Kafr 'Inan كفر عنان | |
|---|---|
 Ruins of ancient Kfar Hananya | |
| Etymology: Village of Anan[4] | |
.jpg) 1870s map.jpg) 1940s map.jpg) modern map.jpg) 1940s with modern overlay mapA series of historical maps of the area around Kafr 'Inan (click the buttons) | |
  Kafr 'Inan Location withinMandatory Palestine | |
| Coordinates:32°55′23″N35°25′07″E / 32.92306°N 35.41861°E /32.92306; 35.41861 | |
| Palestine grid | 189/259 |
| Geopolitical entity | Mandatory Palestine |
| Subdistrict | Acre |
| Date of depopulation | February 1949[5] captured on 30 October 1948 during theGolani Brigade (part ofOperation Hiram) |
| Area | |
• Total | 5,827dunams (5.827 km2; 2.250 sq mi) |
| Population | |
• Total | 360 |
| Cause(s) of depopulation | Expulsion byYishuv forces |
| Current Localities | Kfar Hananya |
Kafr ʿInān (Arabic:كفر عنان), is a formerPalestinian village, depopulated in the1948 Arab–Israeli war. It was located around 33 kilometres (21 mi) east ofAcre.
In ancient times, it was known as Kfar Hananiah, and was a largeJewish village and a significant pottery production center.[3][8][9] Archaeological surveys indicate Kefar Hanania was founded in the Early Roman period, and was inhabited through the Byzantine period.[10][11] It was resettled in the Middle Ages and the modern era.[12] By mid 1500, the village was wholly Muslim and was known as Kafr 'Inan.
Kafr ʿInān was captured by theIsrael Defense Forces during the1948 Arab–Israeli war. It wasdepopulated and destroyed as part of the1948 Palestinian expulsion, with its residents expelled to theWest Bank or to other Arab towns in the newly establishedIsrael. Many villagers managed to "infiltrate" back to Kafr ʿInān, but on three separate occasions in January and February 1949 the Israeli army expelled them.[13]
A shrine for theSheikh Abu Hajar Azraq and the remains of a small domed building are still standing, along with the remains of various burial sites of rabbis. In 1989, the Israeli village ofKfar Hananya was established on Kafr ʿInān land on a hill adjacent to the former Palestinian village.[14]
The earliest mentions of the village occur in sources from theRoman andByzantine periods inGalilee, when it was then aJewish village known asKefar Hananya (orKfar Hanania),[8] that served as a center forpottery production in theGalilee.[10][11] Most of the cooking ware in the Galilee between the 1st century BCE and the beginning of the 5th century CE was produced here.[12] A Byzantine-period synagogue was partially carved out of the rock, probably during the 5th century CE, and its remains have been excavated east of the village.[15] Khalidi mentions shafts and bases of columns, caves, a pool, and a burial ground discovered in archaeological excavations.[14]
During theSecond Temple period, within a distance of less than a kilometer from Kfar Hananya, was the thriving village ofBersabe (nowKhirbet es-Saba [Kh. Abu esh-Shebaʿ], Beer Sheba of the Galilee), a village mentioned in the writings ofJosephus.[16]
Among the Kfar Hanania's most respected personages who is said to have been buried there was aTanna (Jewish sage) of the 1st century,Eliezer ben Jacob I.[17] The Talmud and Midrash mention it as the home of Rabbi Jacob of Kfar Ḥanīn, a third-generationamora.[18] As a result ofAramaic influence, the village became known as Kafr Ḥanan, a shortened form of Hananiah.[9]
An Aramaic inscription dated to the 5th or 6th century was found on akelilah (apolycandelon, i.e. a bronze chandelier holding glass lamps and suspended from the ceiling) in or near the Galilean village of Kefar Makr nearAcre, reading "This polycandelon [kelilah] … [offered] to the holy place [the synagogue] of Kefar Hananyah. May they be remembered for good. Amen,selah,shalom". The chandelier, now exhibited in aBelgianmuseum, bears the inscription next to the images of Judaic religious objects: twomenorahs (seven-branched candlesticks), alulav (palm frond) and ashofar (ram's horn); for illustrations seehere.[19][20][21][22][23]
Rabbinic literature mentions Kfar Hanania village in relation to the production of pottery; in theTosefta(Bava Metzia 6:3), there is a reference to, "those who make black clay, such as Kefar Hananya and its neighbors."[24] Late Roman-era pottery types of the kind made in Kafr 'Inan have been found all throughout theGalilee and theGolan.[25]
Ya'akov ben Netan'el, who visited the village in the 12th century during the period ofCrusader rule, writes about the ruins of asynagogue quarried into the hill.[3] Potential references to the village include a mention of the "widow of Ben al-'Anani" in a 12th-centuryGenizah document and toKfar Hanan in the 13th century.[3] In 1211,Samuel ben Samson travelled fromTiberias and Kfar Hanania before stopping inSafed.[26] In the 14th century, another traveller transcribes the village's name asKefar Hanin.[3]
In 1522, Jewish travelerMoses ben Mordecai Bassola found about 30 families ofMusta'arabi Jews (Arabic-speaking Jews, as opposed toSephardi Jews) among the residents, most of whom ofpriestly stock, making it the fifth largest Jewish community in the country at the time, out of the eight places named by him.[27][28][29][30] An Ottoman census taken two years later (1525) listed 14 Jewish families.[30]
