Ma'lul
Encyclopedia
Ma'alul was a Palestinian
village, made up primarily of Palestinian Christians
, that was depopulated and destroyed by Israel
during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war
. Located six kilometers west of the city of Nazareth
, many of its inhabitants became internally displaced refugees
, after taking refuge in Nazareth and the neighbouring town of Yafa an-Naseriyye
. Despite having never left the territory that came to form part of Israel, the majority of the villagers of Maalul, and other Palestinian villages like Andor
and Al-Mujidal, were declared "absentees", allowing for the confiscation of their land under the Absentees Property Law.
Today, much of the former village's lands are owned by the Jewish National Fund
. All that remains of its former structures are two churches, a mosque
and a Roman
era mausoleum
, known locally as Qasr al-Dayr ("Castle of the monastery").
. Nahalal was a biblical
town in the of the land of the Tribe of Zebulun
, and also a Levite city . Nahalal did not yield to the conquering Israelites initially, due to its strong fortifications, but they did pay taxes to them. Archaeological findings have identified remains from the Israelite
period..
The Jewish town of the Roman
period was called "Mahalul". It flourished from the commercially strategic location during the Roman/Byzantine
times (Mishna and Talmud). It is mentioned in the Jerusalem Talmud
(Megilla page 2 , 2 1:1), and listed among the walled cities from the period of Joshua
.
In 1596, Ma'alul was a part of the Ottoman nahiya ("subdistrict") of Tiberias under the liwa'
("district") of Safad with a population of seventy-seven. It paid taxes on a number of crops, including wheat and barley, as well as goats and beehives.
Ma'alul, and the neighbouring towns and villages of Nazareth, Mejdal, Yafa, Jebatha and Kneffis paid taxes to the monks of Nazareth, who bought the right to collect these taxes from the Ottoman
authorities in 1777 for two hundred dollars. Thirty years later, they again purchased this right, though this time for two thousands five hundred dollars, owing to the rise in the price of cereals and ground rents.
By the late nineteenth century, the village was made of adobe
bricks, built on a hill, with an estimated population of 280, who cultivated 42 faddans of land. Just outside the village was a magnificent Roman mausoleum
, called Qasr al-Dayr.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, the people of Ma'alul were tenants of the Sursuq family of Beirut
, absentee landlords who had acquired the village lands earlier. In 1931 the Sursuqs sold all but 2,000 dunam
s of Ma'alul's land to the Zionist Palestine Land Development Company
. The remaining 2,000 dunums were insufficient to support the village's population, so at the request of the Mandate government, the company agreed to lease an additional 3,000 dunams to the villagers until 1927. The villagers had the option to buy this land before the lease expired.
describes the remains of Ma'alul in 1992:
; Ma'loul Celebrates its Destruction.
Palestinian people
The Palestinian people, also referred to as Palestinians or Palestinian Arabs , are an Arabic-speaking people with origins in Palestine. Despite various wars and exoduses, roughly one third of the world's Palestinian population continues to reside in the area encompassing the West Bank, the Gaza...
village, made up primarily of Palestinian Christians
Palestinian Christians
Palestinian Christians are Arabic-speaking Christians descended from the people of the geographical area of Palestine. Within Palestine, there are churches and believers from many Christian denominations, including Oriental Orthodoxy, Eastern Orthodoxy, Catholic , Protestant, and others...
, that was depopulated and destroyed by Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war
1948 Arab-Israeli War
The 1948 Arab–Israeli War, known to Israelis as the War of Independence or War of Liberation The war commenced after the termination of the British Mandate for Palestine and the creation of an independent Israel at midnight on 14 May 1948 when, following a period of civil war, Arab armies invaded...
. Located six kilometers west of the city of Nazareth
Nazareth
Nazareth is the largest city in the North District of Israel. Known as "the Arab capital of Israel," the population is made up predominantly of Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel...
, many of its inhabitants became internally displaced refugees
Internally displaced Palestinians
A 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...
, after taking refuge in Nazareth and the neighbouring town of Yafa an-Naseriyye
Yafa an-Naseriyye
Yafa an-Naseriyye is an Arab local council located in the Lower Galilee, Israel. It forms part of the metropolitan area of Nazareth, also an Arab locality...
