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Artuf () was a
Palestinian Palestinians () are an Arab ethnonational group native to the Levantine region of Palestine. *: "Palestine was part of the first wave of conquest following Muhammad's death in 632 CE; Jerusalem fell to the Caliph Umar in 638. The indigenous p ...
village in the
Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...
foothills depopulated in 1948. It was situated west of Jerusalem on a high plateau, surrounded by plains on the south, east, and west. The village was on a secondary road that linked it to the main road to Jerusalem.Khalidi, 1992, p.268


History


Ottoman Empire

Under 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 1596, Artuf was a village in a ''
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 Ramla, part of Liwa of Gaza with a population of 110. The villagers paid taxes on a number of crops, including
wheat Wheat is a group of wild and crop domestication, domesticated Poaceae, grasses of the genus ''Triticum'' (). They are Agriculture, cultivated for their cereal grains, which are staple foods around the world. Well-known Taxonomy of wheat, whe ...
,
barley Barley (), a member of the grass family, is a major cereal grain grown in temperate climates globally. It was one of the first cultivated grains; it was domesticated in the Fertile Crescent around 9000 BC, giving it nonshattering spikele ...
and fruit, as well as on goats, beehives and
vineyard A vineyard ( , ) is a plantation of grape-bearing vines. Many vineyards exist for winemaking; others for the production of raisins, table grapes, and non-alcoholic grape juice. The science, practice and study of vineyard production is kno ...
s. In 1863
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 ...
found the village to be situated on a small hill, and having 150 inhabitants. Socin found from an official Ottoman village list from about 1870 that Artuf had 14 houses and a population of 40, though the population count included men only. It was also noted that it was half hour from Sar'a. Hartmann found that Artuf had 140 houses. The PEF's ''
Survey of Western Palestine The PEF Survey of Palestine was a series of surveys carried out by the Palestine Exploration Fund (PEF) between 1872 and 1877 for the completed Survey of Western Palestine (SWP) and in 1880 for the soon abandoned Survey of Eastern Palestine. The ...
'' in 1883 described Artuf as "a small village built on a low hill, with an open valley to the west. There is a pool (''Hufiret Artuf)'' in the valley, whence the village obtains its water. Olive trees occur round the place. In 1883, a group of English missionaries purchased land in Artuf to establish an agricultural colony, called
Hartuv Hartuv (), Arabic: ارتون) or Har-Tuv () was an agricultural colony in the Judean Hills established in 1882 on land purchased from the Arab village of Artuf by English missionaries. It was destroyed in the 1929 Palestine riots but was rebuil ...
, for Jews whom they hoped to convert to Christianity. When the settlers refused to convert, the project was abandoned."Remembering Har-Tuv", Avraham B. Rivlin, ''Jerusalem Post'' 1976 It was resettled in 1895, but destroyed in the 1929 riots. In 1896 the population of Artuf was estimated to be about 135 persons.


British Mandate era

Most houses were 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 ...
; a few were built of stone and cement and had domed roofs. The villagers, who were 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, worshipped in a mosque called the al-Umari Mosque, perhaps in reference to the second Muslim caliph,
Umar ibn al-Khattab Umar ibn al-Khattab (; ), also spelled Omar, was the second Rashidun caliph, ruling from August 634 until his assassination in 644. He succeeded Abu Bakr () and is regarded as a senior companion and father-in-law of the Islamic prophet Muh ...
. The tomb of a local Muslim sage named Shaykh ´Ali al-Ghimadi stood on the outskirts of the village. About half of the villagers worked in agriculture, while the rest worked in the nearby Bab al-Wad station, on the Jaffa–Jerusalem railway. The agricultural land extended west of the village, where fruit trees and almond trees were planted. 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 ...
Artuf had a population 181 Muslims, while nearby
Hartuv Hartuv (), Arabic: ارتون) or Har-Tuv () was an agricultural colony in the Judean Hills established in 1882 on land purchased from the Arab village of Artuf by English missionaries. It was destroyed in the 1929 Palestine riots but was rebuil ...
had a population of 124 Jews,Barron, 1923, Table VII, Sub-district of Jerusalem, p
15
/ref> changing in the 1931 census to 253; 252 Muslims and 1 Jew. In the 1944/45 statistics, the village had a population of 350 Muslims,Department of Statistics, 1945, p
24
/ref> and 403
dunam A dunam ( Ottoman Turkish, Arabic: ; ; ; ), also known as a donum or dunum and as the old, Turkish, or Ottoman stremma, was the Ottoman unit of area analogous in role (but not equal) to the Greek stremma or English acre, representing the amo ...
s of land.Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. ''Village Statistics, April, 1945.'' Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p
56
/ref> A total of 61 dunums were irrigated or used for orchards, 279 dunams were for cereals, while 18 dunams were built-up (urban) land.


