Ain Karim

ar, عين كارم
, settlement_type = Neighborhood of Jerusalem
, image_skyline = Ein Karem IMG 0624.JPG
, imagesize = 300px
, image_caption = View of Ein Karem
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name =
, subdivision_type1 = District
, subdivision_name1 = Jerusalem District
, subdivision_type2 = City
, subdivision_name2 = Jerusalem
, established_title = Founded
, established_date = Middle Bronze Age
, population_footnotes =
, population_as_of = 2017
, population_total = 1,620
, area_code_type = Area code

Ein Karem ( he, עֵין כֶּרֶם, ''ʿEin Kerem'' lit. "Spring of the Vineyard"; in Arabic ''ʿAyn Kārim'';Sharon, 2004, p
155
/ref> also Ain Karem, Ein Kerem) is a historic mountain village southwest of Jerusalem, presently a neighborhood in the outskirts of the modern city, within the Jerusalem District. It is the site of the Hadassah Medical Center.

Ein Karem was an important Jewish village during the late Second Temple period, during which it became important to Christianity. Christian tradition holds that John the Baptist was born in Ein Karem, following the biblical verse in Luke saying John's family lived in a "town in the hill country of Judea". Probably because of its location between Bethlehem and Jerusalem, this location was a very comfortable one for a pilgrimage, and this led to the establishment of many churches and monasteries in the area.

During the years of Ottoman and later British rule in Palestine, Ein Karem was a Palestinian Arab village. It was depopulated of its residents during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.Morris, 2004, p
xx
village #360. Also gives cause of depopulation. After the war it became, once again, a Jewish settlement. Today, Ein Karem is a vibrant bohemian neighborhood of Jerusalem, with a population of 2,000 (2010). It has retained a very high-level of authenticity, its natural environment remains intact, and its old houses are still inhabited and preserved. It attracts three million visitors a year, one-third of them pilgrims from around the world. Alongside its religious landmarks, Ein Karem is also known for its fine art, culinary, and musical scenes.

Etymology

The name ''Ein Karem'' ''or Ein Kerem'' can be literally translated from both Hebrew and Arabic as "Spring of the Vineyard". Another possible translation would be "Spring of Carem", if derived from an ancient Iron Age Israelite city called Carem, mentioned as a city in the dominion of the tribe of Judah in the Septuagint version of Book of Joshua. In Arabic, other than meaning "Spring of the Vineyard", it could be understood as well as "the Generous Spring".Guérin, 1868, pp
84
85

History

A spring that provides water to the village of Ein Karem stimulated settlement there from an early time.G. Ernest Wright, ''Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research'' 71 ct. 1938 pp. 28f

Bronze Age

Pottery has been found near the spring dating to the Middle bronze age.

Iron Age/Israelite period

During the Iron Age, or Israelite period, Ein Karem is usually identified as the location of the biblical village of Beth HaKerem ().

Second Temple period

A well-preserved '' mikveh (''Jewish ritual bath) indicates there was a Jewish settlement in the Second Temple period along with some other discoveries such as handful of graves, bits of a wall, and an olive press. A reservoir here was mentioned in the Copper Scroll, one of the Dead Sea Scrolls.Tsafrir, Di Segni and Green, 1994, p. 82

Roman and Byzantine periods

During excavations in the Church of Saint John the Baptist, a marble statue of Aphrodite (or Venus) was found, broken in two. It is believed to date from the Roman era and was probably toppled in Byzantine times. Today, the statue is at the Rockefeller Museum. Excavations in front of the same church, which has at its core the cave which Christian tradition identifies as the birthplace of John the Baptist, have unearthed remains of two Byzantine chapels, one containing an inscription mentioning Christian "martyrs", but without any mention of John. Ceramics from the Byzantine period have also been found in Ein Karem.

Sources from the Byzantine period are associating Ein Karem with the place where Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist, had lived, which is not properly named by the New Testament. In around 530 CE, the Christian pilgrim Theodosius places Elizabeth's town at a distance of from Jerusalem,Theodosius, 1893, p
10
/ref> which suits Ein Karem.

