Bayt Nuba () is a depopulated

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 ...

Arab Arabs (, , ; , , ) are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in West Asia and North Africa. A significant Arab diaspora is present in various parts of the world. Arabs have been in the Fertile Crescent for thousands of years ...

village, located halfway between

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 ...

and

Ramla Ramla (), also known as Ramle (, ), is a city in the Central District of Israel. Ramle is one of Israel's mixed cities, with significant numbers of both Jews and Arabs. The city was founded in the early 8th century CE by the Umayyad caliph S ...

. During the 1967 Six Day War, Israeli troops ethnically cleansed Bayt Nuba and replaced it with the Jewish-only settlement of Mevo Horon.

History

Historically identified with the

biblical The Bible is a collection of religious texts that are central to Christianity and Judaism, and esteemed in other Abrahamic religions such as Islam. The Bible is an anthology (a compilation of texts of a variety of forms) biblical languages ...

city of Nob mentioned in the

Book of Samuel The Book of Samuel () is a book in the Hebrew Bible, found as two books (1–2 Samuel) in the Old Testament. The book is part of the Deuteronomistic history, a series of books (Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings) that constitute a theological ...

, that association has been eschewed in modern times. The village is mentioned in extrabiblical sources including the writings of 5th-century Roman geographers, 12th-century Crusaders and a Jewish traveller, a 13th-century Syrian geographer, a 15th-century Arab historian, and Western travellers in the 19th century. The

Israeli settlement Israeli settlements, also called Israeli colonies, are the civilian communities built by Israel throughout the Israeli-occupied territories. They are populated by Israeli citizens, almost exclusively of Israeli Jews, Jewish identity or ethni ...

of Mevo Horon was established on its lands in 1970.Legal Brief
/ref>

History

The name Bayt nūbā /Bēt nūba/ in its current form, is of

Aramaic Aramaic (; ) is a Northwest Semitic language that originated in the ancient region of Syria and quickly spread to Mesopotamia, the southern Levant, Sinai, southeastern Anatolia, and Eastern Arabia, where it has been continually written a ...

extraction, with the 2nd component is from Aram. nwb’ “the fruit”. 5th century Christian scholar,

Eusebius of Caesarea Eusebius of Caesarea (30 May AD 339), also known as Eusebius Pamphilius, was a historian of Christianity, exegete, and Christian polemicist from the Roman province of Syria Palaestina. In about AD 314 he became the bishop of Caesarea Maritima. ...

, mentioned the village in his '' Onomasticon'', under the name ''Beth Annabam'' and situated it at a distance of 8 Roman miles from Lydda.Conder and Kitchener, 1883, SWP III, p.
14
His contemporary,

Jerome Jerome (; ; ; – 30 September 420), also known as Jerome of Stridon, was an early Christian presbyter, priest, Confessor of the Faith, confessor, theologian, translator, and historian; he is commonly known as Saint Jerome. He is best known ...

, identifies it as biblical '' Nob''. During the

Crusades The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and at times directed by the Papacy during the Middle Ages. The most prominent of these were the campaigns to the Holy Land aimed at reclaiming Jerusalem and its surrounding t ...

, it was called ''Betynoble''. The Crusaders identified Beit Nuba with biblical Nob,Stubbs, ed., 1864
p. lxxxvii
as did the 12th-century Jewish traveller

Benjamin of Tudela Benjamin of Tudela (), also known as Benjamin ben Jonah, was a medieval Jewish traveler who visited Europe, Asia, and Africa in the twelfth century. His vivid descriptions of western Asia preceded those of Marco Polo by a hundred years. With his ...

. The village served as the forward position for

Saladin Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub ( – 4 March 1193), commonly known as Saladin, was the founder of the Ayyubid dynasty. Hailing from a Kurdish family, he was the first sultan of both Egypt and Syria. An important figure of the Third Crusade, h ...

