Bayt Nabala or Beit Nabala was a
Palestinian Arab
Palestinians ( ar, الفلسطينيون, ; he, פָלַסְטִינִים, ) or Palestinian people ( ar, الشعب الفلسطيني, label=none, ), also referred to as Palestinian Arabs ( ar, الفلسطينيين العرب, label=non ...
village in the
Ramle Subdistrict in
Palestine
__NOTOC__
Palestine may refer to:
* State of Palestine, a state in Western Asia
* Palestine (region), a geographic region in Western Asia
* Palestinian territories, territories occupied by Israel since 1967, namely the West Bank (including East ...
that was destroyed during the
1948 Arab–Israeli War
The 1948 (or First) Arab–Israeli War was the second and final stage of the 1948 Palestine war. It formally began following the end of the British Mandate for Palestine at midnight on 14 May 1948; the Israeli Declaration of Independence had ...
. The village was in the territory allotted to the Arab state under the 1947
UN Partition Plan
The United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine was a proposal by the United Nations, which recommended a partition of Mandatory Palestine at the end of the British Mandate. On 29 November 1947, the UN General Assembly adopted the Plan as Re ...
. Its population in 1945, before the war, was 2,310.
It was occupied by Israeli forces on May 13, 1948
[ and was completely destroyed by them on September 13, 1948. Village refugees were scattered around Deir 'Ammar, ]Ramallah
Ramallah ( , ; ar, رام الله, , God's Height) is a Palestinian city in the central West Bank that serves as the ''de facto'' administrative capital of the State of Palestine. It is situated on the Judaean Mountains, north of Jerusale ...
city, Bayt Tillow, Rantis
Rantis ( ar, رنتيس) is a Palestinian town in the West Bank, located in the northwestern Ramallah and al-Bireh Governorate, 33 kilometers northwest of Ramallah. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, it had a population of 2 ...
, and Jalazone
Jalazone ( ar, مخيّم الجلزون) is a Palestinian refugee camp in the Ramallah and al-Bireh Governorate, located north of Ramallah and adjacent to the village of Jifna to the north, Deir Dibwan to the east, Bir Zeit to the west and the B ...
refugee camps north of Ramallah. Some of the clans that lived in Bayt Nabala include the AlHeet, Nakhleh, Safi, AL-Sharaqa, al-Khateeb, Saleh and Zaid families. Today the area is part of the Israeli town of Beit Nehemia.
History
In the 1596 tax record, Bayt Nabala was part of the Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...
, ''nahiya
A nāḥiyah ( ar, , plural ''nawāḥī'' ), also nahiya or nahia, is a regional or local type of administrative division that usually consists of a number of villages or sometimes smaller towns. In Tajikistan, it is a second-level division w ...
'' (subdistrict) of Ramla
Ramla or Ramle ( he, רַמְלָה, ''Ramlā''; ar, الرملة, ''ar-Ramleh'') is a city in the Central District of Israel. Today, Ramle is one of Israel's mixed cities, with both a significant Jewish and Arab populations.
The city was f ...
under the Liwa of Gaza
Gaza Sanjak ( ar, سنجق غزة) was a sanjak of the Damascus Eyalet, Ottoman Empire centered in Gaza. In the 16th century it was divided into ''nawahi'' (singular: ''nahiya''; third-level subdivisions): Gaza in the south and Ramla in the north ...
, with a population of 54 Muslim
Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...
households, an estimated 297 people. They paid a fixed tax-rate of 33,3 % on a number of crops, including wheat
Wheat is a grass widely cultivated for its seed, a cereal grain that is a worldwide staple food. The many species of wheat together make up the genus ''Triticum'' ; the most widely grown is common wheat (''T. aestivum''). The archaeologi ...
, barley
Barley (''Hordeum vulgare''), a member of the grass family, is a major cereal grain grown in temperate climates globally. It was one of the first cultivated grains, particularly in Eurasia as early as 10,000 years ago. Globally 70% of barley pr ...
