Fajja

Fajja (Arabic: فجّة‎) was a Palestinian town located 15 kilometers northeast of Jaffa. Depopulated and destroyed during the Arab-Israeli war, its land area is today part of the Israeli city of Petah Tiqva.

Fajja

فجّة
Etymology: from personal name[1]
1870s map
1940s map
modern map
1940s with modern overlay map
A series of historical maps of the area around Fajja (click the buttons)
Fajja
Location within Mandatory Palestine
Coordinates: 32°05′12″N 34°54′8″E
Palestine grid141/165
Geopolitical entityMandatory Palestine
SubdistrictJaffa
Date of depopulationMay 15, 1948[2]
Area
 • Total4,419 dunams (4.4 km2 or 1.7 sq mi)
Population
 (1945)
 • Total1,200[3]
Cause(s) of depopulationWhispering campaign
Current LocalitiesPetah Tikva[4]

History

Pottery remains from the Chalcolithic, Middle Bronze II, Iron, Persian and Roman eras have been found here.[5][6]

Winepresses, dated to the Roman/Byzantine era (5th and 6th century) have been excavated here,[5][7] and pottery remain from the Byzantine era have also been found.[6]

Pottery from the early Islamic period (eighth–tenth centuries CE) have been excavated here, as has glass artefacts from the early Umayyad era, and ceramic jugs from the Abbasid era.[6]

Ceramic vessels dating to the twelfth–thirteenth centuries CE (ie Crusader or Ayyubid era) "including a glazed yellow bowl with an incised decoration that may represent a Latin letter" have also been found.[6]

Ottoman era

In 1856 the village was named el−Fejjeh on the map of Southern Palestine that Heinrich Kiepert published that year.[8]

In 1870, Victor Guérin found the village to be divided into two quarters, each with its own Sheikh. He estimated it to have 300 inhabitants,[9] while an Ottoman village list from about the same year found that Fajja had a population of 110, in 35 houses, though the population count included men, only.[10][11]

In 1882, the PEF's Survey of Western Palestine (SWP) described Fajja as a small village built of adobe bricks.[12]

British Mandate era
See also: Battle of Jaffa (1917)

In the 1922 census of Palestine, conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Fajjeh had a population of 164, all Muslims,[13] increasing sharply in the 1931 census, to 707, still all Muslims, in a total of 165 houses.[14]

The town had one elementary school, founded in 1922. By 1945 it had 181 students, including 10 females.[4]

In the 1945 statistics, Fajja had 1,200 Muslim inhabitants, in addition to 370 Jews, and a total land area of 4,419 dunams.[3][15] Of this, a total of 768 dunums was used for citrus and bananas, 61 dunums were irrigated or used for orchards, 3,863 used for cereals,[16] while 7 dunams were classified as built-up areas.[17]


Fajja 1941 1:20,000
Fajja 1945 1:250,000

1948, aftermath

In early April, the villagers of Fajja sued for a truce with their Jewish neighbours.[18] Again, after the Deir Yassin massacre, the villagers of Fajja contacted their Jewish neighbours and promised "quiet".[19] It was conquered by the Haganah and Irgun on May 15, 1948 without any resistance. Most of the Arab inhabitants fled the town before its capture by Israeli forces due to alleged attacks by the Irgun on February 17. In June 1948, the town was demolished based on the recommendation of Yosef Weitz of the Jewish National Fund.[20] Most of the town's land is currently a part of the jurisdiction of the city of Petah Tikva.

In 1992 the village site was described: "The village has been completely razed except for one house and a pond. Eucalyptus trees and cactuses further mark the site. The surrounding land is partly occupied by buildings; the rest is cultivated."[4]

See also

Footnotes
  1. Palmer, 1881, p. 214
  2. Morris, 2004, p. xviii, village #203. Also gives cause of depopulation.
  3. Department of Statistics, 1945, p. 27
  4. Khalidi, 1992, p. 240
  5. Kaplan and Kaplan, cited in Bar-Nathan, 2002, p. 108
  6. Haddad, 2009, Petah Tiqwa
  7. Kaplan and Cohen, 1963, cited in Gorzalczany, 2005, Petah Tiqwa, Mahane Yehuda
  8. Kiepert, 1856, Map of Southern Palestine
  9. Guérin, 1875, pp. 371-372
  10. Socin, 1879, p. 154
  11. Hartmann, 1883, p. 137 also noted 35 houses
  12. Conder and Kitchener, 1881, SWP II, p.251. Cited in Khalidi, 1992, p. 240.
  13. Barron, 1923, Table VII, Sub-district of Jaffa, p. 20
  14. Mills, 1932, p. 13
  15. Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 52
  16. Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 95
  17. Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 145
  18. Morris, 2004, p. 246, note #644 on p. 298
  19. Morris, 2004, p. 240, note #581 on p. 295
  20. District of Jaffa: Fajja Town Statistics and Facts.Information extracted from Bibliography and References Benny Morris and Walid Khalidi.

Bibliography
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