's troops for their move towards Jerusalem in September 1187 and later for

Richard the Lionheart Richard is a male given name. It originates, via Old French, from compound of the words descending from Proto-Germanic language">Proto-Germanic ''*rīk-'' 'ruler, leader, king' and ''*hardu-'' 'strong, brave, hardy', and it therefore means 'st ...

and his troops who camped there in 1191 and 1192.Pringle, 1998, pp
168 224 337
/ref> In the Crusader period,

Kurds Kurds (), or the Kurdish people, are an Iranian peoples, Iranic ethnic group from West Asia. They are indigenous to Kurdistan, which is a geographic region spanning southeastern Turkey, northwestern Iran, northern Iraq, and northeastern Syri ...

settled in Bayt Nuba.Grossman, D. (1986). "Oscillations in the Rural Settlement of Samaria and Judaea in the Ottoman Period". in Shomron studies. Dar, S., Safrai, S., (eds). Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad Publishing House. p. 365 Writing in the 13th century during the time of

Mamluk Mamluk or Mamaluk (; (singular), , ''mamālīk'' (plural); translated as "one who is owned", meaning "slave") were non-Arab, ethnically diverse (mostly Turkic, Caucasian, Eastern and Southeastern European) enslaved mercenaries, slave-so ...

rule over

Palestine Palestine, officially the State of Palestine, is a country in West Asia. Recognized by International recognition of Palestine, 147 of the UN's 193 member states, it encompasses the Israeli-occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and th ...

Yaqut al-Hamawi Yāqūt Shihāb al-Dīn ibn-ʿAbdullāh al-Rūmī al-Ḥamawī (1179–1229) () was a Muslim scholar of Byzantine ancestry active during the late Abbasid period (12th–13th centuries). He is known for his , an influential work on geography con ...

, the Syrian geographer, noted of Bayt Nuba, that it was, "A small town in the neighbourhood of Filastin ( Ar Ramlah)."Le Strange, 1890, p
415
A road from

to Jerusalem that passed through Bayt Nuba, al-Qubeiba, and Nabi Samwil was the preferred route for Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land at the time.Pringle, 1998, p
168
/ref> On the maps produced by the

Palestine Exploration Fund The Palestine Exploration Fund is a British society based in London. It was founded in 1865, shortly after the completion of the Ordnance Survey of Jerusalem by Royal Engineers of the War Department. The Fund is the oldest known organization i ...

, the road, which stretches from al-Qubeiba to Jerusalem, is marked in the legend as a Roman road. Mujir al-Din al-'Ulaymi (1496), the Jerusalemite ''qadi'' and Arab historian, discussed the village's name in the context of other villages beginning with the word ''Bayt'' ("House"). He noted that conventional wisdom among the locals of his time held that they are named for

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' 202230
/ref>

Ottoman era

The village does not appear in 16th century tax records. BeitNuba1

The

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 ...

custodian of the

mosque A mosque ( ), also called a masjid ( ), is a place of worship for Muslims. The term usually refers to a covered building, but can be any place where Salah, Islamic prayers are performed; such as an outdoor courtyard. Originally, mosques were si ...

in Bayt Nuba (and 'Allar) in 1810 was appointed by the Ottoman imperial authorities, and hailed from the Jerusalem family of notables, the Dajanis.Kushner, 1986
p. 111
Edward Robinson and Eli Smith visited ''Beit Nubah'' in 1838Robinson and Smith, 1841, vol 3, p
64
/ref> and 1852,Robinson and Smith, 1856, p
145
/ref> and identified it as the ''Nobe'' mentioned by

and considered by some of their contemporaries to be ''Bethannaba''.

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 ...

noted in 1863 the presence of a small mosque in the village named ''Djama Sidi Ahmed et-Tarfinù''. At his time, ''Beit-Nouba'' was made up of about 400 inhabitants whose homes were constructed on a hill between two valleys. In large, modern buildings in the village could be seen traces of more ancient building materials incorporated therein and there are some ancient cisterns as well.Guérin, 1868, pp
285
286. Socin found from an official Ottoman village list from about 1870 that ''Bet Nuba'' had 23 houses and a population of 97, though the population count included men, only. Hartmann found that ''Bet Nuba'' had 20 houses. In 1873, Charles Simon Clermont-Ganneau discovered the remains of a large medieval church in the village.Pringle, 1993, pp
102
103 In 1883, the PEF's '' Survey of Western Palestine'' described Bayt Nuba as a "good-sized village on flat ground". In 1896 the population of ''Bet Nuba'' was estimated to be about 723 persons. Some residents of the village had origins in Transjordan.

