Akbara () is an Arab village in the
Israeli municipality of
Safed
Safed (), also known as Tzfat (), is a city in the Northern District (Israel), Northern District of Israel. Located at an elevation of up to , Safed is the highest city in the Galilee and in Israel.
Safed has been identified with (), a fortif ...
, which included in 2010 more than 200 families.
[
] It is 2.5 km south of Safed City. The village was rebuilt in 1977, close to the old village destroyed in 1948 during the
1947–1949 Palestine war.
Location
The village of 'Akbara was situated 2.5 km south of
Safad
Safed (), also known as Tzfat (), is a city in the Northern District of Israel. Located at an elevation of up to , Safed is the highest city in the Galilee and in Israel.
Safed has been identified with (), a fortified town in the Upper Gal ...
, along the two sides of a deep
wadi
Wadi ( ; ) is a river valley or a wet (ephemerality, ephemeral) Stream bed, riverbed that contains water only when heavy rain occurs. Wadis are located on gently sloping, nearly flat parts of deserts; commonly they begin on the distal portion ...
that ran north–south. Southeast of the village lay ''Khirbet al-'Uqeiba'', identified as the
Roman village ''Achabare'', or ''Acchabaron''. This ''khirba'' was a populated village as late as 1904.
History
The first 'Akbara mention is during
Second Temple period
The Second Temple period or post-exilic period in Jewish history denotes the approximately 600 years (516 BCE – 70 CE) during which the Second Temple stood in the city of Jerusalem. It began with the return to Zion and subsequent reconstructio ...
by
Josephus Flavius, he noted ''the rock of Acchabaron (Ακχαβαρων πετραν)'' among the places in the
Upper Galilee he fortified as a preparation for the
First Jewish Revolt, while leading rebel forces against the Romans in
Galilee
Galilee (; ; ; ) is a region located in northern Israel and southern Lebanon consisting of two parts: the Upper Galilee (, ; , ) and the Lower Galilee (, ; , ).
''Galilee'' encompasses the area north of the Mount Carmel-Mount Gilboa ridge and ...
.
[Leibner, 2009, p]
108
/ref>[
] This site is identified with caves situated along the cliffs south of 'Akbara.
The nearby ''Khirbet al-'Uqeiba'' was first excavated during the Mandate period, and was shown to contain remains such as building foundations, hewn stones, and wine presses. Cistern
A cistern (; , ; ) is a waterproof receptacle for holding liquids, usually water. Cisterns are often built to catch and store rainwater. To prevent leakage, the interior of the cistern is often lined with hydraulic plaster.
Cisterns are disti ...
s, tombs, oil press and walls of ancient synagogue
A synagogue, also called a shul or a temple, is a place of worship for Jews and Samaritans. It is a place for prayer (the main sanctuary and sometimes smaller chapels) where Jews attend religious services or special ceremonies such as wed ...
have also been found.[Tsafrir, Di Segni and Green, 1994, p. 56] Foerster identifies the ruins as the "early Galilean type" synagogue. According to Liebner, a 1965 letter in the IAA composed by antiquities inspector N. Tfilinski notes a Hebrew inscription on a building stone found at the site. The current location of the stone is unknown.
Above the settlement, a 135 m high vertical cliff is located. There are one hundred and twenty-nine natural and man-made caves interconnected by passages in the cliff. According to tradition, those caves were used for shelter by Jews during their war with Romans. During archeological excavations, coins from Dor and Sepphoris
Sepphoris ( ; ), known in Arabic as Saffuriya ( ) and in Hebrew as Tzipori ( ''Ṣīppōrī'')Palmer (1881), p115/ref> is an archaeological site and former Palestinian village located in the central Galilee region of Israel, north-northwe ...
were found in the caves, dating to the Roman emperor Trajan
Trajan ( ; born Marcus Ulpius Traianus, 18 September 53) was a Roman emperor from AD 98 to 117, remembered as the second of the Five Good Emperors of the Nerva–Antonine dynasty. He was a philanthropic ruler and a successful soldier ...
period.
Akbara/Akbari/Akbora/Akborin is mentioned several times in Rabbinic literature
Rabbinic literature, in its broadest sense, is the entire corpus of works authored by rabbis throughout Jewish history. The term typically refers to literature from the Talmudic era (70–640 CE), as opposed to medieval and modern rabbinic ...
as early as second half of the third century CE. According to some traditions Rabbi Yannai
Rabbi Yannai (or Rabbi Jannai; ) was an ''Amoraim, amora'' who lived in the 3rd century, and of the first generation of the ''Amoraim'' of the Land of Israel.
