Al-Bireh, El Bire, Biré, El Bireh (Arabic: البيرة) or Birra (at the time of the Crusades) is a town in the

Rashaya District Rashaya District () is an administrative district in the Beqaa Governorate of the Republic of Lebanon. Most of Rachaya's population are Druze with a Sunni and Shia and Christian minority. Many people of Rachaya have left for larger cities in Leb ...

, south-eastern portion of the

Bekaa Governorate Beqaa ( ') is a governorate in Lebanon and one of the eight districts of the country. It is located in the eastern part of Lebanon and borders with Syria. The capital of the district is the city of Zahlé. Districts Since 2014, Beqaa Governorate ...

of the Republic of

Lebanon Lebanon, officially the Republic of Lebanon, is a country in the Levant region of West Asia. Situated at the crossroads of the Mediterranean Basin and the Arabian Peninsula, it is bordered by Syria to the north and east, Israel to the south ...

Al-Bireh Al-Bireh, al-Birah, or el-Bira (; also known historically as Castrum Mahomeria, Magna Mahomeria, Mahomeria Major, Birra, or Beirothah) is a city in the central West Bank, north of Jerusalem. It is the capital of the Ramallah and al-Bireh Gove ...

is part of the

Rashaya Rashaya, Rachaya, Rashaiya, Rashayya or Rachaiya (), also known as Rashaya al-Wadi or Rachaya el-Wadi (and variations), is a town of the Rashaya District in the west of the Beqaa Government of Lebanon. It is situated at around above sea level ...

municipal district. It lies west of the road between Majdel Anjar and

. Its population is estimated to be 9000. It is a small Sunni Muslim town with two mosques and two schools.

Geography

The oldest part of the town lies on top of

Jabal Arbi Jabal, Jabel, Jebel or Jibal may refer to: People * Jabal (name), a male Arabic given name * Jabal (Bible), mentioned in the Hebrew Bible Places In Arabic, ''jabal'' or ''jebel'' (spelling variants of the same word) means 'mountain'. * Dzhebel, ...

Mountains while the newer parts lie in the

Wadi al-Taym Wadi al-Taym (), also transliterated as Wadi el-Taym, is a wadi (dry river) that forms a large fertile valley in Lebanon, in the districts of Rachaya and Hasbaya on the western slopes of Mount Hermon. It adjoins the Beqaa Valley running north t ...

valley and is referred to as Izza. Neighboring towns include Rafid, Kamed,

Khirbet-Rouha Kherbet Rouha () is a town in the Rashaya District of Lebanon. It lies in the Bekaa Valley, about northwest of Mount Hermon. The town is known for having the largest mosque towers in Lebanon (tallest minaret: in height). People from Kherbet Rou ...

, and Mdouckha. The town is located about 80 km from Beirut and 40 km from Damascus, Syria.

Economy

More than 60% of the town’s population have emigrated to

Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...

Argentina Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

and

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic, is a country on the Iberian Peninsula in Southwestern Europe. Featuring Cabo da Roca, the westernmost point in continental Europe, Portugal borders Spain to its north and east, with which it share ...

. Residents of the town have left to the US as early as the 18th Century and have aggregated in cities like

Dearborn, Michigan Dearborn is a city in Wayne County, Michigan, Wayne County in the U.S. state of Michigan. An inner-ring Metro Detroit, suburb of Detroit, Dearborn borders Detroit to the south and west, roughly west of downtown Detroit. In the 2020 United States ...

. Many others emigrated to

São Paulo- Santo Amaro SAO or Sao may refer to: Places * Sao civilisation, in Middle Africa from 6th century BC to 16th century AD * Sao, a town in Boussé Department, Burkina Faso * Serb Autonomous Regions (''Srpska autonomna oblast'', SAO), during the breakup of Yu ...

, Brazil;

Buenos Aires Buenos Aires, controlled by the government of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Argentina. It is located on the southwest of the Río de la Plata. Buenos Aires is classified as an Alpha− glob ...

, Argentina;

Montreal, Quebec Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...

and

Calgary, Alberta Calgary () is a major city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Alberta. As of 2021, the city proper had a population of 1,306,784 and a Metropolitan area, metropolitan population of 1,481,806 making it the List of ...

