Shefa-Amr
| |
|---|---|
| Hebrew transcription(s) | |
| • ISO 259 | Šparˁam |
| • English Official | Shefar'am[1] |
 View of Shefa-Amr | |
 Coat of arms | |
  Shefa-Amr  Shefa-Amr | |
| Coordinates:32°48′20″N35°10′10″E / 32.80556°N 35.16944°E /32.80556; 35.16944 | |
| Grid position | 166/245PAL |
| Country |  Israel |
| District | Northern |
| Subdistrict | Acre |
| Founded | Bronze age |
| Government | |
| • Mayor | Nahid Khazem (from March, 2024)[2] |
| Area | |
• Total | 19,766dunams (19.766 km2; 7.632 sq mi) |
| Population (2023)[3] | |
• Total | 43,408 |
| • Density | 2,196.1/km2 (5,687.9/sq mi) |
| Website | www.shefaram.muni.il |
Shefa-Amr orShefar'am (Arabic:شفاعمرو,romanized: Šafāʻamru;Hebrew:שְׁפַרְעָם,romanized: Šəfarʻam) is anArab city in theNorthern District ofIsrael. In 2023 it had a population of 43,408 with aSunni Muslim majority and largeChristian Arab andDruze minorities.[3]
Palmer writes that the name meant: "The margin or edge of 'Amr. Locally and erroneously supposed to mean the healing of 'Amer (ed Dhaher)."[4] The city is identified withShefar'am, an ancient Jewish town of great significance duringTalmudic times. Some have proposed that its original meaning may be linked to the Hebrew words "Shefer" (שֶׁפֶר), signifying something nice, beautiful or good, and "'Am", (עַם) which translates to people.[5]
Walls, installations and potterysherds from theEarly Bronze Age IB and theMiddle Bronze Age IIB,Iron,Hellenistic andRoman periods have been excavated at Shefa-ʻAmr.[7]
Shefa-Amr is first mentioned under the nameShefar'am (Hebrew:שפרעם) in theTosefta (Tractate Mikvaot 6:1), followed by theTalmud redacted in 500CE where it is mentioned in several places, in TractateAvodah Zarah 8b andRosh Hashanah 31b,et al.
Settlement has existed there without interruption since the Roman period, when it was one of the cities mentioned in theTalmud as containing the seat of the JewishSanhedrin during the reign ofMarcus Aurelius.[8][9] The seat of the Sanhedrin was traditionally thought to be where the Old Synagogue "Maḥaneh Shekhinah" was built in later times.[8] Old Shefa-'Amr was settled in the area where are now built the Police Station, the various Churches and Jews' Street.[10] Decorated burial caves were documented by theSurvey of Western Palestine in the late nineteenth century; they were found to be Christian tombs from theByzantine era, dating to the 5th and 6th century CE.Greek inscriptions were also found.[6]
Archaeological excavations of a cave andquarries revealed that they were used in the Roman and Byzantine eras.[11] Shefa-ʻAmr contains Byzantine remains, including a church and tombs.[12]
Asalvage dig was conducted in the southern quarter of the old city exposing remains from five phases in the Late Byzantine and earlyUmayyad periods. Finds include atabun oven, a pavement of small fieldstones, a mosaic pavement that was probably part of awine press treading floor, a small square wine press, handmadekraters, an imported Cypriot bowl and an open cooking pot. Also discovered were glass and pottery vessels.[13]
Under theCrusaders the place was known as "Safran", "Sapharanum", "Castrum Zafetanum", "Saphar castrum" or "Cafram".[14] The Crusaders built afortress, used by theKnights Templar, in the village. At the foot of the castle was a fortified settlement with a church, inhabited either by local Christians or Crusaders.[15] The village, then called "Shafar 'Am", was used by Muslim leaderSaladin between 1190–91 and 1193-94 as a military base for attacks onAcre.[16]