. Despite having never left the territory that came to form part of Israel, the majority of the villagers of Maalul, and other Palestinian villages like Andor
Indur
Indur was a Palestinian village, located southeast of Nazareth. Its name preserves that of ancient Endor, a Canaanite city state thought to have been located to the northeast. The village was depopulated during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war and its inhabitants became refugees, some of whom were...
and Al-Mujidal, were declared "absentees", allowing for the confiscation of their land under the Absentees Property Law.
Today, much of the former village's lands are owned by the Jewish National Fund
Jewish National Fund
The Jewish National Fund was founded in 1901 to buy and develop land in Ottoman Palestine for Jewish settlement. The JNF is a quasi-governmental, non-profit organisation...
. All that remains of its former structures are two churches, a mosque
Mosque
A mosque is a place of worship for followers of Islam. The word is likely to have entered the English language through French , from Portuguese , from Spanish , and from Berber , ultimately originating in — . The Arabic word masjid literally means a place of prostration...
and a Roman
Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
era mausoleum
Mausoleum
A mausoleum is an external free-standing building constructed as a monument enclosing the interment space or burial chamber of a deceased person or persons. A monument without the interment is a cenotaph. A mausoleum may be considered a type of tomb or the tomb may be considered to be within the...
, known locally as Qasr al-Dayr ("Castle of the monastery").
History
Rabbi Schwartz identified Ma'alul with the Biblical town of NahalalNahalal
-External links:** UNESCO* Jewish Agency for Israel*, "Jews made a garden" - aerial photo of Nahalal , and a girl from Girls' Agricultural Training Farm , at Google Books....
. Nahalal was a biblical
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
town in the of the land of the Tribe of Zebulun
Tribe of Zebulun
According to the Hebrew Bible, the Tribe of Zebulun was one of the Tribes of Israel....
, and also a Levite city . Nahalal did not yield to the conquering Israelites initially, due to its strong fortifications, but they did pay taxes to them. Archaeological findings have identified remains from the Israelite
Israelite
According to the Bible the Israelites were a Hebrew-speaking people of the Ancient Near East who inhabited the Land of Canaan during the monarchic period .The word "Israelite" derives from the Biblical Hebrew ישראל...
period..
The Jewish town of the Roman
Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
period was called "Mahalul". It flourished from the commercially strategic location during the Roman/Byzantine
Byzantine
Byzantine usually refers to the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages.Byzantine may also refer to:* A citizen of the Byzantine Empire, or native Greek during the Middle Ages...
times (Mishna and Talmud). It is mentioned in the Jerusalem Talmud
Talmud
The Talmud is a central text of mainstream Judaism. It takes the form of a record of rabbinic discussions pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, philosophy, customs and history....
(Megilla page 2 , 2 1:1), and listed among the walled cities from the period of Joshua
Joshua
Joshua , is a minor figure in the Torah, being one of the spies for Israel and in few passages as Moses's assistant. He turns to be the central character in the Hebrew Bible's Book of Joshua...
.
In 1596, Ma'alul was a part of the Ottoman nahiya ("subdistrict") of Tiberias under the liwa'
Liwa (arabic)
Liwa or Liwa is an Arabic term meaning district, banner, or flag, a type of administrative division. It was interchangeable with the Turkish term "Sanjak" in the time of the Ottoman Empire. After the fall of the empire, the term was used in the Arab countries formerly under Ottoman rule...
("district") of Safad with a population of seventy-seven. It paid taxes on a number of crops, including wheat and barley, as well as goats and beehives.
Ma'alul, and the neighbouring towns and villages of Nazareth, Mejdal, Yafa, Jebatha and Kneffis paid taxes to the monks of Nazareth, who bought the right to collect these taxes from the Ottoman
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
authorities in 1777 for two hundred dollars. Thirty years later, they again purchased this right, though this time for two thousands five hundred dollars, owing to the rise in the price of cereals and ground rents.
