated during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war
• Palestinian costumes

Bibliography

• Abu-Sitta, Salman (2007), The Return Journey, London: Palestine Land Society, ISBN 0954903412
• Blumberg, Arnold, (1980): A View from Jerusalem, 1849-1858. The Consular Diary of James and Elisabeth Anne Finn, Associated University Presses, ISBN 0 8386 2271 2
• Finn, James (1878): Stirring Times, or Records from Jerusalem Consular Chronicles of 1853-1856. Vol.II, London.
• Khalidi, Walid (1992), All That Remains, Washington D.C.: Institute for Palestine Studies, ISBN 0887282245
• Morris, Benny (2004), The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0521009677
• Schölch, Alexander (1993): Palestine in Transformation, 1856-1882, ISBN 0887282342,
• Stillman, Yedida Kalfon (1979), Palestinian Costume and Jewelry, Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, ISBN 0826304907
• le Strange, Guy (1890): Palestine under the Moslem,,
• Tristram, H. B. (1865) The Land of Israel, a Journal of Travels in Palestine. (1876 version)

External links

• The Imaginary Village by Sandy Tolan & Melissa Robbins
• Testimony: Army demolishes village housing over 200 Palestinians, west of the Barrier, Oct. 2007, Btselem
• Army demolishes village housing over 200 Palestinians, west of the Barrier, 25 Nov. 2007, Btselem