Zikrin (), pronounced ''Dhikrin'', 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 ...

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 in the Hebron Subdistrict, depopulated in the

1948 Palestine War The 1948 Palestine war was fought in the territory of what had been, at the start of the war, British-ruled Mandatory Palestine. During the war, the British withdrew from Palestine, Zionist forces conquered territory and established the Stat ...

. The site is located about northwest of Beit Gubrin and sits at a mean elevation of above sea-level, its access somewhat impeded by hedges of

buckthorn ''Rhamnus'' is a genus of about 140 accepted species of shrubs or small trees, commonly known as buckthorns, in the family Rhamnaceae. Its species range from tall (rarely to ) and are native mainly in east Asia and North America, but found thr ...

and

cactus A cactus (: cacti, cactuses, or less commonly, cactus) is a member of the plant family Cactaceae (), a family of the order Caryophyllales comprising about 127 genera with some 1,750 known species. The word ''cactus'' derives, through Latin, ...

. The entire site is dotted with grottoes and caves, and razed structures.

History

The village was called ''Kefar Dikrina'' in

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 ...

times. Geographer,

Adolf Neubauer Adolf Neubauer (11 March 1831 – 6 April 1907) was a Hungarian-born at the Bodleian Library and reader (academic rank), reader in Rabbinic Hebrew at Oxford University. Biography He was born in Bittse (Nagybiccse), Upper Hungary (now Bytča ...

mentions the village as formerly being called ''Kefar Dhikrin'' () in several Rabbinic sources, including the

Babylonian 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 modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the centerpiece of Jewi ...

. Neubauer cites one of the sources, saying that the village's name is derived from the fact that the womenfolk of the village bare only male children (hence: ''dikhra'' = male). According to

Lamentations Rabbah The Midrash on Lamentations () is a midrashic commentary to the Book of Lamentations. It is one of the oldest works of midrash, along with Genesis Rabbah and the '' Pesikta de-Rav Kahana''. Names The midrash is quoted, perhaps for the first ti ...

, the region of ''Kefar Dhikrin'' was one of the most densely populated areas of the country at that time. These sources mostly date back to the 3rd and 4th centuries CE. In 1479, it was mentioned by ''Tucher of Nurnberg'', who travelled from Bethlehem to Gaza and lodged at Zikrin. He noted

cistern A cistern (; , ; ) is a waterproof receptacle for holding liquids, usually water. Cisterns are often built to catch and store rainwater. To prevent leakage, the interior of the cistern is often lined with hydraulic plaster. Cisterns are disti ...

s here.Robinson and Smith, 1841, vol 2, pp
362
363

Ottoman era

In 1596, Zikrin was part of 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 ...

, ''

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 Gaza under the

Gaza Sanjak Gaza Sanjak (), known in Arabic as Bilād Ghazza (the Land of Gaza), was a sanjak of the Damascus Eyalet of the Ottoman Empire centered in Gaza, and spread northwards up to the Yarkon River. In the 16th century it was divided into ''nawahi'' ...

, with a population of 40

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 ...

households, an estimated 220 persons. They paid a fixed tax rate of 25% on several products, 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 ...

sesame Sesame (; ''Sesamum indicum'') is a 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 cultivated for ...

and fruits, 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; a total of 8,000

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 ...

. In 1838, Edward Robinson described ''Dhikrin'' as a "large"

village, located in the Gaza district.Robinson and Smith, 1841, vol 3, Appendix 2, p.
119
/ref> 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 ...

visited, and found here a village with about 600 inhabitants. On the west side of the village, there were as many as 40

s. Guérin toured the village with the village

Sheikh Sheikh ( , , , , ''shuyūkh'' ) is an honorific title in the Arabic language, literally meaning "elder (administrative title), elder". It commonly designates a tribal chief or a Muslim ulama, scholar. Though this title generally refers to me ...

, whom he described as a "tall, young and intelligent" man, whose father was the Sheikh of

Bayt Jibrin Bayt Jibrin or Beit Jibrin ( lit. 'House of the Powerful') was an Arab village in the Hebron Subdistrict of British Mandatory Palestine, in what is today the State of Israel, which was depopulated during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. It was ...

, and whose uncles were the same in Tell es-Safi and 'Ajjur. Socin found from an Ottoman village list of about 1870 that Zikrin had 38 houses and a population of 101, though the population count included men, only.Socin, 1879, p
163
/ref> Hartmann found that Zikrin had 60 houses. In 1883, the PEF's '' Survey of Western Palestine'' described Zikrin as being a stone village with gardens and "numerous"

water wells 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 ...

. In 1896 the population of Dikrin was estimated to be about 609 persons.