Early Islamic period

Ein Karem was recorded after the Islamic conquest. Al-Tamimi, the physician (d. 990), mentions a church in Ein Karem that was venerated by the Christians, also mentioning an old custom of the Jews of Ein Karem to make wreaths from the boughs (branches) of a wild plant belonging to the mint family ( Lamiaceae) during the Jewish holiday of Shavu'ot.

Crusader period

It is mentioned under the name St. Jehan de Bois, "Saint John in the Mountains", during the Crusades. The Crusaders were the first to build here a church dedicated to St John, rebuilt in the 17th century by the Franciscans and still active today, and Moshe Sharon considers it as "almost sure" that the Crusaders are the ones who started the tradition of identifying that particular site as St John's birthplace.

Mamluk period

A coin from the reign of As-Salih Hajji (1389 CE.) was found here, together with pottery, glassware and other coins from the Mamluk era.Landes-Nagar, 2017
Jerusalem, ʽEn Kerem
/ref>

Ottoman period

Most of the village - some 15,000 dunams - was waqf land set aside charitably to benefit the Moroccan Muslim community in Jerusalem, belonging to the endowment established by Abu Madyan in the 14th century.

In 1517, the village was included in the Ottoman empire with the rest of Palestine and in the 1596 tax-records it appeared as Ain Karim'', located in the ''Nahiya'' of Jabal Quds of the '' Liwa'' of Al-Quds. The village had at this time 29 households, all Muslim. The villagers paid a fixed tax rate of 33.3% on agricultural products, which included wheat, barley, summer crops, vineyards, grape syrup/molasse, goats and beehives in addition to "occasional revenues"; a total of 5,300 akçe. All of the revenue went to a waqf.

In the course 17th century, the Franciscans manage to recover the ruins of the church raised by the Crusaders over the traditional birth cave of St. John and, in spite of local Muslim opposition, to rebuild and fortify it as the Monastery of St. John in the Mountains.

James Silk Buckingham visited in the early 1800s, and found he was "more pleased with this village ..than with any other place I had yet visited in Palestine."

In 1838, ''Ain Karim'' was noted as a Muslim and Latin Christian village in the ''Beni Hasan'' district.

In 1863 Victor Guérin noted a thousand inhabitants "of whom there are barely two hundred and fifty who are Catholics; the others are Muslim." The ancestors of the latter were held to descend from Maghrabins, that is to say, originating from the Maghreb (North Africa).Guérin, 1868, p
84
/ref> Guérin describes them as rowdy and fanatical, until a few years before his visit having very often attacked the Catholic monks at the Monastery of St John in order to extort from them food and money, a habit that had subsided only lately.

An official Ottoman village list from about 1870 showed that ''Ain Karim'' had 178 houses and a population of 533, though the population count included only men. The population consisted of 412 Muslims in 138 houses, 66 Latin Christians in 18 houses, and 55 Greek Christians in 12 houses.

In 1883, the PEF's ''Survey of Western Palestine'' (SWP) described Ain Karim as: "A flourishing village of about 600 inhabitants, 100 being Latin Christians. It stands on a sort of natural terrace projecting from the higher hills on the east of it, with a broad flat valley below on the west. On the south below the village is a fine spring ('Ain Sitti Miriam), with a vaulted place for prayer over it. The water issues from a spout into a trough."

In 1896 the population of Ain Karim'' was estimated to be about 1,290 persons.