, olives, fruit, as well as on goats, beehives and a press that was used for processing either olives or grapes, in addition to occasional revenues; a total of 8,688 akçe
The ''akçe'' or ''akça'' (also spelled ''akche'', ''akcheh''; ota, آقچه; ) refers to a silver coin which was the chief monetary unit of the Ottoman Empire. The word itself evolved from the word "silver or silver money", this word is deri ...
.
In 1838 Edward Robinson noted Bayt Nabala from the tower
A tower is a tall Nonbuilding structure, structure, taller than it is wide, often by a significant factor. Towers are distinguished from guyed mast, masts by their lack of guy-wires and are therefore, along with tall buildings, self-supporting ...
in Ramle
Ramla or Ramle ( he, רַמְלָה, ''Ramlā''; ar, الرملة, ''ar-Ramleh'') is a city in the Central District of Israel. Today, Ramle is one of Israel's mixed cities, with both a significant Jewish and Arab populations.
The city was f ...
.
In 1870 Victor Guérin
Victor Guérin (15 September 1821 – 21 Septembe 1890) was a French intellectual, explorer and amateur archaeologist. He published books describing the geography, archeology and history of the areas he explored, which included Greece, Asia Mino ...
visited and found the village to have about 900 inhabitants. Socin
Sozzini, Sozini, Socini or Socin is an Italian noble family originally from Siena in Tuscany, where the family were noted as bankers and merchants, jurists and humanist scholars. The family has been described as "the most famous legal dynasty of t ...
found from an official Ottoman village list from about the same year that Bayt Nabala had 108 houses and a population of 427, though the population count included men, only. Hartmann found that ''Bet Nebala'' had 118 houses.
In 1882, the PEF's ''Survey of Western Palestine
The PEF Survey of Palestine was a series of surveys carried out by the Palestine Exploration Fund (PEF) between 1872 and 1877 for the Survey of Western Palestine and in 1880 for the Survey of Eastern Palestine. The survey was carried out after the ...
'' described Bayt Nabala as being of moderate size, situated at the edge of a plain.
British Mandate era
The school was founded in 1921 and had about 230 students in 1946–47.
In the 1922 census of Palestine
The 1922 census of Palestine was the first census carried out by the authorities of the British Mandate of Palestine, on 23 October 1922.
The reported population was 757,182, including the military and persons of foreign nationality. The divisi ...
, conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Bait Nabala had a population of 1,324 inhabitants; 1,321 Muslim
Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...
s and 3 Christians,[Barron, 1923, Table VII, Sub-district of Ramleh, ]
22
/ref> increasing in the 1931 census to 1758, all Muslims, in a total of 471 houses.[Mills, 1932, p]
18
In the 1945 statistics, the village had a population of 2,310 Muslims,[ while the total land area was 15,051 ]dunam
A dunam ( Ottoman Turkish, Arabic: ; tr, dönüm; he, דונם), also known as a donum or dunum and as the old, Turkish, or Ottoman stremma, was the Ottoman unit of area equivalent to the Greek stremma or English acre, representing the amount ...
s, according to an official land and population survey.[ A total of 226 ]dunums
A dunam ( Ottoman Turkish, Arabic: ; tr, dönüm; he, דונם), also known as a donum or dunum and as the old, Turkish, or Ottoman stremma, was the Ottoman unit of area equivalent to the Greek stremma or English acre, representing the amount ...
of village land was used for citrus
''Citrus'' is a genus of flowering plant, flowering trees and shrubs in the rue family, Rutaceae. Plants in the genus produce citrus fruits, including important crops such as Orange (fruit), oranges, Lemon, lemons, grapefruits, pomelos, and lim ...
and banana
A banana is an elongated, edible fruit – botanically a berry – produced by several kinds of large herbaceous flowering plants in the genus ''Musa''. In some countries, bananas used for cooking may be called "plantains", distinguis ...
s, 10,197 dunums were used for cereals, 1,733 dunums were irrigated or used for orchards,[Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. ''Village Statistics, April, 1945.'' Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p.]
