'Ajjur

yes 'Ajjur عجّور ar 'Ajur House in Ajjur.jpg House in 'Ajjur 250 Furrows on the sand made by the windPalmer, 1881, p.265 Mandatory Palestine 200 31 41 22 N 34 55 22 E type:city_region:PS inline,title Palestine grid 142/121 Geopolitical entity Mandatory Palestine Subdistrict Hebron Date of depopulation 23–24 July 1948Morris, 2004, p. xix https://web.archive.org/web/20190402072738/https://books.google.com/books?id=uM_kFX6edX8C&pg=PR19 2019-04-02 , village #294. Also gives the cause of depopulation. primary, 23 October 1948 secondary Repopulated dates dunam 58.074 58074 1945 3730 Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics, 1945, p. 23 https://web.archive.org/web/20220531153045/http://users.cecs.anu.edu.au/~bdm/yabber/census/VSpages/VS1945_p23.jpg 2022-05-31 Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 50 https://web.archive.org/web/20180623032853/http://www.palestineremembered.com/download/VillageStatistics/Table%20I/Hebron/Page-050.jpg 2018-06-23 Accessed 2011-10-27. 2009-07-20. Cause(s) of depopulation Military assault by Yishuv forces Current Localities Agur, Tzafririm, Givat Yeshayahu, Li-On, Tirosh Britannia ParkDear Prince William, if you have to go, make it count https://web.archive.org/web/20230521092750/https://mondoweiss.net/2018/03/prince-william-count/ 2023-05-21 , Robert Cohen, March 10, 2018, Mondoweiss Location within Mandatory Palestine 2 1870s 1940s modern 1940s with modern overlay 225 A series of historical maps of the area around 'Ajjur (click the buttons) Ajjur (ar عجّور) was a Palestinian Arab village of over 3,700 inhabitants in 1945, located 24 km mi northwest of Hebron. It became depopulated in 1948 after several military assaults by Israeli military forces. Agur, Tzafririm, Givat Yeshayahu, Li-On, and Tirosh were built on the village lands. History Near 'Ajjur, at Khirbet Jannaba, was a probable site of the Battle of Ajnadayn, waged in the 7th-century CE between the Rashidun Caliphate and the Byzantine Empire, and which resulted in a decisive Rashidun victory, incorporating most of Palestine into the domains of Islam. The village of 'Ajjur itself was built during early Fatimid rule in the region in the early twelfth century CE. A mosque was built during this period and continued to serve 'Ajjur's community until its demise.Khalidi, 1992, p. 206 The village 'Ajjur is believed to be named after "a sort of cucumber."p. 145 in: Zadok Ran A Preliminary Analysis of Ancient Survivals in Modern Palestinian Toponymy Mediterranean Language Review 9 93–171 10.13173/medilangrevi.9.1997.0093 1995–1997 Ottoman era Arab chronicler Mujir ad-Din reported that he passed through 'Ajjur on his way from Gaza to Jerusalem in the early sixteenth century, when the village was a part of the Ottoman Empire.al-'Ulaymi, 1876, p. 230. Cited in Petersen, 2001, p. 91 https://web.archive.org/web/20190324182652/https://www.academia.edu/21619490/Gazetteer_3._A-C 2019-03-24 By 1596, 'Ajjur was a part of the nahiya ("subdistrict") of Gaza, part of Sanjak Gaza, with 35 Muslim households; an estimated 193 persons. It paid a fine tax rate of 33,3 % on agricultural products, including wheat, barley, fruit, vineyards, beehives, and goats; a total of 5,500 akçeHütteroth and Abdulfattah, 1977, p. 148. Quoted in Khalidi, 1992, p. 206 In 1838 Edward Robinson noted the village as being "small", located in the Gaza district. The villagers were Muslim.Robinson and Smith, 1841, vol 2, p. 351Robinson and Smith, 1841, vol 3, Appendix 2, p. 119 In 1863 Victor Guérin estimated the population to be around 800. Guérin further noted that several houses, including that of the local Sheikh, were built partly with ancient stones.Guérin, 1869, p. 103 Socin found from an official Ottoman village list from about 1870 that 'Ajjur had 86 houses and a population of 254, though the population count included men, only.Socin, 1879, p. 142 Hartmann found that 'Ajjur had 120 houses.Hartmann, 1883, p. 143 Khirbet er-Rasm lay on the lands of the village of 'Ajjur to the immediate west (see map at top), and they cultivated olive trees at the site in the Ottoman period.https://www.researchgate.net/publication/370766449_The_Excavations_of_Khirbet_er-Rasm_The_Changing_Faces_of_the_Countryside Avraham Avi Sasson The Excavations of Khirbet er-Rasm: The Changing Faces of the Countryside They also built stone walls in linear formation over older ones to divide the agricultural land into plots, where they cultivated annual crops, as well as citrus trees, which were likely watered using the ancient cisterns extant at the site. In the middle of the 19th century, further nearby ruins around the village, such as Khirbet Drusye (Horvat Midras) were absorbed into the territory of ʿAjjūr. Its inhabitants cultivated the surrounding fields, used the underground cavities as animal shelters, and drew water from the Byār Drusye wells in Wādī Drusye. This reflects the mid-19th-century process of rural expansion following the Ottoman Land Code of 