Jaljulia (Arabic:جلجولية,Hebrew:גַ׳לְג׳וּלְיָה), officially also spelledJaljulye,[4] is anArab town inIsrael nearKfar Saba. In 2023 it had a population of 10,754.[3]
History
An archaeological dig started in 2017 at Jaljulia uncovered, at about a five-meter depth, a half-million-year-old "paradise" forHomo erectus hunter-gatherers, including hundreds ofknapped flint hand-axes.[5] According to theIsrael Antiquities Authority, recurrent occupation of the site indicates that prehistoric humans possessed a geographic memory of the place and could have returned here as a part of a seasonal cycle.[6][7]
In Roman times the village was known asGalgulis,[8] while during theCrusader period it was referred to asJorgilia in 1241 C.E.[9] It has been suggested that a Crusader sugar factory was later turned into an Ottomanmosque.[10]
Mamluk Empire
In 1265 C.E. (663 H) SultanBaybars allocated equal shares of the village to three of hisamirs. One of these, amirBadr al-Din Baktash al-Fakri, included his section of the village in awaqf he established.[11] Excavations of a building close to theMamlukkhan yielded ceramics dating from that period.[12]
The mosque is locally known as Jami' Abu´l-Awn, which associates it with the 15th-century religious leader Shams al-Din Abu´l-Awn Muhammad al-Ghazzi, who is known to have come from the town.[13] The architecture of the mosque is, according to Petersen, consistent with a 15th or early 16th century construction date.[14] At present the structure consists of one large vaulted chamber, and three small barrel-vaulted cells. A large second chamber to the west was destroyed by British artillery duringWorld War I.[14]
Mamluk Khan, Jaljulia
Thekhan is opposite the mosque. It was built bySayf al-Din Tankiz, thegovernor of Damascus 1312–1340,[15] and it was still functioning in the 16th century, when it was mentioned in anOttomanfirman.[16] In the 19th century it was seen by Guérin, who described it as a beautiful khan with a (ruined) polygonalminaret.[17] Petersen, who surveyed the structure in 1996, found the courtyard entirely overgrown and it was not possible to detect any features within; however, he notes that a 19th-century visitor had mentioned that there was "a great round well" in the centre.
Ottoman Empire
In 1517, the village was included in theOttoman Empire with the rest ofPalestine, and in the 1596tax-records it appeared located in thenahiya (subdistrict) of Banu Sa´b, part ofSanjak of Nablus, with a population of 100 households ("Khana"), allMuslim. The villagers paid taxes on a number of crops, includingwheat andbarley, as well as "summer crops", "occasional revenues", "goats and bees", and a market toll. There was also a poll tax,jizya, paid by all the inhabitants in theSanjak of Nablus. Total taxes were 18,450akçe, of which 1/6 went to awaqf.[18]
In 1870,Victor Guérin found that the village had six hundred inhabitants.[2] In 1882, thePalestine Exploration Fund'sSurvey of Western Palestine described it as being a largeadobe village on the plain. The mosque was described as fine, but ruined. A ruined Khan was also mentioned. Water was supplied by awell on the west side of the village.[20]
In 1870/1871 (1288AH), an Ottoman census listed the village with 62Household in thenahiya (sub-district) of Bani Sa'b.[21]
By the1945 statistics, the village had 740 inhabitants, all Muslims.[25] They owned a total of 11,873dunams of land, while 447 dunams were public. Jews owned 365 dunams of land.[26] A total of 2,708 dunams were forcitrus andbananas, 175 dunams for plantations and irrigable land, 9,301 for cereals,[27] while 15 dunams were built-up (urban) land.[28]
Israel
Jaljulia, southern entrance
After the1948 war, Jaljulia was on the Israeli side of the ceasefire line and its became part of Israel.[22] It was transferred to Israel in the 1949 armistice agreement.[22]
Jaljuliya is noted among the villages of the Israeli Triangle "for the large number of refugee families living side by side in the narrow and crowded streets of itsshikūn (state-funded housing), similar to refugee camps abroad."[29]
In 2010, a tennis school was established in Jaljulia by Iman Jabber and Daniel Kessel. In 2011, 50 girls and 20 boys signed up for tennis lessons. The school organizes coexistence matches between Jaljulia andRa'anana.[30]
Hartmann, Richard (1910):Die Straße von Damaskus nach Kairo Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft › Bd. 64, passim; (Cited in Petersen, 2001)
Heyd, Uriel (1960):Ottoman Documents on Palestine, 1552-1615, Oxford University Press, Oxford. Cited in Petersen (2001)
MPF: Ipsirli and al-Tamimi (1982):The Muslim Pious Foundations and Real Estates in Palestine. Gazza, Al-Quds al-Sharif, Nablus and Ajlun Districts according to 16th-Century Ottoman Tahrir Registers, Organisation of Islamic Conference, Istanbul 1402/1982. Cited in Petersen (2001).
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