By 1229, the place was back in Crusader hands; this was confirmed by SultanBaybars in the peace treaty of 1271, and by SultanQalawun in 1283.[17] Italian monkRiccoldo da Monte di Croce visited the village in 1287–88, and noted that it had Christian inhabitants.[18] It apparently was underMamluk control by 1291,[19][20] as it was mentioned in that year when sultanal-Ashraf Khalil allocated the town's income to acharitable organization inCairo.[21]
The region became part of theOttoman Empire in 1517. In the Ottoman tax census of 1525–26, Shefa-Amr had a population of 150, 90% of whom were Muslims and 10% Jews. The population increased to 388 in the 1538–39 census, with Jews constituting 13% of the inhabitants. According to the records of 1547–48 and 1555–56, Shefa-Amr had a population 423 and 594 respectively, all Muslims.[22] In 1564, the revenues of the village of Shefa-Amr were designated for the newwaqf (endowment) ofHasseki Sultan Imaret in Jerusalem, established by Hasseki Hurrem Sultan (Roxelana), the wife of SultanSuleiman the Magnificent.[23]
In the census ofc. 1572, the village had a population of 510 Muslims.[22] A 1573firman (decree) mentioned that Shefa-Amr was among a group of villages in thenahiya (sub district) ofAcre in rebellion against the state. By 1577, the village had accumulated an arsenal of 200 muskets.[24] In the 1596tax records, Shefa-Amr was part of thenahiya of Acre, part ofSafed Sanjak, with a population of 83 households (khana), and eight bachelors, all Muslims. The total revenue was 13,600akçe, most of which was given in fixed amounts.[25] The taxable produce also comprised occasional revenues, goats and beehives, and the inhabitants paid for the use or ownership of an olive oil press.[26][27]
During the 18th century Shefa-Amr was the center of its own fiscal district in the province ofSidon. Its importance derived from its position in the heart of the Galilee's cotton-growing area and its natural and man-made defenses. The significance of cotton to the growth of Shefa-Amr was fundamental. Tax returns for the village attest to the large returns expected of this crop.[28] Its local prominence was headed by thesheikhs of theZayadina (sing. Zaydani), a local family ofmultazims (limited-term tax farmers), in charge of collecting taxes for the governor of Sidon.[29] As early as 1704, the village was held as a tax farm by the Zaydani sheikh Ali ibn Salih, along with other villages in theLower Galilee.[30] At an unknown point after, the Zayadina lost Shefa-Amr but Ali's son Muhammad ofal-Damun had regained control of it byc. 1740, during a period when the Zayadina were expanding their holdings across the Galilee under the leadership ofZahir al-Umar (Muhammad's first cousin).[31]
It is known that there was a castle in the village by this time.[29] Its fortifications were strengthened by the Zayadina inc. 1742 during a respite in thesieges of the Zaydani stronghold of Tiberias by the governor ofDamascus.[32] Afterward, in 1743, Muhammad was arrested and executed by Zahir's order to remove him as an obstacle to Zahir's regional ambitions.[33] In 1761, Zahir offered to grant Shefa-Amr to his son Uthman in exchange for the latter assassinating Zahir's brother Sa'd. Although Uthman complied, Zahir reneged following protestations by Shefa-Amr's inhabitants. Uthman and his brothers Ahmad and Sa'id besieged the village in 1765 but were repulsed by its local defenders with Zahir's support.[34] Uthman was nevertheless granted Shefa-Amr at some point by Zahir.[35][36] He is generally credited as the builder of its large fortress.[37]