, Canada. The economy of the town relies on agriculture. Eight main families inhabit the town, namely the Elkadri, Jeha (جحا), Bacha, Jumaa, Abou Hussein, Zeineddine, Abdallah, Salem and Omar families. Other families also live in the village, however increased emigration has completely dispersed some families and no members are currently residents.

Notable residents

Al-Bireh is the birthplace of the late Nazem Elkadri (MP, minister and prime minister of Lebanon) who was born in Al-Bireh. The

Mufti A mufti (; , ) is an Islamic jurist qualified to issue a nonbinding opinion ('' fatwa'') on a point of Islamic law (''sharia''). The act of issuing fatwas is called ''iftāʾ''. Muftis and their ''fatāwa'' have played an important role thro ...

Bekaa The Beqaa Valley (, ; Bekaa, Biqâ, Becaa) is a fertile valley in eastern Lebanon and its most important farming region. Industry, especially the country's agricultural industry, also flourishes in Beqaa. The region broadly corresponds to th ...

, Sheikh Raouf Elkadri was also born in Al-Bireh. Nassouh Elkadri (an anti-French occupation revolutionary leader) was also from Al-Bireh.

History

In April 26, 1697

Henry Maundrell Henry Maundrell (1665–1701) was an academic at Oxford University and later a Church of England clergyman, who served from 20 December 1695 as chaplain to the Levant Company in Syria. His ''Journey from Aleppo to Jerusalem at Easter A.D. 1697'' ...

Visited Rashaya And Visited the Village and Noted it as Uzzi (Izzeh) (A part in the Bireh

Caves dating back to

pre-historic Prehistory, also called pre-literary history, is the period of human history between the first known use of stone tools by hominins million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems. The use o ...

times can be found all over the mountain. Ruins of other more modern civilizations are still visible. The locals usually come across artifacts dating back to

Phoenicia Phoenicians were an Ancient Semitic-speaking peoples, ancient Semitic group of people who lived in the Phoenician city-states along a coastal strip in the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean, primarily modern Lebanon and the Syria, Syrian ...

n, Byzantine,

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of Roman civilization *Epistle to the Romans, shortened to Romans, a letter w ...

and

Canaan CanaanThe current scholarly edition of the Septuagint, Greek Old Testament spells the word without any accents, cf. Septuaginta : id est Vetus Testamentum graece iuxta LXX interprets. 2. ed. / recogn. et emendavit Robert Hanhart. Stuttgart : D ...

ite eras. Many artifacts and archaeological pieces were illegally excavated out of the caves and burial grounds. In 1838,

Eli Smith Eli Smith (September 13, 1801 – January 11, 1857) was an American Protestant missionary and scholar. Biography Smith was born in Northford, Connecticut, to Eli and Polly (née Whitney) Smith. He graduated from Yale College in 1821 and from A ...

noted el-Bireh as a

Sunni Muslim Sunni Islam is the largest branch of Islam and the largest religious denomination in the world. It holds that Muhammad did not appoint any successor and that his closest companion Abu Bakr () rightfully succeeded him as the caliph of the Musli ...

village in the

Beqaa Valley The Beqaa Valley (, ; Bekaa, Biqâ, Becaa) is a fertile valley in eastern Lebanon and its most important farming region. Industry, especially the country's agricultural industry, also flourishes in Beqaa. The region broadly corresponds to th ...

. The town was occupied first by

PLO The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO; ) is a Palestinian nationalist coalition that is internationally recognized as the official representative of the Palestinian people in both the occupied Palestinian territories and the diaspora. ...

forces in the late 1970s, then by Israeli forces in the early 1980s.. Al Birehs Izzi Part was Home to The kidnapped IDF soldiers in the

Bhamdoun abduction operation The Bhamdoun abduction operation was a military operation carried out by Fatah, the main constituent organization of the PLO. During the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, a Palestinian four-man squad infiltrated the IDF-held mountainous ar ...