1858 and the cadastral surveys of the 1860s, which incorporated formerly state-owned ruins into the cultivated domains of established villages.Orit Peleg-Barkat, Roy Marom, Gregg E. Gardner, Michael Chernin, and Saleh Kharanbeh, "Rural adaptation and settlement change in the late Islamic Jabal al-Khalīl (Judean Foothills)," Journal of Historical Geography 90 (2025): 87–98. In 1882, the PEF's Survey of Western Palestine (SWP) described 'Ajjur as a small village containing olive trees,Conder and Kitchener, 1882, p. 414. Quoted in Khalidi, 1992, p. 207 with most of its houses clustered together, but some dispersed to the west and south. A private school named Abu Hasan was established in this period.Khalidi, 1992, p. 207 In 1896 the population of 'Ajjur was estimated to be about 1,767 persons.Schick, 1896, p. 123 British Mandate era In the 1922 census of Palestine conducted by the British Mandate authorities, 'Ajjur had a population of 2,073 inhabitants, all Muslim,Barron, 1923, Table V, Sub-district of Hebron, p. 10 increasing in the 1931 census to 2,917; 4 Christians and the rest Muslims, in a total of 566 residential houses.Mills, 1932, p. 27 During this period, 'Ajjur became economically active in its vicinity. It held a Friday market or souk that attracted consumers and merchants from nearby towns and villages. A second school was founded in the village in 1934, which served students from nearby villages as well as from 'Ajjur. Like other Arab villages in Palestine at the time, 'Ajjur depended on agriculture, which was the basis of its economy. The main crops were olives and wheat. The second most important economic activity was animal husbandry, in particular, goat herding. Animal ownership was a symbol of social status and pride in the village, and residents gave affectionate names to certain types of animals. Animal herding caused seasonal movement by herders to distant dwellings from the village site, but still in its vicinity such as Khirbet al-Sura and Khirbet al-'Ammuriyya. Shoemaking, carpentry, and tanning were other common occupations in 'Ajjur. In the 1945 statistics, 'Ajjur had a population of 3,730; 10 Christians and 3,720 Muslims, with a total of 58,074 dunams of land. Of this, 2,428 dunums were irrigated or used for plantations, 25,227 dunams were used for cereals,Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 93 https://archive.today/20120907073152/http://www.palestineremembered.com/download/VillageStatistics/Table%20II/Hebron/Page-093.jpg 2012-09-07 while 171 dunams were built-up (urban) areas.Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 143 https://archive.today/20130131005326/http://www.palestineremembered.com/download/VillageStatistics/Table%20III/Hebron/Page-143.jpg 2013-01-31 thumb|Ajjur 1945 1:250,000 1948 War and aftermath On 23 October 1948, the Fourth Battalion of Israel‘s Giv'ati Brigade occupied ‘Ajjur in the northern front of Operation Yoav, unifying Israeli military operations in the southern and western fronts. Most of ‘Ajjur’s inhabitants had fled before this assault—their flight was triggered by an earlier attack, on 23 July-24. In 1992, the Palestinian historian Walid Khalidi described the village: “Only three houses remain; two are deserted and one has been turned into a warehouse. One of the deserted houses is a two-story stone structure with a large, triple-arched front porch.” Petersen, who inspected the place in 1994, noted “a large two-story building with a vaulted arcade on the northern side. The upper part of the building is today used as a house while the lower part appears to be abandoned (although it remains locked). The arcade consists of three cross-vaulted bays resting on two free-standing piers and two engaged piers at either end. On the outer (north) face of each of the two central piers there is a stone carved with two rosettes which appears to be part of a classical entablature. The outer arches are emphasized by a flat hood molding. Each bay is covered with a cross-vault which reaches a height of approximately 4m. [..] The upper floor is reached by an external staircase on the east side leading to a walled terrace above the arcade. [..] The identity or function of this building is not known although its design and orientation indicate that it may be a mosque.”Petersen, 2001, pp. 91 https://web.archive.org/web/20190324182652/https://www.academia.edu/21619490/Gazetteer_3._A-C 2019-03-24 −92 In 2000, Meron Benvenisti observed that: “Three large, beautiful structures, which were located outside the village amid orchards of fruit trees, have been renovated, and Jewish families live in them. In one, chamber music concerts are held.”Benvenisti, 2000, p. 319 See also List of towns and villages depopulated during the 1947–1949 Palestine war References 25em Bibliography Barron, J.B. Palestine: Report and General Abstracts of the Census of 1922 https://archive.org/details/PalestineCensus1922 Government of Palestine 1923 Sacred Landscape: The Buried History of the Holy Land Since 1948 https://archive.org/details/sacredlandscapeb00benvrich registration M. Benvenisti Meron Benvenisti Maxine Kaufman-Lacusta (translator) University of California Press 2000 978-0-520-21154-4 Conder C.R. Claude Reignier Conder Kitchener H.H. Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener 1882 https://archive.org/details/surveyofwesternp02conduoft The Survey of Western Palestine: Memoirs of the Topography, Orography, Hydrography, and Archaeology London Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund 2 Village Statistics, April, 1945 http://web.nli.org.il/sites/nli/Hebrew/library/Pages/BookReader.aspx?pid=856390 Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics 1945 2019-04-02 2017-04-10 https://web.archive.org/web/20190402072744/http://web.nli.org.il/sites/nli/hebrew/library/pages/bookreader.aspx?pid=856390 live Guérin V. Victor Guérin Description Géographique Historique et Archéologique de la Palestine https://archive.org/details/descriptiongog02gu 1: Judee, pt. 2 1869 L'Imprimerie Nationale Paris fr Village Statistics of 1945: A Classification of Land and Area Ownership in Palestine http://www.palestineremembered.com/Articles/General-2/Story3150.html S. Hadawi Sami Hadawi 1970 Palestine Liberation Organization Research Centre 2018-12-08 2008-12-06 https://web.archive.org/web/20181208215837/http://www.palestineremembered.com/Articles/General-2/Story3150.html live Hartmann M. Martin Hartmann Die Ortschaftenliste des Liwa Jerusalem in dem turgescent Staatskalender dur Syrien auf das Jahr 1288 der Flucht (1871) Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins 6 102–149 https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_BZobAQAAIAAJ 1883 Hütteroth W.-D. Wolf-Dieter Hütteroth K. Abdulfattah Kamal Abdulfattah Historical Geography of Palestine, Transjordan and Southern Syria in the Late 16th Century https://books.google.com/books?id=wqULAAAAIAAJ 1977 Erlanger Geographische Arbeiten, Sonderband 5. Erlangen, Germany: Vorstand der Fränkischen Geographischen Gesellschaft 3-920405-41-2 2024-10-08 2017-08-21 https://web.archive.org/web/20241008051623/https://books.google.com/books?id=wqULAAAAIAAJ live All That Remains: The Palestinian Villages Occupied and Depopulated by Israel in 1948 https://books.google.com/books?id=_By7AAAAIAAJ W. Khalidi Walid Khalidi 1992 Washington D.C. Institute for Palestine Studies 0-88728-224-5 2024-10-08 2017-04-10 https://web.archive.org/web/20241008100754/https://books.google.com/books?id=_By7AAAAIAAJ live Mills, E. Census of Palestine 1931. Population of Villages, Towns and Administrative Areas https://archive.org/details/CensusOfPalestine1931.PopulationOfVillagesTownsAndAdministrativeAreas Government of Palestine Jerusalem 1932 https://books.google.com/books?id=uM_kFX6edX8C B. Morris Benny Morris 2004 The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited 978-0-521-00967-6 Cambridge University Press 2024-10-14 2016-07-25 https://web.archive.org/web/20241014211455/https://books.google.com/books?id=uM_kFX6edX8C live Mujir al-Din https://archive.org/details/histoiredejrus00ulayuoft Histoire de Jérusalem et d'Hébron depuis Abraham jusqu'à la fin du XVe siècle de J.-C. : fragments de la Chronique de Moudjir-ed-dyn 1876 Moudjir ed-dyn al-'Ulaymi Sauvaire Palmer E.H. Edward Henry Palmer 1881 https://archive.org/details/surveyofwesternp00conduoft The Survey of Western Palestine: Arabic and English Name Lists Collected During the Survey by Lieutenants Conder and Kitchener, R. E. Transliterated and Explained by E.H. Palmer Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund Petersen Andrew A Gazetteer of Buildings in Muslim Palestine (British Academy Monographs in Archaeology) https://www.academia.edu/21619490 1 2001 Oxford University Press 978-0-19-727011-0 2021-05-29 2018-12-14 https://web.archive.org/web/20210529123801/https://www.academia.edu/21619490/Gazetteer_3_A_C live Robinson E. Edward Robinson (scholar) Smith E. Eli Smith 1841 https://archive.org/details/biblicalresearc00smitgoog Biblical Researches in Palestine, Mount Sinai and Arabia Petraea: A Journal of Travels in the year 1838 Boston Crocker & Brewster 2 Schick C. Conrad Schick Zur Einwohnerzahl des Bezirks Jerusalem Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins 19 120–127 https://archive.org/details/zeitschriftdesde19deut 1896 Socin A. Albert Socin Alphabetisches Verzeichniss von Ortschaften des Paschalik Jerusalem Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins 2 135–163 https://archive.org/details/zeitschriftdesde01deut 1879 External links Welcome to Ajjur 'Ajjur, from Zochrot Survey of Western Palestine, Map 16: IAA, Wikimedia commons 'Ajjur, at Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center All About... Ajjur, from Zochrot 'Ajjur tour - Report, Zochrot Remembering A'jjur, A'jjur Booklet, 10/2008 Category:Arab villages depopulated during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War Category:District of Hebron