It is during the rule of theOttoman Empire that the form Kafr ʿInān (Kafr 'Anan) first appears. The village is listed in thetax records of either 1549 or 1596, as forming part of thenahiya (subdistrict) ofJira, part ofSafad Sanjak, with 21 households and 8 bachelors; an estimated population of 259. All the villagers wereMuslim. They paid taxes on goats, beehives and on its press, which was used either forolives orgrapes; a total of 12,272akçe. All of the revenue went to aWaqf.[31][32] A map fromNapoleon's invasion of 1799 byPierre Jacotin showed the place, named as "K. Hanein".[33]
It is said some JewishKohanitic families migrated toPeki'in, possibly in the late 16th century.[34]
In 1881, thePEF'sSurvey of Western Palestine described the village as being built of stone and having 150-200Muslim residents. The arable land in the village comprised gardens and olive trees.[35]
A population list from about 1887 showed that Kafr 'Inan had 80 inhabitants; all Muslim.[36]
In the1922 census of Palestine conducted by theBritish Mandate authorities,Kufr Enan had a population of 179; all Muslims,[37] increasing in the1931 census to 264, still all Muslims, in a total of 47 houses.[38]
In the1945 statistics, Kafr 'Inan had 360 Muslim inhabitants,[7] with a total of 5,827dunums (1,440acres) of land according to an official land and population survey.[6] Of this, a total of 1,740dunums were used for the cultivation ofcereals, 1,195 dunums were irrigated or used for orchards and most of these (1,145 dunums) were planted with olive trees,[7][14][39] while 21 dunams were built-up (urban) area.[7][40] The village, however, occupied an area of only 25 dunams (6.1 acres).[41]
The village houses, made of stone with mud mortar, were bunched close together and separated by semi-circular, narrow alleys. Many new houses were constructed during the last years ofMandatory Palestine. Springs and domestic wells supplied drinking water. Olives and grain were the main crops. Grain was grown in the nearby flat zones and valleys.[14]
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The village was captured on 30 October 1948 by theGolani Brigade as part ofOperation Hiram and following the war the area was incorporated into theState of Israel. According toWalid Khalidi, the villagers refused to leave like most of the population in the area.[14] Morris reports that the Israeli authorities classified the village as "abandoned" but the villagers kept returning.[42] In January 1949, the IDF expelled 54, and moved another 128 inhabitants from Kafr 'Inan andFarradiyya to other villages in Israel.[13] On 4 February 1949, units of the 79th Battalion surrounded the two villages and expelled 45 people to theWest Bank. The 200 villagers who had permits to stay, mostly old men, women and children, were transferred toMajd al Kurum.[13] Yet again, the villagers returned. By mid-February 1949 there were about 100 back in the two villages, according to IDF sources. The two villages were again evacuated by the IDF.[13]
The expulsion of the villagers upset some members ofMapam, who condemnedDavid Ben-Gurion and the army. However, a suggestion for aKnesset motion calling for the establishment of an inquiry to probe the expulsions of the villagers of Kafr 'Inan,Farradiyya andAl-Ghabisiyya, was apparently never brought to the Knesset plenum.[43]
In 1950, Article 125 of theDefence regulation of 1945 was invoked in order to confiscate the land belonging to a number of Palestinian Arab villages in Galilee, among them Kafr 'Inan.[44] This law was also used to prevent the villagers from returning to their homes even by legal means.[45]
The modern Jewish village ofKfar Hananya was first planned to the south of the depopulated Kafr ʿInān village in 1982, and was eventually established there in 1989 on village land (though not on the actual site of Kafr ʿInān).[14]Chazon, built in 1969 on the lands ofAl-Mansura, Tiberias, andParod, built in 1949 on the lands ofAl-Farradiyya (District of Safad), are both close to the village site, but not on village land.[14] In 1992, Palestinian historianWalid Khalidi found piles of stones, clusters of cacti, fig trees, the remains of a domed building on a slope facing the village and the small shrine of Shaykh Abu Hajar Azraq on an adjacent hill to the east. The land around the site is forested and planted with fruit trees by the settlement ofParod."[14]
In 1933, Joseph Braslavsky was the first to identify the quarried synagogue in Kafr 'Inan, based on the testimony of a local Arab peasant.[46][47] In 1989, the site was surveyed by Zvi Ilan. Adan-Bayewitz, of the Martin (Szusz) Department of Land of Israel Studies and Archaeology atBar Ilan University conducted archaeological research at the site from 1987 to 1988, and excavated a late Roman-era pottery kiln in 1992–1993, with a stone-paved approach.[48][49]
Sixth century examples have been found at...Kefar Makr in Galilee. An Aramaic inscription incised on the Kefar Makrpolycandelon refers to the hanging device as akelilah and identifies the chandelier as a dedication to the Kefar Hananyah synagogue.
{{cite book}}:|work= ignored (help)...one found in Upper Galilee, at the village ofKefar Makr, which may be related to the synagogue of Kefar Hananyah. An Aramaic inscription on that lamp uses the Semitic word for the bronze element of such a lamp, kelilah. "This kelilah was dedicated to the synagogue of Kefar Hananyah" (Naveh, 1978: 34-35, no. 16).
{{cite book}}:|work= ignored (help){{cite book}}:|work= ignored (help)
