Beit Safafa
Beit Safafa (Arabic: بيت صفافا, Hebrew: בית צפפה; lit. "House of the summer-houses or narrow benches"[1]) is an Arab neighborhood in southern Jerusalem.[2] Beit Safafa covers an area of 1,577 dunams.[3] Since 1949, the neighborhood has been divided by the Green Line. Until 1967, the southern two-thirds were under Jordanian rule and the northern third under Israeli rule.[2][4] After the Six-Day War, the two sides were reunited. In 2010, Beit Safafa had a population of 5,463.[5]
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History [edit]
The village was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire in 1517 with all of Palestine, and in 1596 it appeared in the tax registers as being in the Nahiya of Quds of the Liwa of Quds. It had a population of 41 Muslim households and paid taxes on wheat, barley, olives, grapes or fruit trees, and goats or beehives.[6] French explorer Victor Guérin visited the village in 1863, and described it as a village with some thirty houses, some solidly built and very old.[7] In the 1883 "Survey of Western Palestine", the village was described as "a small village in flat open ground, with a well to the north".[8]
At the time of the 1922 census of Palestine, Beit Safafa had a population of 716, all Muslim,[9] which increased to 997 Muslims and 24 Christians by 1931[10] and 1410 Arabs in 1945.[11]
In the wake of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, the village was divided in two. The southern part was in the Jordanian-occupied West Bank, while the northern part, originally in no man's land, was transferred to Israel with the signing of 1949 armistice agreement, and was later annexed to Jerusalem by Israel.[12][13]
During the period when the neighborhood was divided, a two-foot high barbed wire fence was erected down the middle of the main street with Arab Legionnaires and Israeli soldiers guarding on each side.[14]
In 1967, after Israel's victory in the Six-Day War, the fence was taken down and the neighborhood was reunited.[12][15] Residents of southern Beit Safafa hold Jerusalem ID cards, while residents of the northern part hold Israeli citizenship. Also following the 1967 war, Palestinian Christians with Israeli citizenship from Nazareth, Jaffa, and Jerusalem moved to Beit Safafa, expanding the small community, and several Jewish families moved in as well.[15]
Education [edit]
Beit Safafa has three schools: Beit Safafa Elementary School, Beit Safafa High School and al-Salam School, a school for special needs children. Beit Safafa schools follow both the Israeli Bagrut curriculum and the Palestinian Tawjihi curriculum. In 1997, the Hand in Hand School for Bilingual Education was founded in Beit Safafa. The school, supported by the Israeli Ministry of Education and the Jerusalem Municipality, offers a bilingual curriculum in Hebrew and Arabic, with joint classes for Jews and Arabs. In 2012, 530 Arab and Jewish children were enrolled in the school.[16]
In 2012, Bakehila, an organization founded by Erel Margalit of Jerusalem Venture Partners to aid children from underprivileged neighborhoods, opened an educational enrichment center in Beit Safafa.[17]
Urban development plans [edit]
In 2012, an urban development plan approved by the Jerusalem Municipality announced a project to build four new roads in Beit Safafa.[18]
In early 2013, the Jerusalem Municipality began construction of an eight-lane highway that will bisect Beit Safafa. Outraged residents said that the highway plans were illegal and outdated, and construction had commenced without warning. Despite petitioning local courts and the Israeli Supreme Court, the residents failed to halt the project.[19]Naomi Tzur, deputy mayor of Jerusalem and holder of the urban planning portfolio, said that "the residents are taking advantage of the political situation to turn a local concern into an international story. When the residents of Beit Hakerem conducted their fight over their part of Begin Highway, the international media wasn’t interested. This is simply a residents’ fight against its municipality for better compensations and better infrastructure, and it’s a perfectly justifiable fight and part of democracy." [20]
Archaeology [edit]
Several winepresses have been found at Beit Safafa, which have been dated back to the Iron Age.[21] In a salvage dig in Beit Safafa, archaeologists discovered fifty Second Temple era graves, of which 41 were excavated.[22]
Notable residents [edit]
References [edit]
- ^ Palmer, 1881, p. 287
- ^ a b Upending the Traditional Arab Countryside Home
- ^ Bus bombing fails to undermine Jewish-Arab ties in Beit Safafa
- ^ Amir Cheshin, Bill Hutman, and Avi Melamed (1999). Separate and Unequal: the Inside Story of Israeli Rule in East Jerusalem. Harvard University Press. p. 136.
- ^ Beit Safafa Housing Project 2010
- ^ Wolf-Dieter Hütteroth and Kamal Abdulfattah (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. p. 116.
- ^ Guérin, 1869, p.401
- ^ Conder and Kitchener, 1883, vol. 3, p. 20
- ^ J. B. Barron, ed. (1923). Palestine: Report and General Abstracts of the Census of 1922. Government of Palestine. Table VII.
- ^ E. Mills, ed. (1932). Census of Palestine 1931. Population of Villages, Towns and Administrative Areas. Jerusalem: Government of Palestine. p. 39.
- ^ Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in S. Hadawi, Village Statistics, 1945. PLO Research Center, 1970, p56. [1]
- ^ a b Eyāl Benveniśtî, Chaim Gans, Sārī Ḥanafī (2007). Israel and the Palestinian refugees, Volume 189 of Beiträge zum ausländischen öffentlichen Recht und Völkerrecht (illustrated ed.). Springer. ISBN 978-3-540-68160-1.
- ^ Yasir Suleiman. A war of words: language and conflict in the Middle East. Cambridge University Press. p. 177.
- ^ Foreign News: Wedding at Beit Safafa
- ^ a b "Fence is gone, there is still partition". Jordan Times.
- ^ Center for Jewish-Arab Education in Israel
- ^ Beit Safafa education center dedicated
- ^ Road projects in E. J'lem get 0.5b
- ^ [2]
- ^ Beit Safafa residents demonstrate against highway
- ^ Greenberg and Cinnamon, Tel Aviv, vol 33, 2006, "Stamped and incised Jars"; citing Feig, N. 2003. "Excavations at Beit Safafa: Iron Age II and Byzantine Agricultural Installations South of Jerusalem. Atiqot 44: 191-238.
- ^ "Qumran type" graves in Jerusalem: Evidence of an Essene Community?
- ^ A jump start for Palestinian architecture – Haaretz – Israel News
Bibliography [edit]
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- Barzel, Vered (2007): Jerusalem, Beit Safafa (West) Final Report Hadashot Arkheologiyot – Excavations and Surveys in Israel, No. 119.
- Conder, Claude Reignier; Kitchener, H. H. (1883). The Survey of Western Palestine: Memoirs of the Topography, Orography, Hydrography, and Archaeology 3. London: Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund.
- Eirikh-Rose, Anna and Danit Levi (2012): Jerusalem, Beit Safafa Final Report Hadashot Arkheologiyot – Excavations and Surveys in Israel, No. 124.
- Guérin, Victor (1869). Description Géographique Historique et Archéologique de la Palestine. Vol 1; Judee, pt. 2.
- Hadawi, Sami (1970), Village Statistics of 1945: A Classification of Land and Area ownership in Palestine, Palestine Liberation Organization Research Center
- 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.
- E. Mills, ed. (1932). Census of Palestine 1931. Population of Villages, Towns and Administrative Areas. Jerusalem: Government of Palestine.
- 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.
- Zilberbod, Irina (2007): Jerusalem, Beit Safafa Final Report Hadashot Arkheologiyot – Excavations and Surveys in Israel, No. 119.
External links [edit]
Coordinates: 31°44′38″N 35°12′20″E / 31.74389°N 35.20556°E
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