114
/ref> while 123 dunams were classified as built-up public areas.
File:Deir Tarif 1942.jpg, Bayt Nabala 1942 1:20,000
File:Beit Nabala 1945.jpg, Bayt Nabala 1945 1:250,000
File:Lydda and Ramla area - 9 July 1948.PNG, Depopulated villages in the Ramle Subdistrict
1948 war and aftermath
Benny Morris
Benny Morris ( he, בני מוריס; born 8 December 1948) is an Israeli historian. He was a professor of history in the Middle East Studies department of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in the city of Beersheba, Israel. He is a member of t ...
writes that the village residents abandoned it on Arab orders on 13 May 1948. However, according to Walid Khalidi
Walid Khalidi ( ar, وليد خالدي, born 1925 in Jerusalem) is an Oxford University-educated Palestinian people, Palestinian historian who has written extensively on the 1948 Palestinian exodus, Palestinian exodus. He is a co-founder of the ...
, this cannot be confirmed.[Khalidi, 1992, p. 366]
The Palestinian historian Walid Khalidi described the village site in 1992: "The site is overgrown with grass, thorny bushes, and cypress and fig trees. It lies on the east side of the settlement of Beyt Nechemya, due east of the road from the Lod (Lydda) airport. On its fringes are the remains of quarries and crumbled houses. Sections of walls from the houses still stand. The surrounding land is cultivated by the Israeli settlements."[
]
Culture
According to the Palestinian Heritage Foundation, Beit Nabala dresses (together with those of the village of Dayr Tarif
Dayr Tarif was a Palestinian Arab village in the Ramle Subdistrict of Mandatory Palestine. It was depopulated during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War on July 10, 1948.
History
The Romans referred to Dayr Tarif as Bethariph.
According to SWP; "South-we ...
), "were usually done on cotton, velvet or kermezot silk fabric. Taffeta inserts embroidered in Bethlehem
Bethlehem (; ar, بيت لحم ; he, בֵּית לֶחֶם '' '') is a city in the central West Bank, Palestine, about south of Jerusalem. Its population is approximately 25,000,Amara, 1999p. 18.Brynen, 2000p. 202. and it is the capital o ...
style couching-stitch in gold and silk cord were attached to the yoke, chest panel, sleeves and skirt. In the 1930s black velvet material became popular, and dresses were embroidered in couching straight on the fabric with brown or orange couching embroidery which later became famous for this area."
See also
* Palestinian costumes
Palestinian traditional costumes are the types of clothing historically and sometimes still presently worn by Palestinians. Foreign travelers to Palestine in the 19th and early 20th centuries often commented on the rich variety of the costumes w ...
* Killings and massacres during the 1948 Palestine war
Killings and massacres during the 1948 Palestine war resulted in the deaths of hundreds of civilians and unarmed soldiers.Morris 2008, pp. 404-06.
The historiography of the events has been revisited by the New Historians, starting in the 1980s a ...
* Depopulated Palestinian locations in Israel
References
;Notes
Bibliography
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External links
Palestine Remembered - Bayt Nabala
*Survey of Western Palestine, Map 14:
IAA
Wikimedia commons
Bayt Nabala
Zochrot
Zochrot ( he, זוכרות; "Remembering"; ar, ذاكرات; "Memories") is an Israeli nonprofit organization founded in 2002. Based in Tel Aviv, its aim is to promote awareness of the Palestinian ''Nakba'' ("Catastrophe"), including the 1948 Pa ...
Israel campaign throws spotlight on Jewish refugees from Arab lands
28 September 2012, BBC
from Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center
Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center () is a leading Palestinian arts and culture organization that aims to create a pluralistic, critical liberating culture through research, query, and participation, and that provides an open space for the community ...
Bayt Nabala
from PalestineFamily.net
Nabaly Net
{{Palestinian Arab villages depopulated during the 1948 Palestine War
Arab villages depopulated during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War
District of Ramla