Kabara was a

Palestinian Palestinians () are an Arab ethnonational group native to the Levantine region of Palestine. *: "Palestine was part of the first wave of conquest following Muhammad's death in 632 CE; Jerusalem fell to the Caliph Umar in 638. The indigenous p ...

Arab Arabs (, , ; , , ) are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in West Asia and North Africa. A significant Arab diaspora is present in various parts of the world. Arabs have been in the Fertile Crescent for thousands of years ...

village in the Haifa Subdistrict. It was depopulated during the 1947–1948 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine on April 30, 1948. It was located 30 km southeast of

Haifa Haifa ( ; , ; ) is the List of cities in Israel, third-largest city in Israel—after Jerusalem and Tel Aviv—with a population of in . The city of Haifa forms part of the Haifa metropolitan area, the third-most populous metropolitan area i ...

History

A cave in the vicinity contains artifacts from the

Middle Palaeolithic The Middle Paleolithic (or Middle Palaeolithic) is the second subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age as it is understood in Europe, Africa and Asia. The term Middle Stone Age is used as an equivalent or a synonym for the Middle P ...

and

Natufian The Natufian culture ( ) is an archaeological culture of the late Epipalaeolithic Near East in West Asia from 15–11,500 Before Present. The culture was unusual in that it supported a sedentism, sedentary or semi-sedentary population even befor ...

periods. The PEF's '' Survey of Western Palestine'' visited in 1873, and noted about ''Kebarah'': "Traces of ruins exist here: a cave, and a tomb with nine ''kokim'', and an ante-chamber and entrance of masonry, with a circular

arch An arch is a curved vertical structure spanning an open space underneath it. Arches may support the load above them, or they may perform a purely decorative role. As a decorative element, the arch dates back to the 4th millennium BC, but stru ...

of small stones. Near this ruin the wall or dam, built to prevent the spreading north- wards of the marsh surrounding the Zerka, will be found marked on the Sheet, ending in a knoll on the east. The masonry resembles that in the aqueducts at Cæsarea; the stones vary in length, averaging about 2 feet, and are set in cement. The wall is about 4 feet thick, with two rows of

ashlar Ashlar () is a cut and dressed rock (geology), stone, worked using a chisel to achieve a specific form, typically rectangular in shape. The term can also refer to a structure built from such stones. Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, a ...

, and thoroughbonds, being built in alternate headers and stretchers. The core of the wall is of rubble."

British Mandate era

Early in the mandate, a government concession was granted to the Palestine Jewish Colonization Association (PICA) to develop the area. A long-running legal dispute between the Palestinian inhabitants of the area, the Mandatory government, and PICA, continued through the period of the mandate. 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 divis ...

conducted by the British Mandate authorities, ''Kabara'' had a population of 73 Muslims. In the 1931 census it was counted with Jisr az-Zarqa, together they had a population of 572 Muslims, in a total of 117 houses.Mills, 1932, p
92
/ref> In 1938 the

kibbutz A kibbutz ( / , ; : kibbutzim / ) is an intentional community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. The first kibbutz, established in 1910, was Degania Alef, Degania. Today, farming has been partly supplanted by other economi ...

of Ma'ayan Tzvi was established on what traditionally had been village land. In the 1945 statistics it had a population of 120 Muslims, with a total of 9,831 dunams of which Muslims owned 1,070, Jews 3,487 and 5,247 was public land. Of the land, Arabs used 2 dunams for citrus and bananas, 20 for plantations and irrigable land, for cereals, while a total of 2,437 dunams was classified as non-cultivable land.Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. ''Village Statistics, April, 1945.'' Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p
140
/ref>

1948 and aftermath

According to

Walid Khalidi Walid Khalidi (; born in Jerusalem on July 16, 1925) is a Palestinian historian who has written extensively on the Palestinian exodus. He is a co-founder of the Institute for Palestine Studies, established in Beirut in December 1963 as an inde ...

no information is given about how the village became depopulated, but he assumes it was during the second campaign to "clear" the coastal areas of Arabs, that is, in late April, or early May, 1948. Following the war, the area was incorporated into the

State of Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

; Ma'agan Michael was established in 1949 and Beit Hanania in 1950, both on village land. In 1992 the village site was described: "The rubble from the village houses has been moved up the slope where it is now visible, covered with dirt. Cactuses and banana trees, as well as isolated fig, carob, and olive trees grow on the site."

References

Bibliography

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External links

Welcome To KabaraKabara
Zochrot
A Classic Zionist Story
Meron Rapoport Jun 10, 2010,

Haaretz ''Haaretz'' (; originally ''Ḥadshot Haaretz'' – , , ) is an List of newspapers in Israel, Israeli newspaper. It was founded in 1918, making it the longest running newspaper currently in print in Israel. The paper is published in Hebrew lan ...

*Survey of Western Palestine, Map 7
IAAWikimedia commons
{{Palestinian Arab villages depopulated during the 1948 Palestine War Arab villages depopulated prior to the 1948 Arab–Israeli War District of Haifa