Kafr Yasif also spelled
Kfar Yasif or
Kafar Yasef, is an
ArabArab citizens of Israel is a phrase used by Israeli and other government and independent agencies to refer to Israeli citizens whose cultural and/or linguistic heritage, and ethnic identity, is Arab, including members of any religious tradition other than Jewish...
local councilLocal councils are one of the three types of local government found in Israel, with the other two being cities and regional councils. As of 2003, there were 144 local councils in Israel, these being settlements which pass a minimum threshold enough to justify their operations as independent...
in the
North DistrictThe Northern District is one of Israel's six administrative districts. The Northern District has a land area of 4,478 km², which increases to 4,638 km² when both land and water are included. Excluding the Golan Heights, which is 1,154 km² in area, the land total comes to...
of
IsraelIsrael officially the State of Israel , is a developed state in Western Asia located on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan in the east, and Egypt on the southwest, and contains geographically diverse features within its...
. It is located northeast of the city of
AcreAcre also Akko, is a city in the Western Galilee region of northern Israel. It is situated on a low promontory at the northern extremity of Haifa Bay. According to the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics , Acre had a population of 46,000 at the end of 2007...
and adjacent to
Abu SinanAbu Sinan or Abu Snan is an Arab local council in the Galilee region of northern Israel, with an area of 4,750 dunams . It achieved recognition as an independent local council in 1964.- Demographics :...
. Christians make-up the majority of the population at 57%, while
Muslim:A Muslim , , is an adherent of the religion of Islam. The feminine form is Muslimah . Literally, the word means "one who submits ". Muslim is the participle of the same verb of which Islam is the infinitive. Muslims believe that there is only one God, translated in Arabic as Allah...
s constitute 40%, and the remaining inhabitants are
DruzeThe Druze are a religious community found primarily in Syria, Lebanon, Israel, and Jordan, whose traditional religion is said to have begun as an offshoot of Islam, but is unique in its incorporation of Gnostic, neo-Platonic and other philosophies, similar to other followers of Ismaili Shi'a...
.
Kafr Yasif was mentioned by Josephus Flavius. It was inhabited during the
CrusaderThe Crusades were a series of religiously-sanctioned military campaigns waged by much of Latin Christian Europe, particularly the Franks of France and the Holy Roman Empire. The specific crusades to restore Christian control of the Holy Land were fought over a period of nearly 200 years, between...
-era of rule in
PalestinePalestine is a conventional name used, among others, to describe a geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands.As a geographical term, Palestine can also refer to 'ancient Palestine,' an area...
by Christians and paid tithes to the
Kingdom of JerusalemThe Kingdom of Jerusalem was a Christian kingdom established in the Levant in 1099 after the First Crusade. It lasted nearly two hundred years, from 1099 until 1291 when the last remaining possession, Acre, was destroyed by the Mamluks....
.
Kafr Yasif also spelled
Kfar Yasif or
Kafar Yasef, is an
ArabArab citizens of Israel is a phrase used by Israeli and other government and independent agencies to refer to Israeli citizens whose cultural and/or linguistic heritage, and ethnic identity, is Arab, including members of any religious tradition other than Jewish...
local councilLocal councils are one of the three types of local government found in Israel, with the other two being cities and regional councils. As of 2003, there were 144 local councils in Israel, these being settlements which pass a minimum threshold enough to justify their operations as independent...
in the
North DistrictThe Northern District is one of Israel's six administrative districts. The Northern District has a land area of 4,478 km², which increases to 4,638 km² when both land and water are included. Excluding the Golan Heights, which is 1,154 km² in area, the land total comes to...
of
IsraelIsrael officially the State of Israel , is a developed state in Western Asia located on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan in the east, and Egypt on the southwest, and contains geographically diverse features within its...
. It is located northeast of the city of
AcreAcre also Akko, is a city in the Western Galilee region of northern Israel. It is situated on a low promontory at the northern extremity of Haifa Bay. According to the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics , Acre had a population of 46,000 at the end of 2007...
and adjacent to
Abu SinanAbu Sinan or Abu Snan is an Arab local council in the Galilee region of northern Israel, with an area of 4,750 dunams . It achieved recognition as an independent local council in 1964.- Demographics :...
