Al-Khader

Al-Khader ( ar, الخضر) is a Palestinian town in the Bethlehem Governorate of the State of Palestine, in the south-central West Bank. It is located west of Bethlehem. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, the town had a population of 11,856 in 2017.2017 PCBS Census
Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics. The area around al-Khader is marked by vineyards, and olive and fig trees.

Solomon's Pools, the Monastery of St. George, and Al-Hamadiyya Mosque are al-Khader's main landmarks.

Name and St George tradition

Al-Khader is named after Saint George, who in Arab culture is sometimes associated with the Muslim saint al-Khadr, "the green one". According to local tradition, Saint George was imprisoned in the town of al-Khader where the current Monastery of St. George stands. The chains holding him were relics that were said to hold healing power.

History

Iron Age

In 1953, a hoard of at least twenty-six weapon-heads, either javelin- or arrowheads, were discovered in al-Khader, five of which are bearing inscriptions dating from c. 1100 BCE. The inscriptions are made in a transitional script, actually offering to the epigraphists the "missing link" between the pictographs of the Proto-Canaanite or Old Canaanite script, and the linear alphabetic Early Linear Phoenician script. The owner of the javelins or arrows apparently "signed" them, the translation being "dart/arrow of 'Abd Labi't on ofBin-'Anat", both names known from the period (see for instance the warrior Shamgar Ben Anat from the biblical Song of Deborah, ).

Crusader period

During the Crusader era, the village, called '' Casale S. Georgii'', was granted by ''Geoffrey de Tor'' to the church in Bethlehem, and included in its possessions in 1227 and 1266.

Mamluk period

Around 1421/1422 CE the Church of St. George was mentioned by Western traveler John Poloner as situated on a hill near Bethlehem.Conder and Kitchener, 1883, SWP III, p
26
/ref>

Ottoman period

During late Ottoman rule (1516-1917), al-Khader was part of the political-administrative sheikdom and ''nahiyah'' ("subdistrict") of Bani Hasan, which was ruled by the Absiyeh family of al-Walaja. In 1838 its inhabitants were classified as Muslims by the English scholars Edward Robinson and Eli Smith, part of the ''Beni Hasan'' District, west of Jerusalem.Robinson and Smith, 1841, vol 3, Appendix 2, p
123
/ref> In 1863 Victor Guérin found the village "reduced to two hundred inhabitants, almost all Muslims." He further noted remains of constructions, with rather large stones, which he thought were dated from an era prior to the Arab conquest.

Albert Socin notes that an official Ottoman village list from about 1870 documented ''el-chadr'' with a population of 122 in a total of 43 houses, though that population count only included men. It was further noted that the small Greek monastery served as a mental asylum.

In 1882, the PEF's ''Survey of Western Palestine'' described al-Khader as a moderate-sized village with a "Greek church and convent." It was surrounded by vineyards and olive groves and "rock-cut tombs" were situated to the north of the village. It had a mixed population of Muslims and Greek Orthodox Christians, according to the ''Survey of Western Palestine''.

In 1896 the population of ''El-chadr'' was estimated to be about 210 people.

British Mandate

In the British Mandate 1922 census of Palestine, al-Khader had a population of 697; 694 Muslims and 3 Christians.Barron, 1923, Table VII, Sub-district of Bethlehem, p
18
/ref> By the 1931 census of Palestine, the population was 914, mostly Muslim with three Christian inhabitants.

In the 1945 statistics the town had 1,130 Muslim inhabitantsGovernment of Palestine, Department of Statistics, 1945, p
25
/ref> and a total land area of 20,100 dunams. It was a part of the Jerusalem District. Of the land, 5,700 dunams were irrigated or used for plantations, 5,889 dunams were for cereals, while 96 dunams were built-up (urban) land.

The Orthodox Christian Church owns several hundreds of dunams made up of vineyards, olive groves and field crops. The lands were entrusted to them since the Rashidun era during the caliphate of Umar who presided over the conquest of Palestine in the 630s. Most of the land is leased to Muslim farmers. Kark, Ruth. (2001).
Jerusalem and Its Environs: Quarters, Neighborhoods, Villages, 1800-1948
' Wayne State University Press, p. 199. .

Jordanian period

In the wake of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, and after the 1949 Armistice Agreements

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