Archaeology

Heavy Neolithic Heavy Neolithic (alternatively, Gigantolithic) is a style of large stone and flint tools (or industry) associated primarily with the Qaraoun culture in the Beqaa Valley, Lebanon, dating to the Epipaleolithic or early Pre-Pottery Neolithic at ...

archaeological site of the

Qaraoun culture The Qaraoun culture is a culture of the Lebanese Stone Age around Qaraoun in the Beqaa Valley. The Gigantolithic or Heavy Neolithic flint tool industry of this culture was recognized as a particular Neolithic variant of the Lebanese highland ...

was discovered by

Auguste Bergy Reverend Father Auguste Bergy (12 May 1873 – 31 August 1955) was a French Jesuit archaeologist known for his work on prehistory in Lebanon Lebanon, officially the Republic of Lebanon, is a country in the Levant region of West Asia. ...

along a south to west track that lead from the road to a small spring. Bergy originally suggested it was a ''"

Chellean Abbevillian (formerly also ''Chellean'') is a term for the oldest lithic industry found in Europe, dated to between roughly 600,000 and 400,000 years ago. The original artifacts were collected from road construction sites on the Somme river near ...

factory site"'' before the Heavy Neolithic was defined by

Henri Fleisch Reverend Father Henri Fleisch (1 January 1904 – 10 February 1985) was a French archaeologist, missionary and Orientalist, known for his work on classical Arabic language and Lebanese dialect and prehistory in Lebanon. Fleisch spent years re ...

Lorraine Copeland Lorraine Copeland (born Elizabeth Lorraine Adie, 1921April 2013) was a British archaeologist specialising in the Palaeolithic period of the Near East. She was a secret agent with the Special Operations Executive during World War II. Early life ...

agreed that it was probably a factory, noting several prepared flakes and a large

Neolithic The Neolithic or New Stone Age (from Ancient Greek, Greek 'new' and 'stone') is an archaeological period, the final division of the Stone Age in Mesopotamia, Asia, Europe and Africa (c. 10,000 BCE to c. 2,000 BCE). It saw the Neolithic Revo ...

pick. The material is now held in the archives of the

Saint Joseph University Saint Joseph University of Beirut (; French: ''Université Saint-Joseph de Beyrouth'', commonly known as USJ) is a private Catholic research university in Beirut, Lebanon, founded in 1875 by French Jesuit missionaries and subsidized by the Go ...

Media

Al-Bireh was the site where the French/Lebanese movie '' Le Cerf-Volant'' (''The Kite'') (Tayyara min waraq) was filmed. In January 2009 a street in town was named after president

Hugo Chávez Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías (; ; 28 July 1954 – 5 March 2013) was a Venezuelan politician, Bolivarian Revolution, revolutionary, and Officer (armed forces), military officer who served as the 52nd president of Venezuela from 1999 until De ...

, after Venezuela expelled an Israeli ambassador due IDF attack in Gaza Strip. In the Lebanese Parliamentary elections of June 2009, Ziad Nazem Elkadri, son of the late Nazim Elkadri, won his seat running with the Future Movement in the March 14 coalition list. Ziad is the second MP to be elected from the village, the first being his father. Bire 1

Gallery

File:Bireh town 2.jpg, Many homes were abandoned due to

emigration Emigration is the act of leaving a resident country or place of residence with the intent to settle elsewhere (to permanently leave a country). Conversely, immigration describes the movement of people into one country from another (to permanentl ...

File:Bireh 3.jpg, The Elkadri family ruins File:Bireh 4.jpg, Mount

Hermon Mount Hermon ( / ALA-LC: ('Mountain of the Sheikh', ), , ) is a mountain cluster constituting the southern end of the Anti-Lebanon mountain range. Its summit straddles the border between Syria and Lebanon and, at above sea level, is the ...

or Alsheikh as seen from Al-Bireh File:Bireh 5.jpg, Agriculture thrives in the water rich mountains File:Bireh 7.JPG, Ancient caves known as Ain Almizrab Caves

References

Bibliography

External links

Map of El Bire on www.discoverlebanon.com
Localiban {{Archaeological sites in Lebanon Populated places in Rashaya District Sunni Muslim communities in Lebanon Great Rift Valley Archaeological sites in Lebanon Beqaa Valley Heavy Neolithic sites