. Christians make-up the majority of the population at 57%, while
Muslim:A Muslim , , is an adherent of the religion of Islam. The feminine form is Muslimah . Literally, the word means "one who submits ". Muslim is the participle of the same verb of which Islam is the infinitive. Muslims believe that there is only one God, translated in Arabic as Allah...
s constitute 40%, and the remaining inhabitants are
DruzeThe Druze are a religious community found primarily in Syria, Lebanon, Israel, and Jordan, whose traditional religion is said to have begun as an offshoot of Islam, but is unique in its incorporation of Gnostic, neo-Platonic and other philosophies, similar to other followers of Ismaili Shi'a...
.
History
Kafr Yasif was mentioned by Josephus Flavius. It was inhabited during the
CrusaderThe Crusades were a series of religiously-sanctioned military campaigns waged by much of Latin Christian Europe, particularly the Franks of France and the Holy Roman Empire. The specific crusades to restore Christian control of the Holy Land were fought over a period of nearly 200 years, between...
-era of rule in
PalestinePalestine is a conventional name used, among others, to describe a geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands.As a geographical term, Palestine can also refer to 'ancient Palestine,' an area...
by Christians and paid tithes to the
Kingdom of JerusalemThe Kingdom of Jerusalem was a Christian kingdom established in the Levant in 1099 after the First Crusade. It lasted nearly two hundred years, from 1099 until 1291 when the last remaining possession, Acre, was destroyed by the Mamluks....
. During
Ottoman ruleThe Ottoman Empire or Ottoman State , also known by its contemporaries as the Turkish Empire or Turkey , was an empire that lasted from 1299 to November 1, 1922 The Ottoman Empire or Ottoman State (Ottoman Turkish: دَوْلَتِ عَلِیَّهِ عُثْمَانِیَّه Dawlet-il ʿAliyyat-il ʿOs̠māniyye, Modern Turkish:...
, Kafr Yasif primarily grew olives and cotton. It had a population of 600 in 1880. Prior the 19th century, there existed a small
JewThe Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
ish community and cemetery.
In 1925, Kafr Yasif was one of the few Arab villages in the
GalileeGalilee , is a large region in northern Israel which overlaps with much of the administrative North District of the country...
to receive local council status during the British mandate era. In 1939, during the Arab revolt in Palestine, the
British ArmyThe British Army is the land armed forces branch of the British Armed Forces. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdoms of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England and Scotland and...
burned down half of the village in response to an attack on British soldiers. It was later discovered the militiamen who attacked the soldiers were not from Kafr Yasif and, as compensation, the town was rebuilt with a school and a renovated city hall which are still in use in the present-day.
Kafr Yasif, along with
Shefa-'AmrShefa-'Amr, also Shfar'am is a city in the North District in Israel. According to the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics , at the end of 2007 the city had a population of 34,100.-Etymology:...
,
I'billinI'billin is a local council in the Northern District of Israel. The municipality was established it 1960. The municipality's area is 18,000 dunams. The population was estimated at 11,000 residents . The annual population growth rate was 0.8%...
,
AmqaAmka is a moshav in the Matte Asher Regional Council of Israel's North District, near Acre.-Name:The name comes from the Palestinian Arab village of Amqa that was in the same spot before the 1948 Arab-Israeli War....
, and four other nearby villages, was captured by the
HaganahHaganah was a Jewish paramilitary organization in what was then the British Mandate of Palestine from 1920 to 1948, which later became the core of the Israel Defense Forces.- Origins :...
's Sheva and Carmeli Brigades in the
1948 Arab-Israeli WarThe 1948 Arab–Israeli War, known by Israelis as the War of Independence or War of Liberation and by Palestinians as the Catastrophe , was the first in a series of wars fought between the newly declared State of Israel and its Arab neighbours in the long-running Arab-Israeli conflict.The war...
during the first stage of
Operation DekelOperation Dekel , was the largest offensive in the north of Israel after the first truce of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. It was carried out by the 7th Armoured Brigade, a battalion from the Carmeli Brigade along with some elements from the Golani Brigade between 8-18 July. Its objective was to...
between July 8-14. Unlike many captured
ArabArab people or Arabs are an ethnic group whose members identify along linguistic, cultural or genealogical grounds...
towns, the majority of the population did not flee their houses. However, during the war, some residents from nearby villages, particularly
al-BirwaAl-Birwa was a Palestinian Arab village, located east of Acre . Mentioned by Arab geographers in the 11th century, it was known to the Crusaders as Broet. Captured from the Mamluks by the Ottomans in the 16th century, al-Birwa grew to be a large village by the 19th century, with one mosque, one...
