Sa'ir

Sa'ir ( ar, سعير, also spelled Saeer, Seir, or Si'ir) is a Palestinian town in the Hebron Governorate of the State of Palestine, in the southern West Bank, located northeast of Hebron. Nearby localities include Beit Fajjar and al-Arroub to the north, Beit Ummar to the northwest, Halhul to the west and Beit Einun and ash-Shuyukh to the south. The Dead Sea is just east of Sa'ir's municipal borders.Sa'ir Town Profile
Applied Research Institute-Jerusalem. 2008. Retrieved on 2012-03-12. In the 2007 census Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, the town had a population of over 18,045.2007 PCBS Census
Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics. p.118.

It has municipal jurisdiction over 117,000 dunams, 6,000 of which is built-up area and 11,715 of which is cultivated. The main economic activities in Sa'ir are agriculture and the Israeli labor market, although the latter has been adversely affected as a result of the Israeli restrictions following the Second Intifada in 2000–04. Olives are the major cash crop.

Name

According to the Applied Research Institute Jerusalem (ARIJ), Sa'ir "was established on the town of Saeer () or Saiour ()", and during the Roman era the town was known as "Sior". The Book of Joshua (15:54) mentions a town in this area called Tsi`or (, also transliterated Sior or Zior). The Hebrew name is related to a root meaning "small".

History

Byzantine ceramics have been found. The PEF's ''Survey of Western Palestine'' (SWP), wrote that: "The tomb of El 'Ais (Esau), south of the village, is in a chamber 37 feet east and west by 20 feet north and south, th a Mihrab on the south wall. The tomb is 12 feet long, 3 1/2 feet broad, 5 feet high, covered with a dark green cloth and a canopy above. An ostrich egg is hung near. North of the chamber is a vaulted room of equal size, and to the east is an open court with a fig-tree, and a second cenotaph rudely plastered, said to be that of Esau's slave. Rock-cut tombs exist south-west of this place."

Ottoman era

In 1596 Sa'ir appeared in the Ottoman tax registers as part of the ''nahiya'' of Halil in the Liwa of Quds. It had an entirely Muslim population consisting of 72 households. Taxes were paid on wheat, barley, summer crops, olive trees, goats and/or beehives.

The French explorer Victor Guérin visited the village in the 1860s, and found it having about 400 inhabitants. SWP described Sa'ir in 1883 as "a village of moderate size, in a valley surrounded with cultivated ground." A maqam (shrine) located in Sa'ir was believed by the local Muslims to house the tomb of Esau who they referred to as "Aisa." The SWP stated this identification was false and that Esau's tomb was in the Biblical Mount Seir.

Under the name ''Sa'in'', an Ottoman village list of about 1870 indicated 84 houses and a population of 186, though it is proposed that the population count included men, only.

British Mandate period

In the 1922 census of Palestine, conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Sa'ir had a population of 1,477 inhabitants, all Muslim. In the 1931 census the population of Si'ir was a total of 1,967, still entirely Muslim, in 388 inhabited houses.Mills, 1932, p
33
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In the 1945 statistics the population of Si'ir was 2,710, all Muslims,Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics, 1945, p
23
/ref> who owned 92,423 dunams of land according to an official land and population survey. 2,483 dunams were plantations and irrigable land, 10,671 for cereals, while 76 dunams were built-up (urban) land.

Jordanian period

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

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