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, Bayt Nuba had a population of 839 inhabitants, all Muslims.Barron, 1923, Table VII, Sub-district of Ramleh, p
21
/ref> This had increased in the 1931 census to 944, still all Muslim, in 226 houses.Mills, 1932, p
18
/ref> In the 1945 statistics the population of Beit Nuba and Ajanjul was 1,240, all Muslims,Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics, 1945, p
29
/ref> while the total land area was 11,401

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, according to an official land and population survey. Of this, 1,002 dunams were allocated for plantations and irrigable land, 6,997 for cereals, while 74 dunams were classified as built-up areas.

Jordanian era

During the

1948 Arab-Israeli War Events January * January 1 ** The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) is inaugurated. ** The current Constitutions of Constitution of Italy, Italy and of Constitution of New Jersey, New Jersey (both later subject to amendment) ...

, the village was garrisoned by the

Arab Legion The Arab Legion () was the police force, then regular army, of the Emirate of Transjordan, a British protectorate, in the early part of the 20th century, and then of the Jordan, Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, an independent state, with a final Ar ...

to defend the Latrun salient. Located behind the front line, it was subject to a skirmish attack launched by Israeli forces in Operation Yoram on the night of June 8, 1948. The 1949 armistice line fell just a few kilometers to the south and west of villages in the Latrun salient and with a dispute between Israel and Jordan over where it lay exactly, much of the area surrounding Bayt Nuba was declared no man's land, resulting in social and economic separation from the surrounding areas. Residents of Bayt Nuba and other Latrun villages were granted Jordanian citizenship following Jordan's annexation of the

West Bank The West Bank is located on the western bank of the Jordan River and is the larger of the two Palestinian territories (the other being the Gaza Strip) that make up the State of Palestine. A landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediter ...

in 1950. Many were prompted many to leave the area to seek livelihoods in Jordan, the Persian Gulf, South America or elsewhere due to violence between villagers and Israeli troops and the loss of access to farmlands.Kelly, 2009
pp. 29-32
/ref> In 1961, the population was 1,350 persons.Government of Jordan, Department of Statistics, 1964, p
24
It was further noted (note 2) that it was governed by a

mukhtar A mukhtar (; ) is a village chief in the Levant: "an old institution that goes back to the time of the Ottoman rule". According to Amir S. Cheshin, Bill Hutman and Avi Melamed, the mukhtar "for centuries were the central figures". They "were ...

1967, and aftermath

The Latrun area was captured by Israeli troops in the first few hours of the 1967 war and the next night, orders were broadcast by Israeli military jeeps to villagers in Bayt Nuba,

Yalo Yalo (, also transliterated Yalu) is a depopulated Palestinian people, Palestinian Arab village located 13 kilometres southeast of Ramla. Identified by Edward Robinson (scholar), Edward Robinson as the ancient Canaanite and Israelites, Israelite ...

, and Imwas to leave their homes, resulting in some 12,000 people leaving in the space of a few hours. With the war's completion, a radio announcement from the military said villagers in the West Bank who had vacated their homes should return; however, the villagers of Bayt Nuba and the others from the Latrun area were forbidden from doing so as most of the area was declared a closed military zone. Those who tried to return were stopped at checkpoints where some were shot at. The built up area of Bayt Nuba was destroyed in military engineered explosions after the war's end, an act witnessed by some of the former residents who had fled nearby hills. After the destruction, the remains of the medieval church, first described by Clermont-Ganneau, have not been located. Part of the farmlands of Bayt Nuba lay outside the closed military zone and some refugees from the village rented homes in a nearby village with a population of around 7,000 (called "Bayt Hajjar" by the author) to continue farming those lands.Kelly, 2006
p. 9
/ref> The settlement of Mevo Horon was built on the lands of Bayt Nuba in 1970.

Where did they come from

Some of Bayt Nuba's residents were

who settled in Palestine during the Crusader era, while others came from Transjordan.

References

Bibliography

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

External links

Welcome To Bayt NubaBayt Nuba
Zochrot *Survey of Western Palestine, Map 17:
IAA

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{{Authority control 1967 disestablishments in the West Bank Governorate Arab villages depopulated after the 1948 Arab–Israeli War Forcibly depopulated communities of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict