Kafr Bir'im
Template:Infobox former Arab villages in Palestine Kafr Bir'im, also Kefr Berem (Arabic: كفر برعم), was an Arab Christian village in Palestine located 4 kilometers (2.5 mi) south of the Lebanese border and 11.5 kilometers (7.1 mi) northwest of Safed. The village was situated 750 meters (2,460 ft) above sea level, with a church overlooking it at an elevation of 752 meters (2,467 ft). The church was built on the ruins of an older church destroyed in an earthquake in 1837. In 1945, 710 people lived in Kafr Bir'im. By 1992, the only standing structure was the church and belltower.
History
Kafr Bir'im is built on the site of the ancient Jewish village of Kfar Bar'am, from which the name is derived.[1] A visitor in the thirteenth century described an Arab village containing the remains of two ancient synagogues.[2] The remains of the a 3rd century Synagogue of Kfar Bar'am are still visible.[3]
In 1596, Kafr Bir'im appeared in Ottoman tax registers as being in the Nahiya of Jira of the Liwa of Safad. It had a population of 114 Muslim households and 22 bachelors.[4]
Kafr Bir'im was badly damaged in the Galilee earthquake of 1837. The local church and a row of columns from the ancient synagogue collapsed.[5] For many centuries, the town was a place of Jewish pilgrimage. It was said in the 12th century to contain the tombs of Barak, the prophet Obadiah and Queen Esther. The Jews of Safed would assemble around these shrines each year on Purim to "eat, drink and rejoice." A few people were reported to still visit the spot in 1868.[6] In the 19th century the village had a population of 160 males, all Maronites and Melkites.[7] During the 1860 civil war in Lebanon, Muslims and Druzes attacked the Christian village.[8] In the late nineteenth century the village was described as being built of a stone, surrounded by gardens, olive trees and vineyards, with a population of between 300 and 500.[9]
1948 war and aftermath
Kafr Bir'im was captured by the Haganah on October 31, 1948 during Operation Hiram. Archbishop Elias Chacour relates in his autobiography how the IDF rounded up the men and older boys in the village (including his father and three brothers), and transported them to the border with Jordan. There they were let out and ordered to go to Jordan. However, Chacour's family returned to the village three months later.[10]
In 1949, with cross-border infiltration a frequent occurrence, Israel did not allow the villagers to return to Bir'im on the grounds that Jewish settlement at the place would deter infiltration.[11] Kibbutz Bar'am was established by demobilized soldiers.
In 1953, the residents of Kafr Bir'im appealed to the Supreme Court of Israel to return to their village. The court ruled that the authorities must answer to why they were not allowed to return. On September 16, 1953 the village was razed and 1,170 hectares of land were expropriated by the state.[12]
The leader of Melkite Greek Catholics in Israel, Archbishop Georgios Hakim, alerted the Vatican and other church authorities, and the Israeli government offered the villagers compensation. Archbishop Hakim accepted compensation for the land belonging to the village church.[13]
In the summer of 1972, the villagers of Kafr Bir'im and Iqrit went back to repair their churches and refused to leave. Their action was supported by archbishop Hakim's successor, Archbishop Joseph Raya. The police removed them by force. The government barred the return of the villagers so as not to create a precedent.[14] In August 1972, a large group of Israeli Jews went to Kafr Bir'im and Iqrit to show solidarity with the villagers. Several thousand turned out for a demonstration in Jerusalem.[15]
The operational name of the Munich massacre of Israeli athletes in 1972 was named after this village and Iqrit.[16]
The Israeli authorities said most of the inhabitants of the village had received compensation for their losses, but the villagers claimed they had only been compensated for small portions of their holdings.[17] In 1972, the government rescinded all "closed regions" laws in the country, but then reinstated these laws for the two villages Kafr Bir'im and Iqrit.
This was met with criticism by the opposition parties. In the 1977 election campaign Menachem Begin, then leader of the right-wing Likud party, promised the villagers that they could return home if he was elected. This promise became a great embarrassment to him after he had won, and a decision on the issue was postponed as long as possible. It was left to his agriculture minister to reveal to the public that a special cabinet committee had decided that the villagers of Kafr Bir'im and Iqrit would not be allowed to return.[18]
On March 24, 2000, Pope John Paul II appealed to Prime Minister of Israel Ehud Barak to do justice for the uprooted of Kafr Bir'im.[19]
Demographics
In the 19th century the village had a population of 160 males, all Maronites and Melkites.[7] In 1945, Kafr Bir'im had a population of 710, consisting of 10 Muslims and 700 Christians.[20] The village population in 1948 was estimated as 1,050 Arab inhabitants. Today the villagers and their descendants number about 2,000 people in Israel. In addition, there are villagers and descendants in Lebanon and in western countries.[21]
See also
- The Deportations of the Hiram Operation: Correcting a Mistake
- Internally Displaced Palestinians
- List of Arab towns and villages depopulated during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War
References
- ^ The Hebrew and Aramaic lexicon of the Old Testament, By Ludwig Köhler, Walter Baumgartner, Johann Jakob Stamm, Mervyn Edwin John Richardson, Benedikt Hartmann, Brill, 1999, p. 1646
- ^ Judaism in late antiquity, Jacob Neusner, Bertold Spuler, Hady R Idris, BRILL, 2001, p. 155
- ^ Art and Judaism in the Greco-Roman world: toward a new Jewish archaeology, Steven Fine, Cambridge University Press, 2005, pp. 13-14
- ^ 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. 175.
- ^ 1837 earthquake in southern Lebanon and northern Israel N. N. Ambraseys, in Annali di Geofisica, Aug. 1997, p.933
- ^ A handbook for travellers in Syria and Palestine. J. Murray, 1868. pg. 416.
- ^ a b Robinson, Edward. (1856) Biblical Researches in Palestine and the Adjacent Regions J. Murray: pp.68-71.
- ^ Maḥmūd Yazbak. Haifa in the late Ottoman period, 1864-1914, Brill, 1998. pg. 204. ISBN 9004110518.
- ^ Conder and Kitchener: SWP I, 1881, p.198. Quoted in Khalidi, 1992, p. 460
- ^ Chacour, 2003, Blood Brothers.
- ^ Israel's border wars, 1949-1956: Arab infiltration, Israeli retaliation, and the countdown to the Suez War, Benny Morris, 2nd Edition, Oxford University Press, 1997, p. 124
- ^ Sabri Jiryis: "Kouetz 307 (27. Aug. 1953): 1419"
- ^ Sabri Jiryis: Israel Government Yearbook 5725 (1964):32
- ^ Sabri Jiryis: Haaretz 24 July 1972, Yedioth Aharonoth, 30 June 1972
- ^ Sabri Jiryis and Chacours autobiography
- ^ Morris & Black, 1991, p. 270
- ^ Sabri Jiryis: compensation for only 91.6 out of 1,565.0 acres (6.333 km2) had been given in Ikrit, in Kafr Bir'im only "negligible" amounts
- ^ Jerusalem Post, 18 January 1979, ref. in Gilmour, p.103
- ^ [1]
- ^ '"Village Statistics (British Mandatory Government, 1945).
- ^ Birem.org
Bibliography
- Benvenisti, Meron (2002): Sacred Landscape: Buried History of the Holy Land Since 1948. University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-23422-7
- Conder, Claude Reignier and H.H. Kitchener (1881): The Survey of Western Palestine: memoirs of the topography, orography, hydrography, and archaeology. London:Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund. vol 1
- Elias Chacour: "Blood Brothers. A Palestinian Struggles for Reconciliation in the Middle East" ISBN 0-8007-9321-8 with Hazard, David, and Baker III, James A., Secretary (Foreword by) 2nd Expanded ed. 2003.
- David Gilmour: Dispossessed. The Ordeal of the Palestinians. Sphere books, Great Britain, 1983, pp. 102–103
- Sabri Jiryis: The Arabs in Israel 1st American edition 1976 ISBN 0-85345-377-2 (updated from the 1966 ed.) With a foreword by Noam Chomsky. (First English edition; Beirut, Institute for Palestine Studies, 1968). Chapter 4.
- Walid Khalidi (1992): "All that Remains: The Palestinian Villages Occupied and Depopulated by Israel in 1948." ISBN 0-88728-224-5.
- Morris, B. and Black, Ian (1991): Israel's Secret Wars: A History of Israel's Intelligence Services (Grove Press, 1991) ISBN 0-8021-1159-9
- Morris, Benny, (1994): 1948 and after; Israel and the Palestinians Oxford,
- Morris, Benny (2004). The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521009677.
- Dalrymple, William (1997): From the Holy Mountain, Harper Collins, ISBN 0002555093 p. 268-9, 271, 276-5, 363, 365-72. Dalrymple interviewed Sarah Daou from Kafr Bir'im and goes there to find her relatives.
External links
- Welcome To Kafr Bir'im
- Kafr Bir'im, from the Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center
- Kufr Bir3em, from Dr. Moslih Kanaaneh
- Kafr Bir’im, Dr. Khalil Rizk.
- A visit to Bir’im with the Bir'im children's summer camp by Miki Levi (31/7/2004), from Zochrot
- The right of return, colored in pink by Ronit Sela, Bir'im (6/8/2005) from Zochrot
- Visit to Birem Summer Camp by Eitan Bronstein, (9.8.2007) from Zochrot