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, ''Zekrin'' had a population of 693, all Muslims,Barron, 1923, Table V, Sub-district of Hebron, p
10
/ref> increasing in the 1931 census to 726, still all Muslim, in a total of 181 houses.Mills, 1932, p
34
/ref> The modern village had an elementary school and a few shops. The villagers, who were

, were farmers. In 1945 statistics, it had a population of 960, all Muslims, and a total land area of 17,195 dunams. In 1944/45 of village land was planted with

cereal A cereal is a grass cultivated for its edible grain. Cereals are the world's largest crops, and are therefore staple foods. They include rice, wheat, rye, oats, barley, millet, and maize ( Corn). Edible grains from other plant families, ...

s, while 63 dunams were built-up (urban) areas.

1948 and aftermath

On 6 August 1948, in the middle of the official Second truce, two squads from the 53rd Battalion of the Givati Brigade raided Zikrin, lobbing

grenade A grenade is a small explosive weapon typically thrown by hand (also called hand grenade), but can also refer to a Shell (projectile), shell (explosive projectile) shot from the muzzle of a rifle (as a rifle grenade) or a grenade launcher. A mod ...

s and torching three or four houses. About 10 adult men, two children and one woman were killed in the village, according to IDF sources. The last three were killed accidentally, according to the report, while IDF suffered one soldier "slightly injured." Zikrin was finally depopulated on 22–23 October 1948 during the third stage of

Operation Yoav Operation Yoav (also called Operation Ten Plagues or Operation Yo'av) was an Israeli military operation carried out from 15–22 October 1948 in the Negev Desert, during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. Its goal was to drive a wedge between the Eg ...

under the command of Yigal Allon.Khalidi, 1992, p. 228 According to Morris, most of the villagers fled before the troops arrived, those who remained were expelled eastwards. According to Morris, Yigal Allon was so successful in completely driving out the local population during Operation Yo'av, that the villagers found it almost impossible to "reinfiltrate" to their old villages, as there was no longer any local Arab population to help them resettle. During a military "sweep" of the villages in early 1949, they found most villages empty. In Zikrin it is reported that the troops found "two Arabs" who "managed to escape."Morris, 2004, pp
518
9 Following the war, the area was incorporated into the

State of Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

and the land that had belonged to the village was left undeveloped. Kibbutz Beit Nir is about 3 km south of the village site. The Palestinian historian Walid Khalidi described the village site in 1992 as being "overgrown with tall weeds, scrub, and other wild vegetation, containing several olive and carob trees. Truncated stone terraces, partially overgrown with cactuses, further marked the site. Some of the surrounding lands were cultivated by Israeli farmers for wheat, and the rest was used as rangeland."

Gallery

File:Beit Jibrin 1945.jpg, Zikrin map, 1948 1:250,000 (top left quadrant) File:Zikrin 1948.jpg, Zikrin map, 1948 1:20,000 File:Ancient wall near Beit Dhikrin.jpg, Old wall near Khirbet Dhikrin File:Quarried rock in Khirbet Beit Dhikrin.jpg, Quarried rock in Kh. Dhikrin File:Beit Dhikrin - Quarried rock.jpg, Quarried rock File:Cave entrance blocked by cobwebs.jpg, Entrance to cave in Kh. Dhikrin File:Grotto in Beit Dhikrin.jpg, Cave at Kh. Dhikrin File:Old wall in Beit Dhikrin.jpg, Old wall in Kh. Dhikrin File:Razed structure in Beit Dhikrin.jpg, Razed structure in Kh. Dhikrin File:West of Dhikrin, ruined house.jpg, Tomb of Sheikh Abu 'Imran, on hill west of Dhikrin File:Interior of ruined house, on adjacent hill west of Dhikrin.jpg, Interior of tomb of Sheikh Abu 'Imran, on hilltop west of Dhikrin File:Ruin of old house on hill to the west of Beit Zikrin.jpg, Tomb of Sheikh Abu 'Imran, on hill west of Dhikrin File:Old house in ruin, west of Beit Dhikrin.jpg, Tomb of Sheikh Abu 'Imran File:House in ruins.jpg, Tomb of Sheikh Abu 'Imran File:Ruins of ancient tower - south of Beit Dhikrin.jpg, Ruined tower south of Dhikrin, mentioned in SWP map number 20 File:Overturned stones - south of Beit Dhikrin.jpg, Ruined tower south of Dhikrin, mentioned in SWP map number 20 File:Massive blocks of hewn stone south of Beit Dhikrin.jpg, View of what remains of tower File:Underground cavern in Beit Dhikrin.jpg, Cobwebs block entrance to cave in Kh. Dhikrin File:Mouth of well in dale to the northwest of Zikrin.jpg, Mouth of deep well, in dale northwest of Dhikrin File:Ancient well and partially broken stone water trough.jpg, Ancient well with stone trough in dale northwest of Kh. Dhikrin File:Mouth of well with broken water trough.jpg, Stone water trough and mouth of deep well, in dale NW of Dhikrin File:General landscape of Beit Dhikrin.jpg, General view - Dhikrin

References

Bibliography

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

External links

Welcome To ThikrinZikrin
Zochrot *Survey of Western Palestine, Map 20
IAAWikimedia commons

from the Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center {{Palestinian Arab villages depopulated during the 1948 Palestine War Arab villages depopulated during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War District of Hebron Talmud places