British Mandate period

ar, عين كارم
, settlement_type = Village
, image_skyline = Ein karem 1906.jpg
, imagesize = 250
, pushpin_map = Israel
, pushpin_mapsize = 200
, grid_name = Palestine grid
, grid_position = 165/130
, subdivision_type =
, subdivision_name =
, established_title1 = Date of depopulation
, established_date1 = 10 and 21 April 1948, 16 July 1948
, established_title2 = Repopulated dates
, unit_pref = dunam
, area_footnotes =
, area_total_dunam = 15,029
, elevation_footnotes =
, elevation_m = 650
, population_as_of = 1948
, population_total = 3,689
, blank_name_sec1 = Cause(s) of depopulation
, blank_info_sec1 = Influence of nearby town's fall
, blank1_name_sec1 = Secondary cause
, blank1_info_sec1 = Arab - Israeli War
, blank3_name_sec1 = Current Localities
, blank3_info_sec1 = Ein Karem Beit Zayit,Khalidi, 1992, p. 273 Even Sapir

In the 1922 census of Palestine, conducted by the British Mandate authorities, the population of 'Ain Karim was 1,735; consisting of 1,282 Muslims and 453 Christians,Barron, 1923, Table VII, Sub-district of Jerusalem, p
14
/ref> increasing in the 1931 census to 2,637, in 555 houses.Mills, 1932, p
39
/ref>

During the 1929 riots in Palestine, Arab residents of 'Ain Karim launched raids against the nearby Jewish neighborhood of Bayit VeGan.

In the 1945 statistics, Ein Karim had a population of 3,180; 2,510 Muslims and 670 Christians,Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics, 1945, p
24
/ref> The total land area was 15,029 dunams,Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. ''Village Statistics, April, 1945.'' Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p
57
/ref> of this, a total of 7,960 dunums of land were irrigated or used for plantations, 1,199 were used for cereals;Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. ''Village Statistics, April, 1945.'' Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p
102
/ref> while a total of 1,704 dunams were classified as built-up (urban) areas.

The 1947 United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine placed 'Ayn Karim in the Jerusalem enclave intended for international control.

1948 Arab-Israeli War

When the 1947-1949 Palestine war started, 'Ain Karim became a major base of operations against nearby Jewish neighborhoods. In February 1948, the village's 300 guerilla fighters were reinforced by a well-armed Arab Liberation Army force of mainly Syrian fighters, and on March 10 a substantial Iraqi detachment arrived in the village, followed within days by some 160 Egyptian fighters. On March 19, the villagers joined their foreign guests in attacking a Jewish convoy on the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem road. Immediately after the April 1948 massacre at the nearby village of Deir Yassin ( to the north), most of the women and children in the village were evacuated.

The village was finally captured by Israeli forces during the ten-day campaign of July 1948. The remaining residents fled on July 10–11. The Arab Liberation Army forces which had camped in the village left on July 14–16 after Jewish forces captured two dominating hilltops, Khirbet Beit Mazmil and Khirbet al-Hamama, and shelled the village. During its last days, 'Ayn Karim suffered from severe food shortages.Morris, 2004, p
436
quoting: Entries for 10 and 11 July 1948, General Staff∖Operations Logbook, IDFA∖922∖75∖∖1176; and Mordechai Abir, ´The local Arab Factor in the War of Independence (Jerusalem Area)`18-19, IDFA 1046∖70∖185∖∖; and Yeruham, `Arab Information (from 14.7.48)´, 15 July 1948 HA 105∖127aleph.

State of Israel

After the war ended, Israel incorporated the village into the municipal boundaries of Jerusalem. Ein Karem was one of the few depopulated Arab localities which survived the war with most of the buildings intact. The abandoned homes were resettled with new migrants, many of whom Mizrahi Jews who fled from the Arab countries who fought the Arab-Israeli War during the war and after it, i.e. Jews from Iraq and Egypt but also from Yemen. Over the years, the bucolic atmosphere attracted a population of artisans and craftsmen. Today it is a vibrant bohemian neighborhood of Jerusalem, attracting many artist, young people and tourists.

In 1961, Hadassah built its medical center on a nearby hilltop, including the Hadassah Medical Center and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem schools of medicine, dentistry, nursing, and pharmacology.

Biblical connections

Old Testament

Only the Septuagint translation of the Hebrew Bible

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