Kafr Dan () is 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

Jenin Governorate The Jenin Governorate () is one of 16 Governorates of Palestine. It covers the northern extremity of the West Bank, including the area around the city of Jenin, which is the district capital or ''muhfaza'' of the district. According to the Pale ...

, located 8 km northwest of

Jenin Jenin ( ; , ) is a city in the West Bank, Palestine, and is the capital of the Jenin Governorate. It is a hub for the surrounding towns. Jenin came under Israeli occupied territories, Israeli occupation in 1967, and was put under the administra ...

in the northern

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 ...

. According to the

Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS; ) is the official statistical institution of Palestine. Its main task is to provide credible statistical figures at the national and international levels. It is a state institution that provid ...

(PCBS) census, the town had a population of 5,148 in 2007 and 6,591 in 2017.2007 Locality Population Statistics
.

(PCBS). p. 105.

Location

Kafr Dan is located north-west of

; just east of Al-Yamun and north of Burqin.

History

Pottery remains from the

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 ...

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman E ...

, Early Islamic periods and the Middle Ages have been found here.Zertal, 2016, pp
213214
/ref>

Palmer Palmer may refer to: People and fictional characters * Palmer (pilgrim), a medieval European pilgrim to the Holy Land * Palmer (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters * Palmer (surname), including a list of people and f ...

suggested to identify Kafr Dan with Capher Outheni (), a village mentioned in the

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 ...

.Palmer, 1881, p
147
/ref>

Ottoman era

Kafr Dan, like the rest of Palestine, 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. During the 16th and

17th centuries The 17th century lasted from January 1, 1601 (represented by the Roman numerals MDCI), to December 31, 1700 (MDCC). It falls into the early modern period of Europe and in that continent (whose impact on the world was increasing) was characterized ...

, it belonged to the Turabay Emirate (1517-1683), which encompassed also the

Jezreel Valley The Jezreel Valley (from the ), or Marj Ibn Amir (), also known as the Valley of Megiddo, is a large fertile plain and inland valley in the Northern District (Israel), Northern District of Israel. It is bordered to the north by the highlands o ...

Haifa Haifa ( ; , ; ) is the List of cities in Israel, third-largest city in Israel—after Jerusalem and Tel Aviv—with a population of in . The city of Haifa forms part of the Haifa metropolitan area, the third-most populous metropolitan area i ...

Beit She'an Valley The Beit She'an Valley ( or ) is a valley in Israel. The valley lies within the Beit She'an rift, part of the Afro-Syrian Rift (Jordan Rift Valley), which opens westwards to the Harod Valley. It is a middle part of the Jordan Valley. The valle ...

, northern

Jabal Nablus The Nablus Sanjak (; ) was an administrative area that existed throughout Ottoman rule in the Levant (1517–1917). It was administratively part of the Damascus Eyalet until 1864 when it became part of Syria Vilayet and then the Beirut Vilayet ...

, Bilad al-Ruha/Ramot Menashe, and the northern part of the Sharon plain. 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, Kafr Dan appeared as "Kafradan”, located in 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 ...

'' of Sha'ara in the '' liwa'' of

Lajjun Lajjun (, ''al-Lajjūn'') was a large Palestine (region), Palestinian Arab village located northwest of Jenin and south of the remains of the biblical city of Tel Megiddo, Megiddo. The Israeli kibbutz of Megiddo, Israel was built 600 metres ...

. It had a population of 9 households, 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 ...

. They paid a fixed tax rate of 25% on agricultural products, including wheat, barley, summer crops, olive trees, goats and beehives, in addition to occasional revenues; a total of 6,000

akçe The ''akçe'' or ''akça'' (anglicized as ''akche'', ''akcheh'' or ''aqcha''; ; , , in Europe known as '' asper'') was a silver coin mainly known for being the chief monetary unit of the Ottoman Empire. It was also used in other states includi ...

. Pottery remains from the Ottoman era have also been found here. In 1838 Edward Robinson, calling it ''Kefr Adan'', noted it among many other villages on the plain;

Umm al-Fahm Umm al-Fahm ( , ''Umm al-Faḥm''; ''Um el-Faḥem'') is a city located northwest of Jenin in the Haifa District of Israel. In its population was , nearly all of whom are Palestinian citizens of Israel. The city is situated on the Umm al-Fahm ...

Ti'inik Ti'inik, also transliterated Ti’innik (), or Ta'anakh/Taanach (), is a Palestinian territories, Palestinian village, located 13 km northwest of the city of Jenin in the northern West Bank. The village is located on the slopes of an Tell (ar ...

Silat al-Harithiya Silat al-Harithiya () is a Palestinian village in the Jenin Governorate of Palestine, located northwest of Jenin in the northern West Bank. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics census, the town had a population of 9,422 in 20 ...

, Al-Yamun and el Barid, located in the District of Jenin, also called ''Haritheh esh-Shemaliyeh''. In 1870

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 at Kafr Dan “a broken column and a certain number of cut stones of ancient appearance.” Guérin estimated that the village had 300 inhabitants. In 1870/1871 (1288 AH), an Ottoman census listed the village in the ''nahiya'' of Shafa al-Gharby. In 1882 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 ...

'' described the area as a "village of moderate size on the slope of the hills, built of stone, with olives below, and a

well A well is an excavation or structure created on the earth by digging, driving, or drilling to access liquid resources, usually water. The oldest and most common kind of well is a water well, to access groundwater in underground aquifers. The ...

on the west.” They called the village “Kefr Adan”.

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, Kufr Dan had a population of 486; all Muslims,Barron, 1923, Table IX, Sub-district of Jenin, p
30
/ref> increasing in the 1931 census to 603, still all Muslim, in a total of 135 houses.Mills, 1932, p
67
/ref> In the 1945 statistics, the population was 850, all Muslims,Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics, 1945, p
16
with 7,328

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, according to an official land and population survey. 5 dunams were used for citrus and bananas, 2,680 for plantations and irrigable land, 3,799 for cereals, while 34 dunams were built-up (urban) land.

Jordanian era

In the wake of the

1948 Arab–Israeli War The 1948 Arab–Israeli War, also known as the First Arab–Israeli War, followed the 1947–1948 civil war in Mandatory Palestine, civil war in Mandatory Palestine as the second and final stage of the 1948 Palestine war. The civil war becam ...

, and after the

1949 Armistice Agreements The 1949 Armistice Agreements were signed between Israel and Egypt,Jordanian rule. The Jordanian census of 1961 found 1,262 inhabitants.

Post 1967

Since the

Six-Day War The Six-Day War, also known as the June War, 1967 Arab–Israeli War or Third Arab–Israeli War, was fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab world, Arab states, primarily United Arab Republic, Egypt, Syria, and Jordan from 5 to 10June ...

in 1967, Kafr Dan has been under

Israeli occupation Israel has occupied the Golan Heights of Syria and the Palestinian territories since the Six-Day War of 1967. It has previously occupied the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt and southern Lebanon as well. Prior to 1967, control of the Palestinian terr ...

. In 2009, Kafr Dan Village Council was upgraded into a municipality. The mayor, Bilal Mer'i, joined with Prime Minister Rami Hamdullah for the ceremony.

References

Bibliography

* * * * * * * * * * *

External links

Welcome to Kafr Dan
*Survey of Western Palestine, Map 8
IAAWikimedia commons
{{Jenin Governorate Towns in the West Bank Jenin Governorate Municipalities of Palestine