By the late nineteenth century, the village was made of adobe
Adobe
Adobe is a natural building material made from sand, clay, water, and some kind of fibrous or organic material , which the builders shape into bricks using frames and dry in the sun. Adobe buildings are similar to cob and mudbrick buildings. Adobe structures are extremely durable, and account for...
bricks, built on a hill, with an estimated population of 280, who cultivated 42 faddans of land. Just outside the village was a magnificent Roman mausoleum
Mausoleum
A mausoleum is an external free-standing building constructed as a monument enclosing the interment space or burial chamber of a deceased person or persons. A monument without the interment is a cenotaph. A mausoleum may be considered a type of tomb or the tomb may be considered to be within the...
, called Qasr al-Dayr.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, the people of Ma'alul were tenants of the Sursuq family of Beirut
Beirut
Beirut is the capital and largest city of Lebanon, with a population ranging from 1 million to more than 2 million . Located on a peninsula at the midpoint of Lebanon's Mediterranean coastline, it serves as the country's largest and main seaport, and also forms the Beirut Metropolitan...
, absentee landlords who had acquired the village lands earlier. In 1931 the Sursuqs sold all but 2,000 dunam
Dunam
A dunam or dönüm, dunum, donum, dynym, dulum was a non-SI unit of land area used in the Ottoman Empire and representing the amount of land that can be plowed in a day; its value varied from 900–2500 m²...
s of Ma'alul's land to the Zionist Palestine Land Development Company
Palestine Land Development Company
The Palestine Land Development Company , also Palestine Land Development Corporation, was a program of the practicalist movement in early Zionism, particularly in the decade before the start of World War I...
. The remaining 2,000 dunums were insufficient to support the village's population, so at the request of the Mandate government, the company agreed to lease an additional 3,000 dunams to the villagers until 1927. The villagers had the option to buy this land before the lease expired.
Town in recent times
Walid KhalidiWalid Khalidi
Walid Khalidi is an Oxford University-educated Palestinian historian who has written extensively on the Palestinian exodus. He is General Secretary and co-founder of the Institute for Palestine Studies, established in Beirut in December 1963 as an independent research and publishing center...
describes the remains of Ma'alul in 1992:
The village site is now covered with a pine forest planted by the Jewish National FundJewish National FundThe Jewish National Fund was founded in 1901 to buy and develop land in Ottoman Palestine for Jewish settlement. The JNF is a quasi-governmental, non-profit organisation...
and dedicated to the memory of prominent Jews and some non-Jewish Americans and Europeans. A military base is also on the site. The mosque and two churches still stand, and are used intermittently as cow sheds by the residents of Kibbutz Kefar ha-Choresh. Overlooking Wadi al-Halabi, between the village site and the site of al-Mujaydil, is an Israeli plastics factory. Cactus, olive trees, and fig trees grow on the site, which is strewn with piles of stones. A few tombs in the Muslim cemetery across from the mosque can be seen. The main village site also contains the remains of houses.http://www.palestineremembered.com/Nazareth/Ma'lul/index.html
Documentary: Ma'loul Celebrates its Destruction
Ma'alul was the object of the 1985 documentary film by Michel KhleifiMichel Khleifi
Michel Khleifi is a Palestinian film writer, director and producer. He emigrated from Israel in 1970 and now resides in Belgium. There, he studied television and theatre directing at the Institut National Supérieur des Arts du Spectacle . After graduating from INSAS, he worked in Belgium...
; Ma'loul Celebrates its Destruction.
External links
- Welcome To Ma'lul
- Ma'lul, at Khalil Sakakini Cultural CenterKhalil Sakakini Cultural CenterKhalil Sakakini Cultural Center is an organization established in 1996. It is located at 4 Raja Street, Ramallah in the West Bank. The traditional manor that houses the centre was the former family home of Khalil Salem Salah, the mayor of Ramallah between 1947/1951, is now owned by the Palestinian...
- Ma3lul photos from Dr. Moslih Kanaaneh
- The Palestinian narrative has won, By Oudeh Basharat, HaaretzHaaretzHaaretz is Israel's oldest daily newspaper. It was founded in 1918 and is now published in both Hebrew and English in Berliner format. The English edition is published and sold together with the International Herald Tribune. Both Hebrew and English editions can be read on the Internet...
, 24.03.2011