1948 Arab–Israeli War and after

Artuf, along with four other villages, were overtaken by the Israeli Harel Brigade on 17–18 July 1948 in Operation Dani. The villages had been on the front line since April 1948 and most of the inhabitants of these villages had already left the area. Many of those who stayed fled when Israeli forces attacked and the few who remained at each village were expelled. File:Artuf 1948.jpg, Members of Harel Brigade outside Artuf police station, 1948 File:Harel in Artuf.jpg, Members of Harel Brigade, 6th Battalion, Company B, training in the ruins of Artuf. July 1948 File:Artuf train station.jpg, Artuf train station 1948 After the establishment of the State of Israel, a
ma'abara Ma'abarot (, singular: Ma'abara ) were immigrant and refugee absorption camps established in Israel in the 1950s, constituting one of the largest public projects planned by the state to implement its sociospatial and housing policies. The ma' ...
transit camp was established on the site for Jewish immigrants, and a cement factory was opened to provide employment. In 1950,
Moshav A moshav (, plural ', "settlement, village") is a type of Israeli village or town or Jewish settlement, in particular a type of cooperative agricultural community of individual farms pioneered by the Labour Zionists between 1904 and 1 ...
Naham was built on Hartuv's land. According to the Palestinian historian
Walid Khalidi Walid Khalidi (; born in Jerusalem on July 16, 1925) is a Palestinian historian who has written extensively on the Palestinian exodus. He is a co-founder of the Institute for Palestine Studies, established in Beirut in December 1963 as an inde ...
, the village remaining structures in 1992 were: "One stone house, located outside the Jewish settlement of Nacham, has been expanded, and is now inhabited by a Jewish family. In the middle of the Jewish settlement is a small stone house that is used as a warehouse; it stands by the site of the former mosque. On the western slopes of the site is a circular structure with no roof that was formerly used as a lime kiln (kabbara). The village cemetery, to the west, has been levelled; only one or two graves remain on its eastern edge. Part of the British police headquarters is still standing. Elsewhere, the village site is covered with scattered stone rubble. Olive, fig, and cypress trees grow on the village site, especially in the west and north."Khalidi, 1992, p. 269


Archaeology

Two archaeological sites nearby are Khirbat Marmita, about 1 km east of the village, and al-Burj, on the site of Hartuv to the southwest. Excavations have been carried out on Khirbat al-Burj by the
Hebrew University The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI; ) is an Israeli public research university based in Jerusalem. Co-founded by Albert Einstein and Chaim Weizmann in July 1918, the public university officially opened on 1 April 1925. It is the second-ol ...
since 1985. Excavations in Hartuv revealed an architectural complex dating to the Early Bronze 1 period. The site includes a central courtyard surrounded by rooms on at least three sides. One of the rooms, a rectangular hall with pillar bases along its long axis, may have been a sanctuary with a line of standing stones (massebot). Another hall has a monumental entrance flanked by two monolithic doorjambs. The complex appears to have had both religious and secular functions.


See also

* Depopulated Palestinian locations in Israel


References


Bibliography

* * * * * * * * * * * * *


External links


Palestine Remembered'Artuf
Zochrot Zochrot (; "Remembering"; ; "Memories") is an Israeli nonprofit organization founded in 2002. Based in Tel Aviv, its aim is to promote awareness of the Nakba, including the 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight. The group was co-founded by Eitan ...
*Survey of Western Palestine, Map 17
IAA
Wikimedia commons Wikimedia Commons, or simply Commons, is a wiki-based Digital library, media repository of Open content, free-to-use images, sounds, videos and other media. It is a project of the Wikimedia Foundation. Files from Wikimedia Commons can be used ...

Reflections of the '48 Generation
Tikva Honig-Parnass, 16 May 2002 {{Palestinian Arab villages depopulated during the 1948 Palestine War 1929 Palestine riots Arab villages depopulated during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War District of Jerusalem