Biography
Genesis Rabbah says he is descended from Eli (biblical figure), Eli the priest ...
disciplines lived in 'Akbara forming an agricultural community; R. Yannai established a bet midrash there. The earliest mention of this bet midrash is in the context of discussions between Rabbi Yohanan and sages of 'Akbara.[Leibner, 2009, p]
109
/ref> According to Talmud
The Talmud (; ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (''halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of Haskalah#Effects, modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the cen ...
school of Rabbi Jose bar Abin was also in Akbara.[Conder and Kitchener, 1881, SWP I, p]
205
/ref> Several of the rabbis mentioned in Pirkei Avot
Pirkei Avot (; also transliterated as ''Pirqei Avoth'' or ''Pirkei Avos'' or ''Pirke Aboth'', also ''Abhoth''), which translates into English as Chapters of the Fathers, is a compilation of the ethical teachings and maxims from Rabbinic Jewis ...
lived in 'Akbara. Akbara is mentioned as the burial place of several Talmudic sages: Rabbi Nehurai also Rabbi Yannai and Rabbi Dostai his son are buried "in the gardens" "by the spring". According to tradition, the body of Rabbi Elazar ben Simeon was laying for twenty two years in his widow's garret in Akbara since he told her not to allow his colleagues to bury him. Rabbi Elazar ben Simeon feared to be dishonoured due to his aid to the Romans.
The local Jewish community is attested during Fatimid rule of 969 to 1099 by the Cairo Geniza
The Cairo Geniza, alternatively spelled the Cairo Genizah, is a collection of some 400,000 Judaism, Jewish manuscript fragments and Fatimid Caliphate, Fatimid administrative documents that were kept in the ''genizah'' or storeroom of the Ben Ezra ...
.[Leibner, 2009, p]
106
/ref> Samuel ben Samson visited 'Akbara during his 1210 Palestine pilgrimage, he described the tomb of Rabbi Meir he had found there. In 1258 Jacob of Paris visited Akbara and found there, according to Pirkei Avot, tombs of Rabbi Nehurai.
Ottoman era
'Akbara, was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...
in 1517. Moshe Basola visited the village in 1522 and said that he had found there "destroyed synagogue, 3 cubits high remaining on two sides". Later in 1968 the remains of the synagogue were identified by Foester.[Leibner, 2009, p]
107
/ref> In the census
A census (from Latin ''censere'', 'to assess') is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording, and calculating population information about the members of a given Statistical population, population, usually displayed in the form of stati ...
of 1596, the village was part of the ''nahiya
A nāḥiyah ( , plural ''nawāḥī'' ), also nahiyeh, nahiya or nahia, is a regional or local type of administrative division that usually consists of a number of villages or sometimes smaller towns. In Tajikistan, it is a second-level divisi ...
'' ("subdistrict") of ''Jira'', part of Liwa Safad, with a population of 36 households and 1 bachelor, all Muslim
Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...
s. It paid taxes on a number of crops and produce, including wheat, barley, summer crops, olives, occasional revenues, goats, beehives, and a press which was either used for processing grapes or olives; a total of 6,115 akçe. 6/24 of the revenue went to a waqf
A (; , plural ), also called a (, plural or ), or ''mortmain'' property, is an Alienation (property law), inalienable charitable financial endowment, endowment under Sharia, Islamic law. It typically involves donating a building, plot ...
.[Hütteroth and Abdulfattah, 1977, p. 176. Note that there is a typo in the grid numbers; they give grid numbers 197/200 for ''Akbar al-Hattab'', however, on their maps it is placed in the correct position, around 197/260. Rhode, 1979, p]
69
correctly places ''Akbarat al-Hiqab'' at 197/260
In 1648 a Turkish traveler Evliya Tshelebi visited Galilee and reflected on history of Akbara cliff caves, which according to tradition were used as a shelter by Jews: "The children of Israel escaped the plague and hid in
these caves. Then Allah sent them a bad spirit which caused them to perish within the caves. Their skeletons, heaped together, can be seen there to this day."[
]
In 1838, it was noted as a village in the Safad district, while in 1875 Victor Guérin
Victor Guérin (; 15 September 1821 – 21 September 1890) was a French people, French intellectual, explorer and amateur archaeologist. He published books describing the geography, archeology and history of the areas he explored, which included ...
visited, and described it thus: "The ruins of Akbara cover a hillock whose slopes were formerly sustained by walls forming terraces; the threshing floors of an Arab village occupy the summit. Round these are grouped the remains of ancient constructions now overthrown."
"The village lies on the east of the wady. It is dominated by a platform on which foundations can be traced of a rectangular enclosure called ''el Kuneiseh'', measuring thirty paces in length by twenty-three in breadth. It stands east and west, and was firmly constructed of good cut stones. The interior is at present given up to cultivation. This enclosure seems to have been once a Christian church."
