Bayt Jibrin

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Bayt Jibrin

Ruins of the former Palestinian town of Bayt Jibrin in 2005, inside the green line of Hebron
Arabic بيت جبرين
Also Spelled Beit Jibrin, Beit Guvrin, Beth Giblin
District Hebron
Population 2,430 (1945)
Jurisdiction 56,185 dunams
Date of depopulation 29 October 1948[1]
Cause(s) of depopulation Military assault by Jewish forces
Current localities Beit Guvrin (kibbutz)[2]

Bayt Jibrin (Arabic: بيت جبرين‎, also spelled Beit Jibrin) is a former Palestinian town located 21 kilometers northwest of the city of Hebron. According to a 1945 land and population survey by Sami Hadawi, the village had a total land area of 56,185 dunums and a population of 2,430. In 1998 there was about 17,310 Palestinians descended from the refugees from the town.[3][4] According to later Arab legend, the town serves as the burial place of Tamim Abu Ruqayya a companion of the Islamic prophet Muhammad.[4]

Contents

[edit] Early History, pre-1948

The Arabic name of the village meant "house of the powerful" and may have been derived from Aramaic.[5] Regional folklore had it that the village originally was inhabited by Canaanites who were said to be a race of "giants". Bayt Jibrin was a prominent town in antiquity.

Beit Jibrin was referred to by the Israelites as Beit Guvrin. Beit Guvrin means the "home of heroes" or "house of men" in Hebrew.[citation needed] Beit Guvrin was mentioned in the historian Josephus's account of the Jewish revolt against the Roman Empire, The Jewish War (book IV, verse 447), and was also mentioned by Roman historian Ptolemy (V, 16, 6). In year 200 the Roman emperor Septimius Severus granted the town the status of Roman colony, renamed Eleutheropolis in Greek, to which he granted the lands stretching from Ein Gedi on the Dead Sea to Gerar in the west. Eleutheropolis flourished in the Roman period, and was later a bishop's seat (in the fourth century).

The Muslim captured the region towards the end of the reign of the first caliph Abu Bakr al-Siddiq (d. 634). Biladhuri mentions Bayt Jibrin as one of 10 towns in Filastin conquered by the military commander 'Amr ibn al-'As. Biladhuri furthermore writes that ibn al-'As enclosed a domain to Bayt Jibrin, to which he gave the name ´Ajlun, after one of his freemen.[6]The village was the burial place of a companion of the prophet Muhammed, Tamim Abu Ruqayya.[7]

According to the Muslim traveller Al-Muqaddasi, in 985 Bayt Jibrin was an emporium for the towns and villages in the surrounding countryside, even though it was in decline at the time. It was later conquered by the Crusaders -who at first mistook it for Beersheba, and then called it Beth Giblin and buildt a castle there in 1137.[8]

Yaqut, writing at the beginning of the thirteenth century, referred to Bayt Jibrin as one of the 11 principal towns in Palestine, with a Crusader castle that had been destroyed by Saladin. The Mamluk sultan al-Zahir Baybars captured Bayt Jibrin and ended the Crusaders control of the village.[9] Bayt Jibrin prospered during the Mamluk period and served as a postal station between Gaza an al-Karak.[10]

In 1596 Ijzim was a village in the nahiya of Gaza (liwa´ of Gaza), with a population of 275. It paid taxes on a number of crops, including wheat, barley, and sesame, as well as on other types of produce, such as goats and beehives.[11]

In 1838 the American scholar Edward Robinson visited the place, and identified it with ancient Eleutheropolis.[12]

The Scottish painter David Roberts visited Beit Jibrin on March 19th 1839, and made a sketch there. The lithograph based on the drawing was published with the title Beit Jibrin, or Eleutheropolis, in his book Holy Land, Syria, Idumea, Arabia, Egypt & Nubia London 1842-1849.[13]

In the 19th century the local leaders, or shaykhs, were from the ´Azza family, which controlled the district of Qaysiyya al-Tahta from Bayt Jibrin. The family had come to Palestine a long time ago from the Egyptian province of al-Shaqiyyaa.[14] Bayt Jibrin stood on the edge of Jabal al-Khalil and was well-concealed and well-protected. In the middle of the locality stood the two-story stone house of the shaykh. The remains of a Crusader fortress still served for defensive purposes.[15] The Swiss writer Konrad Furrer was very impressed by the "castle" or "manor," as well as by the shaykh of Bayt Jibrin, when he visited in 1863. According to the shaykh, he was in command of 16 villages and was pledged "to provide as many as 2,000 men to the government if necessary."[16]

