Sabbarin was a Palestinian Arab village located 28 kilometers south of

Haifa Haifa ( he, חֵיפָה ' ; ar, حَيْفَا ') is the 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 metropoli ...

. It was depopulated during the

1947–1948 civil war in Mandatory Palestine The 1947–1948 civil war in Mandatory Palestine was the first phase of the 1947–1949 Palestine war. It broke out after the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted a resolution on 29 November 1947 recommending the adoption of the Par ...

History

Late Ottoman period

In 1859 Sabbarin had about 600 inhabitants, who cultivated 55

faddan A feddan ( ar, فدّان, faddān) is a unit of area used in Egypt, Sudan, Syria, and the Oman. In Classical Arabic, the word means 'a yoke of oxen', implying the area of ground that could be tilled by oxen in a certain time. In Egypt, the fedda ...

s (1 faddan =100-250 dunums) of land.Conder and Kitchener, 1882, SWP II, p
43
/ref> The French explorer

Victor Guérin Victor Guérin (15 September 1821 – 21 Septembe 1890) was a French intellectual, explorer and amateur archaeologist. He published books describing the geography, archeology and history of the areas he explored, which included Greece, Asia Min ...

visited the village in 1870, and noted that the villagers cultivated

sesame Sesame ( or ; ''Sesamum indicum'') is a flowering plant in the genus '' Sesamum'', also called benne. Numerous wild relatives occur in Africa and a smaller number in India. It is widely naturalized in tropical regions around the world and is c ...

. A

well A well is an excavation or structure created in the ground 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. T ...

, called Bir Sabbarin, appeared well built. The village had an estimated 1000 inhabitants, with homes constructed of stones or

adobe Adobe ( ; ) 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 used to refer to any kind of ...

. In the 1882, the

PEF PEF, PeF, or Pef may stand for the following abbreviations: * Palestine Exploration Fund * Peak expiratory flow * PEF Private University of Management Vienna * Pentax raw file (see Raw image format) * Perpetual Education Fund * Perpetual Emigratio ...

'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 Survey of Western Palestine and in 1880 for the Survey of Eastern Palestine. The survey was carried out after th ...

'' described Sabbarin as a "large" village, situated on a slope. The well was said to be the head of the

Caesarea Caesarea () ( he, קֵיסָרְיָה, ), ''Keysariya'' or ''Qesarya'', often simplified to Keisarya, and Qaysaria, is an affluent town in north-central Israel, which inherits its name and much of its territory from the ancient city of Caesare ...

aqueduct. The oval well was 15 feet diameter and 15 feet deep. A population list from about 1887 showed that Subbarin had about 1,160 inhabitants; all Muslims.

British Mandate period

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, Sabbarin had a population of 845; 833 Muslims and 12 Christian, where the Christians were all Roman Catholics. The population had increased in the 1931 census to 1,108; 18 Christians and the rest Muslim, in a total of 256 houses. In the 1945 statistics, the village had a population of 1,700; 1,670 Muslims and 30 Christians and the village's lands spanned 25,307 dunams. 12,773 dunums of land used for

cereal A cereal is any grass cultivated for the edible components of its grain (botanically, a type of fruit called a caryopsis), composed of the endosperm, germ, and bran. Cereal grain crops are grown in greater quantities and provide more foo ...

s; 45 dunums were irrigated or used for orchards,Khalidi, 1992, p.187 while 179 dunams were built-up (urban) land.Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. ''Village Statistics, April, 1945.'' Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p
142
/ref>

1948 and aftermath

Sabbarin was captured by

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

i forces on May 12, 1948 during the

in Operation Coastal Clearing. It was defended by a local militia and possibly the

Arab Liberation Army The Arab Liberation Army (ALA; ar, جيش الإنقاذ العربي ''Jaysh al-Inqadh al-Arabi''), also translated as Arab Salvation Army, was an army of volunteers from Arab countries led by Fawzi al-Qawuqji. It fought on the Arab side in th ...

. According to

Benny Morris Benny Morris ( he, בני מוריס; born 8 December 1948) is an Israeli historian. He was a professor of history in the Middle East Studies department of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in the city of Beersheba, Israel. He is a member of ...

, the

Irgun Irgun • Etzel , image = Irgun.svg , image_size = 200px , caption = Irgun emblem. The map shows both Mandatory Palestine and the Emirate of Transjordan, which the Irgun claimed in its entirety for a future Jewish state. The acronym "Etzel" i ...

(IZL) encountered resistance there and the majority of the villagers fled after 20 of them were killed in a firefight, with an IZL armoured car firing on the villagers as they fled. More than one hundred people who had not fled, including the elderly, women, and children, were held behind barbed wire for a few days before being expelled to nearby

Umm al-Fahm Umm al-Fahm ( ar, أمّ الفحم, ''Umm al-Faḥm''; he, אוּם אֶל-פַחֶם ''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 Arab citizens of I ...

