Bar'am

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Barʿam
Basic data
hebrew : ברעם
arabic : برعم
State : IsraelIsrael Israel
District : North
Founded : June 16, 1949
Coordinates : 33 ° 3 '  N , 35 ° 26'  E Coordinates: 33 ° 3 '30 "  N , 35 ° 26' 0"  E
Height : 736  m
 
Residents : 590 (as of 2018)
 
Community code : 0667
Time zone : UTC + 2
Barʿam (Israel)
Barʿam
Barʿam
Great Synagogue of Historic Bar'am
Bar David Museum in Kibbutz Bar'am

Bar'am ( Hebrew בַּרְעָם Barʿam , German 'son of the people' , Arabic برعم, also Baram or Biram ), is a place in the northern district of Israel directly on the Lebanese border. The place had 590 inhabitants in 2018.

history

A Jewish settlement was established in the first century AD. Legend has it that Queen Esther was buried here. Bar'am became a prosperous village in the 4th to 5th centuries, which shows the simultaneous existence of two synagogues . Between the 7th and 13th centuries, the Jewish residents gave up the settlement for unknown reasons.

In the Ottoman Empire , Maronite Christians lived in the village from the 18th century .

Displacement and intended return of the Maronite population

Maronite Church in Bar'am

In November 1948, during the Israeli War of Independence , the approximately 1,000 Maronite-Christian residents, who were neither armed nor resisted the Zionist associations, were expelled from Bar'am or resettled within the borders of the newly formed state of Israel. A return of the population was first positively confirmed by the Israeli Supreme Court in a judgment of 1951, but prevented by the army . In order to prevent the inhabitants from returning secretly, the village was blown up in 1953 and the Jewish kibbutz Bar'am was founded some distance away . The Maronite church was later restored and is the only intact building on site today. Former residents of Bar'am have been allowed to be buried again in the local cemetery since 1967. In the parliamentary election campaign of 1977, Menachem Begin , who was later elected head of government, expressed his solidarity with the residents, and the matter came up for debate in the Knesset. In order to allay concerns about the negative consequences for the kibbutz, which has now developed on expropriated village land, the Maronites willing to return even declared their willingness to forego the cultivated arable land. In the 1980s, several Likud ministers addressed their complaints without solving the problem. The coalition government formed in 1992 under Jizchak Rabin's leadership also promised to remedy the injustice that had occurred to the residents of Bar'am and another village. However, the establishment of a corresponding ministerial commission remained without any concrete result.

In July 2005 , Ariel Sharon’s government refused to allow the Israeli-Maronite population to return. This was justified with security reasons and the close proximity to the Lebanese border. In addition, a legal precedent is to be avoided for the Palestinians in Lebanon, Syria , Jordan and Egypt, as well as in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and their descendants who have inherited refugee status, who are still regarded as refugees under international law . In 2009, the Maronite congregation turned to Antonio Franco, the papal ambassador in Jerusalem, with a request for help. The demand for implementation of the Supreme Court's permission to return was renewed in 2011 by the Maronite community in Israel. The head of the Maronite Church, Patriarch Béchara Cardinal Raï , who came from Lebanon on the occasion of a visit by Pope Francis to Israel and the Palestinian Territories, pledged his support to the displaced community during a visit to Bar'am in 2014.

National park

Synagogue floor plan

Today Bar'am is also a national park. The ancient Jewish history of the place is briefly described on the official information boards and, above all, the well-preserved large synagogue is highlighted.

The old Jewish settlement had two synagogues which, based on archaeological finds, are dated to the late 4th and early 5th centuries, even if the architecture suggests an earlier construction period. Of the larger one, the facade with three entrance portals has been preserved. Inside the hall synagogue, built from carefully hewn limestone, 14 columns form a U-shape. They supported the second floor - presumably with the women's gallery - and the roof. The corner pillars have a heart-shaped cross-section so that they could accommodate the beams at right angles from two sides. The hall measures around 15 × 20 meters. The entrance side faces south towards Jerusalem, as with most of the old synagogues in Galilee. In front of it was a roofed forecourt, five of whose eight columns still stand upright. Under the right window in the facade there is an Aramaic inscription with the name of the builder, Banahu Elazar bar Yodan.

There is no biblical or early historical evidence for Bar'am; first written evidence comes from medieval travelers. The Bar'am Synagogue is said to be one of the most beautiful historical synagogues in Israel.

The smaller synagogue has not been preserved; its remains were discovered during excavations. A lintel with an inscription discovered in the process contains a blessing (“Peace in this place and in all of Israel”) and the name of the builder, Josef HaLevi ben Levi. The lintel is now in the Louvre in Paris .

  • Ruins of the Maronite village

  • Ruins of a synagogue in Bar'am, Israel , probably 3rd century.Image from the Palestine Exploration Fund around 1900.

  • The Bar'am Tower on the summit of Mount Shifra

  • View from the Bar'am Tower. The Lebanese village of Marun ar-Ras can be seen in the background .

population

According to information from 2014, the population consists predominantly of Jews. The small village has about 500 inhabitants. The population increases here every year. As of December 31, 2014, there were around 575 residents. During the year the population grew by 1.6%.

Censuses since 1961
year 1961 1972 1983 1995 2001 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2016
population 173 311 407 452 491 474 462 481 479 495 504 548 578 575 572 566 575 589

Sons and daughters

  • Elias Chacour (* 1939), Greek Catholic clergyman and retired Archbishop

literature

  • Omar Aghbarieh: Remembering Kufr Bir'im. online: PDF version , brochure of the Israeli non-governmental organization Zochrot, Tel Aviv, August 2010.
  • Mordechai Aviam: The ancient Synagogues of Bar'am. In: Mordechai Aviam: Jews, Pagans and Christians in the Galilee: 25 Years of Archaeological excavations and surveys: Hellenistic to Byzantine periods. Rochester 2004, ISBN 1-58046-171-9 , pp. 147-169. online: google books
  • David William Milson: Art and Architecture of the Synagogue in Late Antique Palestine: in the shadow of the church. Leiden 2007, ISBN 978-90-04-15186-4 , pp. 79-80. online: google books
  • Jacqueline Schaalje: Ancient synagogues in Bar'am and Capernaum . In: The Jewish Magazine, June 2001.

Web links

Commons : Bar'am  - collection of images, videos and audio files
Commons : Bar'am National Park  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ אוכלוסייה ביישובים 2018 (population of the settlements 2018). (XLSX; 0.13 MB) Israel Central Bureau of Statistics , August 25, 2019, accessed May 11, 2020 .
  2. ↑ אוכלוסייה ביישובים 2018 (population of the settlements 2018). (XLSX; 0.13 MB) Israel Central Bureau of Statistics , August 25, 2019, accessed May 11, 2020 .
  3. ↑ a b Ryan Jones: Israeli Christians Urge Israel to Rebuild Their Village, in: Israel Today, May 27, 2014, accessed December 20, 2017
  4. ↑ Lisa Yehuda: Bar'am - the frozen time.
  5. ↑ Knesset Moves on Ikrit-Baram Issue, in: Jewisch Telegraphic Agency, July 28, 1977, accessed December 20, 2017
  6. ↑ David Hoffman: '2 Weeks' That Turned Into 45 Years, in: Washington Post of January 20, 1994, accessed December 20, 2017 (English)
  7. ↑ Displaced Christians want pope to help them return , in: ynet.news, April 14, 2009.
  8. ↑ Avi Ohayon: In rare Israel visit, Lebanese church head hears exiled Christians, in: Reuters of May 28, 2014, accessed on December 20, 2017 (English)