Tamra

Tamra (, or ) is an Arab city in the North District of Israel located in the Lower Galilee north of the city of Shefa-Amr and approximately east of Acre. In it had a population of .

As of May, 2025, the population was 36,832 people, of those 11,264 children, 2,470 senior citizens and 23,098 in the category of working age. The population is almost entirely Arab and Muslim.

History

Tamra is an ancient village on a hill. Old squared stone blocks have been reused in village homes. Cisterns and tombs carved into rock have also been found here.
Tamra has been identified with Kefar Tamartha, a Jewish village mentioned in the Talmud as the home of 3rd century amora Rabbi Shila of Kefar Tamarta.

On a hill 3 km west of Tamra's historical core lies a ruin called in Arabic Khirbet et-Tira ("ruin of the castle") and in Hebrew Horbat Tirat Tamra ("Tamra castle ruin"), which has been studied by European and Israeli archaeologists since the 19th century. The site is dated through its finds to the Persian, Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine and Medieval periods. The site is bisected by Highway 70 and is covered the modern city's agricultural lands.

A church constructed in Tamra during the Byzantine era remained active through the Umayyad and Abbasid periods before it was finally abandoned. An inscription using the hijra calendar discovered on the church's floor can be dated to AD 725.

Crusader period

In the 1253, during the Crusader period, John Aleman, Lord of Caesarea, sold several villages, including Tamra, to the Hospitallers. In 1283 it was mentioned as part of the domain of the Crusaders, according to the ''hudna'' (temporary truce) between the Crusaders in Acre and the Mamluk sultan Qalawun.

Scholars have suggested that Khirbet et-Tira may be the site of ''Tatura'', a Crusader period settlement belonging to the Templar order. The name of the ruin might be a corruption of the Arabic toponym "Turat Tamra", from the same period. Excavation at the site revealed remains of Crusader structures destroyed by fire in the 13th century.

Mamluk period

The village from the Mamluk period seems to have persisted until the late 16th to early 17th centuries CE. Around this time, immigrants belonging to the Zu'abiyah clan settled in what is now known as Tamra, the place where their descendants reside to this day.

Ottoman period

Tamra was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire in 1517. In the census of 1596 the village was located in the ''Nahiya'' of Acca, part of Safad Sanjak. The population was 22 Muslim households. They paid a fixed tax rate of 20% on wheat, barley, fruit trees, cotton, occasional revenues, beehives and winter pastures; a total of 2,929 akçe. In 1799 it was named ''Tomrat'' on the map of Pierre Jacotin.

In 1859 the British Consul Rogers estimated the population to be 1,200, all Muslims, and the cultivated area 80 feddans,Conder and Kitchener, 1881, SWP I, p
273
/ref> while Victor Guérin found it in 1875 to have 800 inhabitants, all Muslim.

In 1881, the PEF's ''Survey of Western Palestine'' (SWP) described Tamra as: "A large village, with a small mosque on the east and well on the north. There is a rock-cut tomb west of the houses. South of the village, in the valley, a fine olive-grove extends as far as er Rueis."

A population list from about 1887 showed that Tamra had about 535 inhabitants, all Muslims.

British Mandate

At the time of the 1922 census of Palestine Tamra had a population of 1,111, all Muslims, increasing in the 1931 census to 1,258, all Muslims, in a total of 282 houses.Mills, 1932, p
103
/ref>

In the 1945 statistics, Tamra had 1,830 inhabitants, all Muslims,Department of Statistics, 1945, p
5
/ref> while the total jurisdiction of the village was 30,559 dunams of land.Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p
41
/ref> 1,564 dunams were used for plantations and irrigable land, 14,434 dunams for cereals, while 206 dunams were built-up (urban) land.

State of Israel

Tamra was captured by Israeli forces from the Arab Liberation Army and the Syrian Army in 1948 Arab–Israeli War as a part of Operation Dekel. On 20 May 1948 the civilian population had been evacuated on orders from Arab irregular forces. According to Benny Morris, they feared that the village would surrender to the Yishuv. The city grew rapidly in the period of Israel's first years as a nation due to the influx of Palestinian refugees from destroyed nearby villages such as al-Birwa or al-Damun. Large percentages of the city's farming land was expropriated by Israeli authorities and allocated to farming cooperatives and nearby Jewish settlement towns such as Mitzpe Aviv. Tamra achieved local council status in 1956 and was declared a city in 1996. In 2020 the Israeli government approved plans to construct 5,270 housing units in the southern quarter. The plan includes public and transport infrastructure.