.Morris, 2004, p
244
/ref> Others who had fled earlier ended up in

refugee camps A refugee camp is a temporary Human settlement, settlement built to receive refugees and people in refugee-like situations. Refugee camps usually accommodate displaced people who have fled their home country, but camps are also made for interna ...

in the

Jenin Jenin (; ar, ') is a Palestinian city in the northern West Bank. It serves as the administrative center of the Jenin Governorate of the State of Palestine and is a major center for the surrounding towns. In 2007, Jenin had a population of a ...

area. An IZL officer recounted how during a search of the column of refugees, a pistol and a rifle were found. Seven men were detained and were asked who the weapons belonged to. After they refused to answer, the IZL men threatened them with death. After still refusing to answer, the IZL men carried out a "field court martial," sentenced the seven to death, and thereafter executed them on the spot. Following the war the area was incorporated into the State of Israel.

Kibbutz A kibbutz ( he, קִבּוּץ / , lit. "gathering, clustering"; plural: kibbutzim / ) is an intentional community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. The first kibbutz, established in 1909, was Degania. Today, farming h ...

Ramot Menashe was established northeast of the site in 1948, and

Moshav A moshav ( he, מוֹשָׁב, plural ', lit. ''settlement, village'') is a type of Israeli town or settlement, in particular a type of cooperative agricultural community of individual farms pioneered by the Labour Zionists between 1904 ...

Amikam Amikam ( he, עַמִּיקָם) is a moshav in northern Israel. Located near Zikhron Ya'akov, it falls under the jurisdiction of Alona Regional Council, whose headquarters are located in the moshav. In it had a population of . West of the moshav ...

was founded in 1950, 1 km south of the village site. Khalidi described the place in 1992:

''The large site, strewn with the stone debris of houses, is overgrown with wild thorns. The thorns are interspersed with
cactus A cactus (, or less commonly, cactus) is a member of the plant family Cactaceae, a family comprising about 127 genera with some 1750 known species of the order Caryophyllales. The word ''cactus'' derives, through Latin, from the Ancient Gre ...
es and
pine A pine is any conifer tree or shrub in the genus ''Pinus'' () of the family (biology), family Pinaceae. ''Pinus'' is the sole genus in the subfamily Pinoideae. The World Flora Online created by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and Missouri Botanic ...
, fig,
olive The olive, botanical name ''Olea europaea'', meaning 'European olive' in Latin, is a species of small tree or shrub in the family Oleaceae, found traditionally in the Mediterranean Basin. When in shrub form, it is known as ''Olea europaea'' ...
and mulberry trees. Some of the surrounding lands are used by Israelis as pasture and growing fruit trees.''

Families from Sabbarin

From Palestineremembered.com.Sabbarin
Palestineremembered.com # Al-Abhari (Arabic: العبهري ) # Al-Abdallah (Arabic: ال عبدالله ) # Al-Hajj Mahmud (Arabic: الحج محمود ) # Al-De'emeh (Arabic: الدعمة ) # Abu Libdi (Arabic: ابو لبده ) # Ghnima (Arabic: غنيمه ) # Hatab (Arabic: حطاب ) # Al-Samada'a (Arabic: الصمادعة ) # Abu Diab (Arabic: ابو ذياب) # Al Mallah (Arabic: الملاح) # Al-Hmedih # Al-Masri (Arabic: المصري) # Abu Kabir # Abu Sammen (Arabic: أبو سمن ) # Faraj (Arabic: فرج ) File:ביקור נימוסין יהודי בכפר סוברין-ZKlugerPhotos-00132fn-907170685121057.jpg, Villager of Sabbarin in 1940 File:ביקור נימוסין יהודי בכפר סוברין-ZKlugerPhotos-00132fn-907170685121058.jpg, Villager of Sabbarin in 1940 File:ביקור נימוסין יהודי בכפר סוברין-ZKlugerPhotos-00132fo-907170685121151.jpg, Villager of Sabbarin in 1940

References

Bibliography

* * * * * * * * * *

External links

Sabbarin

Zochrot Zochrot ( he, זוכרות; "Remembering"; ar, ذاكرات; "Memories") is an Israeli nonprofit organization founded in 2002. Based in Tel Aviv, its aim is to promote awareness of the Palestinian ''Nakba'' ("Catastrophe"), including the 1948 P ...

*Survey of Western Palestine, Map 8
IAA Wikimedia commons
at Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center
Mey Kedem
archaeological site in Moshav Amikam centered on a Roman water tunnel starting at Ein Tzabarin Springs {{Palestinian Arab villages depopulated during the 1948 Palestine War District of Haifa Arab villages depopulated prior to the 1948 Arab–Israeli War