[edit] 1948, and after

Bayt Jibrin was in the territory allotted to the Arab state under the 1947 UN Partition Plan[17]. During the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, the Bayt Jibrin became a front-line village after the 2nd phase of the war, ending 18 July. The Egyptian's army of fortifications went through the village.[18]

The United Nations Security Council mediator Count Folke Bernadotte in his report of 16th September suggested awarding the Negev to the Arabs in exchange for Western Galilee, a suggestion which the Israeli political and military leadership found unacceptable, and which made them focus their attention on the south. In October the IDF launched a new offensive, named Operation Yoav on the 15-16. The offensive was radically different from the operations only three months earlier; the IDF now possessed bombers and fighters, field artillery, mortars and tanks. These were deployed against a number of towns and villagers, including Bayt Jibrin. Most of the attacked communities had never experienced air attack and were not prepared for it, neither psychologically nor in terms of shelter or ground defences.[19] Panic flight therefore started from Beyt Jibrin on 19 October, after IAF bombing. On the 23 October there was a UN-imposed ceasefire, however, within days there were a succession of IDF "nibbles" at the Arab-occupied areas. More villagers fled from Bayt Jibrin following an IDF raid on the neighbouring police fort on the night of 24-25 October. On the 27th, IDF units then occupied Beit Jibrin and its police fort.[20]

An eyewitness survivor of the assault, Afif Ghatashe, now a refugee in al-Fawwar Camp in the West Bank, explained:

"In the 1948 war, the village was attacked by Zionist military units and bombed by Israeli aircraft. By that time, Beit Jibreen already hosted many refugees from neighboring villages. The fighting and bombing frightened the people. They escaped the fighting and sought shelter in the surrounding hills. The family of the child found protection in a cave 5 km east of the village. They had left everything in their home, hoping to return after a few days when the attack would be over. The Israelis, however, did not allow them to return. Several men of Beit Jibreen were killed when they tried to go back. The father of the child, then 24 years old, and his uncle returned to the village together so as to bring weat, food, clothing and other necessary items. But the Israeli units had mined the village paths, and the two men stepped on mine just in front of their house. The mine exploded, walls of their house collapsed, and the two men died. The child was eight months old when his father was killed and he became an orphan. At that time, his family lost the hope to return home. They joined a refugee camp located 8 km south of Hebron. This child is me and this is my story."[21]

Today, the Jewish town of Beit Guvrin is located on the former town's lands.[4]

[edit] Culture

Bayt Jibrin was, together with Hebron and some surrounding villages, known to produce some the richest and most beautiful forms of Palestinian embroidery. [22]

An example of this is a woman's jillayeh (wedding dress), from Beit Jibrin, about 1900, in the Museum of International Folk Art (MOIFA) collection at Santa Fe, USA. It is of handwoven indigo linen and has very long, pointed wing-sleeves. The qabbeh (=chest-piece) is embroidered with several patterns: the qelayed pattern, a pattern with inverted, smaller chevrons; the so-called maya ("water") motif, el-ferraneh ("the bakers wife") pattern, and the saru ("cypress") motif. The side panels of the dress are completely covered with embroidery. The motifs include: mushut ("combs"), qubur ("graves"), fanajin qahweh ("coffee cups"), and rukbeh ("knee"). There are some shajarat el-hub ("trees of love") embroidered on to the red and orange silk on the front of the skirt. The embroidery is silk cross stitch, mainly in red, with some orange yellow, pink, and purple. [23]

Bride's wedding attire from Beit Jibrin in an exhibition at Oriental Institute, Chicago
Bride's wedding attire from Beit Jibrin in an exhibition at Oriental Institute, Chicago

MOIFA also has a shambar (large veil) from the late nineteenth century from Beit Jibrin. This veil would be used with a jillayeh as above, for weddings and festivals. It consists of 3 sections of handwoven black silk (each the width of the loom) embroidered and joined together lengthwise with Cretan stitch. There is a heavy red silk fringe which was made separately and added to the embroidered end. [24] [25]