On 14 June 2025, during an Iran–Israel War, Iranian missile attack on Israel, a ballistic missile directly struck a house in Tamra, killing four people, including a mother, her two daughters, and another relative, and injuring 20 others. Asaf Cohen, an ex-officer of the Military Intelligence Directorate (Israel), Israeli Military Intelligence, commented shortly afterward that the Iranian strike was an obvious error, with Iran having aimed at an important target nearby, which he did not name explicitly. After the strike, a video surfaced online showing Israelis celebrating the attack with anti-Arab chants like "On the village, on the village" and "May your village burn," which was often sung by ultranationalist Jews. President Isaac Herzog described it as "appalling and disgraceful", echoing a general sentiment in Israel.

Economy

The city became famous for its large dairy factory named "Rajeb-Tamra", accounting for a sizeable portion of the dairy market in Israel's Arab sector.

Demographics

According to the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), at the end of 2007 the city had a total population of 27,300. In 2001, the ethnic makeup of the city was almost entirely Arab (99.6% Muslim), with no significant Jewish population. See Population groups in Israel.

According to CBS, in 2001 there were 11,900 males and 11,400 females. The population of the city was spread out, with 48.5% 19 years of age or younger, 18.0% between 20 and 29, 19.7% between 30 and 44, 9.0% from 45 to 59, 1.6% from 60 to 64, and 3.0% 65 years of age or older. The population growth rate in 2001 was 3.3% and by 2005 had dropped to 2.5%.

The largest and most influential clan in Tamra is the Diab, which consists of several branches. Other clans include the Hejazi, and the smaller clans of Abd al-Hadi, Abu Na'ama, Abu Rumi, Amar, Arshid, Awwad, Kanaan, Muhsin, Nasser, Natour, Ourabi, Radi, Shama, Shaqir, Sheikh Ali and Yassin. In addition to the aforementioned clans, whose presence in Tamra predates the state of Israel, the city is home to internally displaced Palestinians and their descendants from the nearby villages of al-Damun, Hadatha, Mi'ar and al-Ruways, which were depopulated during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.

Income

According to CBS, there were 3,908 salaried workers and 375 self-employed persons in 2000.

Education

According to CBS, there are 13 schools and 5,779 students in the city. They are spread out as 9 elementary schools and 4000 elementary school students, and 3 high schools and 2,324 high school students. 54.6% of 12th grade students were entitled to a matriculation certificate in 2001.

During the late 1990s sociologist As'ad Ghanem set up an NGO in Tamra. It was called ''Ibn Khaldun'' and campaigned for more Arab history to be taught in Israeli schools.Ilan Pappe, Pappe, 2011, p. 219

Sports

The current football teams in the city are Maccabi Tamra F.C., Maccabi Tamra and F.C. Tzeirei Tamra, both play in Liga Gimel, the fifth tier of Football in Israel, Israeli football. Maccabi Tamra and Hapoel Bnei Tamra F.C., Hapoel Bnei Tamra (which is now defunct), played in the past in Liga Artzit, having been promoted from Liga Alef in 1988 and 2006 respectively.

Notable people

*Mohammed Awaed (born 1997), football player for Maccabi Haifa
*Yussef Diab (1917–1984), member of the Knesset

See also

*Arab localities in Israel

References

Bibliography

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External links

Official website


*Survey of Western Palestine, Map 5
IAAWikimedia commons

*Susan Nathan
An Israeli Jew in a Muslim town
Flags of the World

Reilly Vinall
"Combining Empathy with Problem Solving: The Tamra Model of Facilitation in Israel" by Eileen F. Babbitt and Pamela Pomerance Steiner, with Jabir Asaqla, Chassia Chomsky-Porat, and Shirli Kirschner, Chapter 8 of 'Building Peace: Practical Reflections from the Field'

{{Authority control

Tamra,
Arab localities in Israel
1996 establishments in Israel
Cities in Northern District (Israel)