Jahula

Jahula (Arabic: جاحولا‎) was a Palestinian Arab village in the Safad Subdistrict. It was depopulated during the 1947–1948 civil war in Mandatory Palestine on May 1, 1948 by the Palmach's First Battalion of Operation Yiftach. It was located 11 km northeast of Safad.

Jahula

جاحولا
Etymology: Ain Jahula=The spring of the large rock[1]
1870s map
1940s map
modern map
1940s with modern overlay map
A series of historical maps of the area around Jahula (click the buttons)
Jahula
Location within Mandatory Palestine
Coordinates: 33°07′29″N 35°34′02″E
Palestine grid203/281
Geopolitical entityMandatory Palestine
SubdistrictSafad
Date of depopulationMay, 1948[2]
Area
 • Total3,869 dunams (3.869 km2 or 1.494 sq mi)
Population
 (1945)
 • Total420[4][3]

In 1945, the village had a population of 420. The village had one mosque and a shrine for a local sage known as al-Shaykh Salih.[5]

Location

Jahula was situated near the Tiberias— Al-Mutilla highway, in the foothills.[5]

History

The Jahula area had been occupied from the seventh through the third millennium B.C., according to archaeological excavations conducted in 1986.[5] Pottery remains from the Roman and Byzantine periods have been found in the area.[6]

Ottoman era

Jahula was recorded in the Ottoman census of 1596 as belonging to the nahiya (subdistrict) of Jira, part of Safad Sanjak, and at the time it had 5 Muslim households; an estimated population of 28 inhabitants. They paid a fixed tax rate of 20% on crops such as wheat and barley, and reared goats, bees, and water buffalos. Total revenue was 1,550 akçe.[7][8]

In 1838, it was noted as a village in the Safad district,[9] while in 1875 Victor Guérin report passing through the village (which he called Kharbet Djaouleh), finding only a few of the houses inhabited.[10]

In 1881, the PEF's Survey of Western Palestine found at Ain Jahula "a large perennial spring, with a stream flowing to the march of the Huleh; a large supply of good water".[11]

The villagers of Jahula were predominantly Muslim. Their mosque, about 1 km north of the village, was the location of a shrine to Shaykh Salih.[5]

Most villagers were engaged in agriculture, and a spring on the north side of the village supplied water.[5] Some villagers worked in quarries north of the village.[5]

British Mandate era
Jahula. 1945. Survey of Palestine. Scale 1:250,000

In the 1922 census of Palestine, conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Jahula had a population of 214; all Muslims,[12] increasing in the 1931 census to 357; still all Muslims, in a total of 90 houses.[13]

In the 1945 statistics Jahula had a population of 420 Muslims,[4] with 3,869 dunums of land, according to an official land and population survey.[3] 1,626 dunums were allocated to grain farming,[5][14] while 64 dunams were classified as urban land.[15]

1948, and aftermath
Yiftach Brigade erecting fencing. Jahula. 1948
Yiftach Brigade defensive positions. Jahula. 1948

Jahula was depopulated during the 1947–1948 civil war in Mandatory Palestine on May 1, 1948 by the Palmach's First Battalion of Operation Yiftach.[5][16] Benny Morris writes that the cause of depopulation is unknown, while the American Historian Rosemarie Esber gives as depopuation cause: "Direct mortar attacks on civilians, siege, shooting at fleeing Arabs".[16]

Presently, the Israeli Kibbutz of Yiftach is 2 kilometers (1.2 mi) northwest of the village site; there are no settlements on village lands.[5]

Of the village site the Palestinian historian Walid Khalidi wrote in 1992: "The only remains of the destroyed village are a few stone terraces. The site is enclosed by barbed wire, and cactuses and trees grow on it. The village spring is still in use by Israelis. Parts of the village land are planted in cotton and watermelons, while other parts are wooded and hilly."[5]

References
  1. Palmer, 1881, p. 62
  2. Morris, 2004, p. xvi, village #23. Morris gives date and cause of depopulation with a questionmark
  3. Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 70
  4. Department of Statistics, 1945, p. 9
  5. Khalidi, 1992, p.457
  6. Mokary, 2009, Yiftah Final Report
  7. Hütteroth and Abdulfattah, 1977, p. 178. Quoted in Khalidi, 1992, p. 457
  8. Note that Rhode, 1979, p. 6 writes that the register that Hütteroth and Abdulfattah studied was not from 1595/6, but from 1548/9
  9. Robinson and Smith, 1841, vol 3, 2nd appendix, p. 134
  10. Guérin, 1880, p. 354
  11. Conder and Kitchener, 1881, SWP I, p. 212
  12. Barron, 1923, Table XI, Sub-district of Safad, p. 41
  13. Mills, 1932, p. 107
  14. Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 119
  15. Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 169
  16. Esber, 2008, p.391, village #158

Bibliography
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