After Zahir's death in 1775, the Ottoman-appointed governorJazzar Pasha allowed Uthman to continue as subgovernor of Shefa-Amr in return for a promise of loyalty and advance payment of taxes.[38] Jazzar Pasha ignored orders fromConstantinople to demolish the village's fortress.[39] Several years later Uthman was removed and replaced by Ibrahim Abu Qalush, an appointee of Jazzar Pasha,[29] who rebelled against him in 1789.[40] A map byPierre Jacotin fromNapoleon's invasion of 1799 showed the place, named asChafa Amr.[41]
A Jewish community had been established in the village under the auspices of Zahir's rule.[42] In 1839,Moses Montefiore counted 107Sephardic Jews living in Shefa-Amr.[43] Their condition worsened with the departure of the autonomous leader ofEgypt,Muhammad Ali Pasha, during which time Shefa-Amr was nearly emptied of its Jewish residents, who had opted to move toHaifa andTiberias.[44]James Finn wrote in 1877 that "The majority of the inhabitants are Druses. There are a few Moslems and a fewChristians; but [in 1850] there were thirty Jewish families living as agriculturists, cultivating grain and olives on their own landed property, most of it family inheritance; some of these people were of Algerine descent. They had their own synagogue and legally qualified butcher, and their numbers had formerly been more considerable." However, "they afterwards dwindled to two families, the rest removing to [Haifa] as that port rose in prosperity."[45]
Conder and Kitchener, who visited in 1875, was told that the community consisted of "2,500 souls—1,200 being Moslems, the rest Druses, Greeks, and Latins."[46] The town's Druze community dwindled considerably in the 1880s as its members migrated east to theHauran plain to avoid conscription by the Ottoman authorities.[47] A population list from about 1887 showed that Shefa-Amr had about 2,750 inhabitants; 795 Muslims, 95Greek Catholics, 1,100 Catholics, 140 Latins, 175Maronites/Protestants, 30 Jews and 440 Druze.[48] That year, some 42 Jewish families fromMorocco settled in Shefa-Amr.[49]
TheBritish Mandate of Palestine was established in 1920. By then, all of Shefa-Amr's Jews had moved out.[49] According to the1922 census of Palestine, Shefa-Amr had a population of 2,288: 1,263 Christians, 623 Muslims, and 402 Druze.[50] Of the Christians, 1,054 were Melkites (Greek Catholics), 94 Anglicans, 70 Roman Catholics, 42 Greek Orthodox and three Maronitew.[51] By the1931 census, Shefa-Amr had 629 occupied houses and a population of 1,321 Christians, 1,006 Muslims, 496 Druze, and one Jew. A further 1,197 Muslims in 234 occupied houses was recorded for "Shafa 'Amr Suburbs".[52]
Statistics compiled by the Mandatory government in the1945 statistics showed an urban population of 1,560 Christians, 1,380 Muslims, 10 Jews and 690 "others" (presumably Druze) and a rural population of 3,560 Muslims.[53][54][55]
In 1948 Shefa-Amr was captured by theIsraeli Army during the first phase ofOperation Dekel, from 8 to 14 July. The Druze population actively cooperated with the IDF. The Muslim quarter was heavily shelled and thousands of inhabitants fled toSaffuriyeh. Following the fall of Nazareth some of the refugees were allowed to return to their homes.[56] After the end of the war, the Arab population was placed understrict martial law until 1967.
Ibraheem Nimr Hussein, a former mayor of Shefa-Amr, was chairman of the Committee of Arab Mayors in Israel (later the Arab Follow-Up Committee) from its inception in 1975. In 1981 anNGO to promote health care in the Arab community was set up in Shefa-Amr. It called itselfThe Galilee Society [Wikidata] - the Arab National Society for Health Research and Services.[57] In 1982, following the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, Mayor Ibrahim Nimr Husayn formed the "Supreme Follow-Up Committee" based on a committee that had been formed followingLand Day. It consisted of 11 heads of local councils as well as Arab Members of Knesset. By the 1990s the committee, meeting in Nazareth, had expanded and become a mini-parliament representing Palestinians in the Galilee.[58]
On 16 May 2004, Whehebe Moheen, a man in his sixties, murdered Manal Najeeb Abu Raed, his widowed daughter-in-law, wife of his son, and mother of his two granddaughters.[59] Manal had lost her husband to cancer two years earlier, and was living in the couple's home, in the Druze village ofDaliat El Carmel, near Haifa. Following this event there was conflict between the families of the victim and of the killer. The final reconciliation took place on 27 February 2009, when about 300 family members, dignitaries and residents of the mixed city of Shefa-Amr and Daliyat al-Carmel participated in the reconciliation ritual.[59] They gathered, along with Christian and Muslim dignitaries, including mayors of the two towns involved,Knesset members (Druze and Muslim), the religious leader of Israel's Druze community, and a sizable contingent of Druze religious leaders from many villages in northern Israel.[59] Following the speeches, the dignitaries signed thesulha (reconciliation) agreement, and after the document was declared officially endorsed, the killer's family handed the leader of thesulha committee, SheikhMuafak Tarif, a bag containing the blood money (diya) compensation, and Tarif handed the bag to cousins of the murdered woman.[59] The bag contained 200,000 NIS (aboutUS$50,000), about half what a "normal" conciliation payment would be, but the killer's family refused to bring more money, claiming that they had no resources, and were not prepared to make themselves bankrupt because of a "crazy" uncle.[59]
On 4 August 2005, an Israeli soldier who wasabsent without leave,Eden Natan-Zada, opened fire while aboard a bus in the city, killing four Arab residents and wounding twenty-two others. After the shooting, Natan-Zada was overcome by nearby crowds,lynched and beaten with rocks. According to witnesses, the bus driver was surprised to see akippah-wearing Jewish soldier making his way to Shefa-Amr via public bus, so inquired of Natan-Zada whether he was certain he wanted to take his current route. The four fatalities were two sisters in their early twenties, Hazar and Dina Turki, and two men, bus driver Michel Bahouth and Nader Hayek. In the days following the attack, 40,000 people attended mass funeral services for the victims. The sisters were buried in an Islamic cemetery and the men were buried in the Catholic cemetery. The wounded were taken toRambam Hospital in Haifa. The Shefa-Amr municipality established a monument to commemorate the victims.[60]
In January 2008, Mayor Ursan Yassin met with officials of the Israeli state committee on the celebrations for the 60th anniversary of independence, and announced that Shefa-Amr intended to take part in the celebrations.[61] In 2011, 7,000 Christians, Druze and Muslims held a solidarity march insupport of Christians in Iraq andEgypt who were suffering from religious persecution.[62]
On November 18, 2024, aHezbollah rocket struck a residential building in the city, killing a woman in her 50s and causing injuries to 56 others, including 18 children and teenagers.[63]
Shefa-Amr is located in theNorth District of Israel at the entrance to theGalilee. It is located 13 kilometres (8.1 mi) from the Mediterranean Sea and 20 kilometres (12 mi) from each of three cities, Haifa,Acre and Nazareth, where many of the inhabitants are employed. The city is located on seven hills, which gives it the name "Little Rome".[citation needed] The elevation of the city and its strategic location as the connection between the valleys and mountains of Galilee made it more than once the center of its district, especially in the period of Uthman, the son of Zahir al-Umar, who built a castle in it, and towers around it. Thebay of Haifa with the sea stretching between Haifa and Acre and the high mountains of Galilee and the valleys surrounding the city could be seen from high points in the city.