,
al-ManshiyyaAl-Manshiyya was a Palestinian village with an Islamic orphanage and a mosque known by the mosque of Abu 'Atiyya, which is still standing but requires renovation...
and
KuwaykatKuwaykat was a Palestinian village 9 km northeast of Acre in the British mandate District of Acre, depopulated in 1948.-History:In the late nineteenth century, the village of Kuwaykat was described by travellers as being built of stone, situated at the foot of hills...
took refuge in Kafr Yasif. On February 28, 1949, most of the 700
refugeePalestinian refugees or Palestine refugees are the people and their descendants, predominantly Arabs, who fled or were expelled from their homes during and after the 1948 Palestine War, within that part of the British Mandate of Palestine that after that war became the territory of the State of...
s that had taken refuge in the town "were put into trucks and driven to the front lines, where they were forced to cross the frontier border into Lebanon." On March 1, an additional 250 refugees were expelled.
KnessetThe Knesset is the legislature of Israel, located in Givat Ram, Jerusalem.-Operation of the Knesset:...
member
Tawfik ToubiTawfik Toubi is a retired Israeli Arab communist politician.-Biography:Toubi was born in Haifa to an Arab Orthodox family in 1922, and was educated at the Mount Zion School in Jerusalem...
strongly protested against the expulsions.
Kafr Yasif is one of the few Arab towns in the Galilee today that has been in complete Arab ownership without confiscation of land by Israel. In a 1961 census, there was a total of 2,975 inhabitants in the town, of which there were 1,747 Christians, 1,138 Muslims and 90 Druze. In 1972-73, Violet Khoury was elected Mayor of Kafr Yasif, making her the first Arab woman to reach the post of local council head in Israel. In the mid-1980s, Charles Kamden reported that one-third of the inhabitants in Kafr Yasif were
internally displaced PalestiniansA present absentee is a Palestinian who fled or was expelled from his home in Palestine by Jewish or Israeli forces, before and during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, but who remained within the area that became the state of Israel. Present absentees are also referred to as internally displaced...
.
It is popular belief that the tomb of the monotheistic saint, al-Khadr is located in Kafr Yasif. The site is especially venerated by the Druze, some of whom make annual pilgrimages to the tomb on January 25. The structure is composed of a large convention hall adjacent to the tomb, along with rooms and courtyards that serve both pilgrims and other visitors. Al-Khadr is the
ArabicArabic is a Central Semitic language, thus related to and classified alongside other Semitic languages such as Hebrew and the Neo-Aramaic languages. In terms of speakers, the Arabic macrolanguage is the largest member of the Semitic language family. It is spoken by more than 280 million people as...
name for
Saint GeorgeSaint George was, according to tradition, a Roman soldier in the Guard of Diocletian, who is venerated as a Christian martyr. In hagiography Saint George is one of the most venerated saints in the Roman Catholic Church, Anglican Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, Oriental Orthodox Church, and the...
in
ChristianityChristianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as presented by the revelations in the New Testament....
. There are three churches and two mosques in the town. The main bishop of the town's Greek Orthodox community is Atallah Makhouli.
People associated with Kafr Yasif
- Jawad Bolous
Jawad Bolous is an Israeli Arab political lawyer. He works primarily with the Palestinian National Authority on land and political prisoner issues...
- former resident, political lawyer in East Jerusalem
- Mahmoud Darwish
Mahmoud Darwish was a Palestinian poet and author who won numerous awards for his literary output and was regarded as the Palestinian national poet...
- received secondary education in Kafr Yasif
- Amal Murkus
Amal Murkus is an Israeli Arab singer. Murkus' music is considered pioneering, creating a post-modern music style in which different Mediterranean influences meet. Her first album Amal was released in 1998, and her second, Shauq in 2004...
- resident, popular Arabic singer in Israel
External links