In 1881, the PEF's '' Survey of Western Palestine'' (SWP) described Akbara as a village built of stone and adobe
Adobe (from arabic: الطوب Attub ; ) is a building material made from earth and organic materials. is Spanish for mudbrick. In some English-speaking regions of Spanish heritage, such as the Southwestern United States, the term is use ...
with about 90 inhabitants who cultivated olive
The olive, botanical name ''Olea europaea'' ("European olive"), is a species of Subtropics, subtropical evergreen tree in the Family (biology), family Oleaceae. Originating in Anatolia, Asia Minor, it is abundant throughout the Mediterranean ...
and fig trees.
A population list from about 1887 showed ''Akbara'' to have about 335 inhabitants, all Muslims.
British Mandate era
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, ''Akbara'' had a population of 147; all Muslims,[Barron, 1923, Table XI, Sub-district of Safad, p]
41
/ref> increasing in the 1931 census to 275, still all Muslims, in a total of 49 houses.[Mills, 1932, p]
105
/ref>
During this period the village houses were made of masonry. In the 1945 statistics the population was 390 Muslims,[ and the total land area was 3,224 dunums;][ 2,222 dunums was used for ]cereal
A cereal is a grass cultivated for its edible grain. Cereals are the world's largest crops, and are therefore staple foods. They include rice, wheat, rye, oats, barley, millet, and maize ( Corn). Edible grains from other plant families, ...
s, 199 dunums were irrigated or used for orchards, while 6 dunams were built-up (urban) land.
Israeli era
During the siege of Safad 'Akbara was targeted for occupation in line with Plan Dalet. The Hagana attack was launched on 9 May and completed by the Palmach first battalion. It was found that many of the villagers had fled
''Fled'' is a 1996 American Buddy film, buddy action comedy film directed by Kevin Hooks. It stars Laurence Fishburne and Stephen Baldwin as two prisoners chained together who flee during an escape attempt gone bad.
Plot
An interrogator prepa ...
due to news of Deir Yassin and 'Ein al Zeitun, the village was then blown up and destroyed.
On 25 May 1948, during Operation Yiftah, under the command of Yigal Allon, Galilee was cleared of its Palestinian Arab population. The Palmach's First Battalion. Following the 25 May exodus of al-Khisas the last 55 villagers who had remained in their homes for just over a year were 'transferred' by Israeli forces despite having good relations and collaborating with Jewish settlements in the area.[Benvenisti, 2002, pp. 20]
207
/ref> During the night of 5/6 June 1949, the village of al-Khisas was surrounded by trucks and the villagers were forced into the trucks ’with kicks, curses and maltreatment,’ in the words of a Mapam
File:Pre-State_Zionist_Workers'_Parties_chart.png, chart of zionist workers parties, 360px, right
rect 167 83 445 250 Hapoel Hatzair
rect 450 88 717 265 The non-partisans (pre-state Zionist political movement), Non Partisans
rect 721 86 995 243 ...
Knesset member, Elizer Peri, quoted by Morris: "The remaining villagers said that they had been ’forced with their hands to destroy their dwellings,’ and had been treated like ’cattle.’ They were then dumped on a bare, sun-scorched hillside near the village of ’Akbara y then an abandoned Palestinian Arab villagewhere they were left ’wandering in the wilderness, thirsty and hungry.’ They lived there under inhuman conditions for years afterwards," along with the inhabitants of at least two other villages ( Qaddita and al-Ja'una) expelled in similar circumstances.
The expellees remained at ’Akbara for eighteen years until agreeing to resettlement in Wadi Hamam.
Salman Abu-Sitta, author of the ''Atlas of Palestine'', estimated that the number of Palestinian refugees from 'Akbara in 1998 was 1,852 people.
Of what remains of 'Akbara's built structures, Walid Khalidi wrote in 1992 that "The original inhabitants of the village were replaced by 'internal' refugees from Qaddita villages several kilometers north of Safad. Since 1980, however, these internal refugees have been gradually relocated to the nearby, planned village of 'Akbara, 0.5 km west of the old village site. As a precondition of the relocation, each family was required to demolish its home in the former village. Today, fifteen of the old houses still stand on the site, in addition to the school. The new village of 'Akbara was placed under the administration of the city of Safad in 1977.[Khalidi, 1992, p xix] It is now a neighbourhood of the city of Safed
Safed (), also known as Tzfat (), is a city in the Northern District (Israel), Northern District of Israel. Located at an elevation of up to , Safed is the highest city in the Galilee and in Israel.
Safed has been identified with (), a fortif ...
.
See also
* List of massacres committed during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war
* Nahal Akbara
References
Bibliography
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External links
'Akbara
Zochrot
*Survey of Western Palestine, Map 4
IAA
Wikimedia commons
at Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center
Akbara
Dr. Khalil Rizk.
* from Dr. Moslih Kanaaneh
{{DEFAULTSORT:Akbara, '
Arab villages depopulated prior to the 1948 Arab–Israeli War
District of Safad
Safed
Establishments in the Herodian kingdom
Ancient Jewish settlements of Galilee