| Arab citizens of Israel |
|---|
| Politics |
| Religion |
| Culture |
| Major population centers |
| Personalities |
| See also |
In 1951, the population was 4450, of whom about 10% were internally displaced persons from other villages.[64] During the early 1950s, about 25,000 dunams of the land of Shefa-Amr were expropriated by the following method: the land was declared a closed military area, then after enough time had passed for it to have become legally "uncultivated", the Minister of Agriculture used his powers to "ensure that it was cultivated" by giving it to neighboring Jewish majority communities. Some of the land was owned by Jews.[65] Another 7,579 dunams were expropriated in 1953–4.[66] The total land holdings of the village fell from 58,725 dunams in 1945 to 10,371 dunams in 1962.[66]
According to CBS, in 2012 the religious and ethnic makeup of the city was mostlyArabs (consisting of 59.2% Muslim, 26.5% Christian, and 14.3% Druze). Shefa-Amr is home to the fourth-largest ArabChristian community in Israel, and are mostlyGreek-Melkite Catholics.[67] According to CBS, in 2012 there were 38,300 registered citizens in the city. 40.4% of the population was not over 19 years old, 14.9% between 20 and 29, 21.1% between 30 and 44, 17.8% from 45 to 64, and 5.7% 65 or older. In 2022, 62% of the population was Muslim, 24.4% was Christian and 13.6% was Druze.[68]
Population in Shefa-Amr over the years:
According to CBS, in 2012 there were 12,494 salaried and 1062 self-employed workers in the city. The mean monthly wage in 2012 for a salaried worker in the city wasILS 5,412. Salaried males had a mean monthly wage of ILS 6,312 versus ILS 3,904 for females. The mean income for the self-employed was ILS 7,381. 235 people received unemployment benefits and 3,971 received an income guarantee.
In 2012, there were 24 schools serving a student population of 9,459: 15 elementary schools with 5,360 students and 13 high schools with 4,099 students. In 2012, 53.7% of twelfth grade students earned a matriculation certificate. In the eastern part of the city,Mifal HaPayis built a public computer center, a public library, a large events hall and more.
Shefa-Amr is also home to Tamrat El Zeitoun, an elementary school (about 150 students) notable for serving Muslim, Christian, and Druze together and being the only Arabic languageWaldorf school. In collaboration with Waldorf educators atHarduf the school developed a language curriculum accommodating the differences between written and spoken Arabic. The school celebrates the festivals from all three religions.[69][70][71]
The Beit Almusica conservatory was founded in 1999 by musician Aamer Nakhleh in the center of Shefa-ʻAmr. It offers a year-round programs of music studies in various instruments, and holds music performances and concerts.[72] Every year Shefa-ʻAmr holds a music festival known as the "Fort Festival." Arab children from all over the country compete in singing classic Arabic songs and one is chosen as "Voice of the Year." TheBa'ath choir, established by Raheeb Haddad, performs all over the country and participates in many international events.[citation needed] SingerReem Talhami performs all over the Arab world.Oud player and violinist Tayseer Elias, on the Beit Almusica staff, is a composer, conductor and musicologist who also lectures atBar-Ilan University.[73] Butrus Lusia, a painter, specializes inicons.[citation needed]
The first plays in Shefa-Amr were performed in the 1950s by the Christian scouts. Since the 1970s, many theaters have opened. among them the sons of Shefa-ʻAmr theater, Athar theater, house of the youth theater, Alghurbal Al Shefa-Amry theater and Al Ufok theater. The largest theater in the city is the Ghurbal Establishment, a national Arab theater. Sa'eed Salame, an actor, comedian and pantomimist, established a 3-day international pantomime festival that is held annually.[citation needed]
Shefa-Amr is known for itsmastic-based ice cream,bozet Shefa-'Amr.The Nakhleh Coffee Company is the leading coffee producer in Israel's Arab community.New restaurant-cafes opened in parts of the old city[when?] and encouraged nightlife, being patronised by the youth of Shefa-ʻAmr. The Awt Cafe started holding musical nights where local singers and instruments players includingoud and others perform for the audience.[citation needed]
{{cite web}}:Missing or empty|title= (help){{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of July 2025 (link){{cite journal}}:Cite journal requires|journal= (help){{cite journal}}:Cite journal requires|journal= (help){{cite journal}}:Cite journal requires|journal= (help){{cite journal}}:Cite journal requires|journal= (help)
| Cities | .svg) | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Local councils |
| ||||
| Regional councils |
| ||||
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