Picture to the right shows a bride's wedding attire ("thob") from Beit Jibrin, heavily embroidered with cross-stitch on the enlarged chest panel, and on the sides and the back panels with various floral and geometric motifs. The front, from the waist to the hem, is densely decorated with colorful taffeta appliqué covered with motifs embroidered with the Bethlehem-style couching. The yoke and narrow sleeves are adorned with silk overlaid with the stars and watches motif of Bethlehem in couching stitch. The chest panel resembles that of Ramallah, especially the presence of the arch motif. The patterns and motifs on the chest panel are repeated on the side and back panel of the thob. The head veil (shambar) is a very heavy piece of black silk crepe, one end of which is almost completely embroidered with magenta-red cross-stitch and embellished with sequins. Thick tassels adorn the end of this section. A woman wore the shambar mainly on her wedding day, positioned so that when she covered her face the embroidered end would show. The headdress (iraqiyeh) is embroidered with cross-stitch and decorated with Ottoman coins minted in AH 1223, corresponding to AD 1808, as well as Maria Theresa coins. The iraqiyeh was worn by married women and elaborate pieces were passed down through the family to be used by several generations. Long embroidered headbands made of heavily embroidered cotton hanging from both sides were wrapped around the woman's braids to facilitate the bundling of her hair, then secured to the back of the headdress.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Benny Morris (2004): The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited, ISBN 0521009677, p. XIX, village #322. Also gives the cause of depopulation.
  2. ^ Morris, (2004), p. XXII, settlement #166.
  3. ^ Hebron District Stats from Village Statistics of 1945: A Classification of Land and Area ownership in Palestine (1970) Hadawi, Sami. The Palestine Liberation Organization Research Center
  4. ^ a b c Welcome to Bayt Jibrin. Palestine Remembered. Retrieved on 2007-12-06.
  5. ^ Walid Khalidi: All that Remains, Institute for Palestine Studies, Washington DC, 1992. ISBN 0887282245 p. 209
  6. ^ Guy le Strange: Palestine under the Moslem, 1890, p. 28
  7. ^ Khalidi, p.209
  8. ^ Khalidi, p.209
  9. ^ Khalidi, p.209
  10. ^ Khalidi, p.209
  11. ^ Hütteroth, Wolf-Deiter and Kamal Abdulfattah (1977), Historical Geography of Palestine, Transjordan and Southern Syria in the Late 16th Century. Erlanger Geographische Arbeiten, Sonderband 5. Erlangen, Germany: Vorstand der Fränkischen Geographischen Gesellschaft. p. 149. Quoted in Khalidi, p. 209
  12. ^ Biblical researches in Palestine, 1838-52. A journal of travels in the year 1838. P. 57ff: Eleutheropolis 1856,
  13. ^ [1], [2]
  14. ^ Darwaza, Muhammad ´Izzat. Al -´arab wa-l-´uruba min al-qarn al-thalit hatta al-qarn al-rabi´ ´ashar al-hijri, vol 2 (Damascus, 1960), pp 138-140, quoted in Alexander Schölch (1993): Palestine in Transformation, 1856-1882, ISBN 0887282342, p.189.
  15. ^ Van de Velde: Reise durch Syrien und Palästina in den Jahren 1851 und 1852. Vol II, p.157; SWP, Judea, pp. 257f. and 266-74; Guérin, Victor: Description Géographique, Historique et Archéologique de la Palestine II pp. 307-309, (Amsterdam, 1969, reprint). All quoted in Schölch (1993), p. 189.
  16. ^ Furrer, Konrad: Wanderungen durch das Heilige Land, Zurich, 1891, pp 118-25. Quoted in Schölch (1993), p. 189.
  17. ^ Map of UN Partition Plan. United Nations. Retrieved on 2007-12-06.
  18. ^ Benny Morris (2004), p. 414
  19. ^ Benny Morris (2004), pp. 462, 465
  20. ^ Benny Morris (2004), p. 468
  21. ^ Palestinian Refugees - A Personal Story. Badil.
  22. ^ Palestinian costume before 1948 - by region Palestine Costume Archive. Retrieved on 01.15.2008.
  23. ^ Stillman, Yedida Kalfon (1979): Palestinian costume and jewelry, Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, ISBN 0-8263-0490-7, p.58-59, illustrated
  24. ^ Stillman, p.66, illustrated
  25. ^ Stillman illustrated plate 15, facing p.33

[edit] External links