Alma, Safad

Alma علما
Village
Etymology: from personal name
A series of historical maps of the area around Alma, Safad (click the buttons)
Alma Location within Mandatory Palestine
Coordinates: 33°3′20″N 35°29′28″E
Palestine grid	196/273
Geopolitical entity	Mandatory Palestine
Subdistrict	Safad
Date of depopulation	October 30, 1948
Area
• Total	19,498 dunams (19.498 km2 or 7.528 sq mi)
Population  (1945)
• Total	950
Cause(s) of depopulation	Military assault by Yishuv forces
Current Localities	Alma

Alma (Template:Lang-ar) was a Palestinian Arab village in the Safad Subdistrict, Mandatory Palestine. It was depopulated during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War on October 30, 1948, during Operation Hiram. It was located 10 km north of Safad.

In 1945 it had a population of 950.

History

Alma was located in Galilee about 4 km south of the Lebanese border. Ceramics from the Byzantine era have been found here.

The Crusaders called the village "Alme." Alma had several nearby khirbas, and fragments of inscriptions from an ancient synagogue were found at the site of the village in the 20th century.

While travelling though the region in the 12th century CE, Benjamin of Tudela noted that Alma contained fifty Jewish inhabitants and a "large cemetery of the Israelites."

Remains of a ruined watch-tower was found on the crest of the ridge, and a quarter of a mile south of those there were three perfect dolmens, not very large.

Ottoman era

At the beginning of the period of Ottoman rule over Palestine, an Italian traveller to Alma in 1523 noted that there were 15 Jewish families there and one synagogue. In the Ottoman tax registers of 1596, the village is listed as forming part of the nahiya ("subdistrict") of Jira in the liwa' ("district") of Safad. It had a relatively large population of 1,440, consisting of 288 Muslim households and 140 Muslim bachelors, together with seven Jewish households and one Jewish bachelor. The village paid taxes on goats, beehives, a water-powered mill, and a press that was used for processing olives or grapes. Total tax revenue amounted to a substantial 51,100 akce. Alma's prosperity was attributed to its close proximity to Safad.

The village was totally destroyed in the earthquake of January 1837. Edward Robinson and Eli Smith, who travelled to the region in 1838, give the full name of the village as 'Alma el-Khait (Template:Lang-ar).

James Finn, the British consul to Jerusalem who travelled around Palestine between 1853 and 1856, describes the village of Alma as being situated in an area in which volcanic basalt was abundant. Around the village, women and children were gathering olives from the trees by beating them with poles and then collecting the fallen fruit. He notes that the small district in which the village is located is known by the locals as "the Khait" (Arabic for "string") and that they "boast of its extraordinary fertility in corn-produce."

Victor Guérin visited in 1875, and noted that 200 Muslim inhabitants lived there. In The Survey of Western Palestine (1881), Alma is described as a village built of stone with about 250 "Algerine Mohammedan" residents, situated in the middle of a fertile plain with a few gardens.

A population list from about 1887 showed Alma to have about 1,105 Muslim inhabitants.

British Mandate period

The population of Alma in the 1922 census consisted of 309 Muslims, increasing to 712 Muslims in 148 occupied houses by 1931.

In the 1945 statistics, the population had reached 950, still all Muslim.

The villagers were heavily involved in agriculture, including raising livestock and growing crops. During the 1942/43 season olive trees were recorded as being grown on 750 dunums of village land, 550 dunums of which were fruit-bearing trees. It was the largest olive grove in Safad district. In 1944–45 983 dunums were irrigated or used for orchards and 7,475 dunums were devoted to cereal crops.

The village comprised a total area of 19,498 dunums of which 17,240 dunums was run by Arabs and the rest public. The population of the village was entirely Arab in ethnicity and Muslim in religion. They had their own mosque and elementary school, which pupils from al-Rihaniyya also attended.

A large number of inhabitants were employed in cereal farming, which occupied about 38% of the land area. Some land was also allocated for irrigation and plantation, and the growing of olives.

Types of landuse in dunams by Arabs in 1945:

Land Usage	Dunams
Irrigated & Plantation	983
Olives	750
Cereal	7,475
Urban	147
Cultivable	8,458
Non-cultivable	10,893

The land ownership of the village before occupation in dunums:

Owner	Durums
Arab	17,240
Jewish	0
Public	2,258
Total	19,498

1948 war and aftermath

The village was attacked by the Israeli forces in Operation Hiram on 30 October 1948. Israeli historian Benny Morris has documented that Alma was the one village in the area where the villagers were uprooted and/or expelled by the Israeli forces, in spite of the fact that they had not offered any resistance.

In 1949, the Israeli moshav of Alma was built about 0.5 km east of where the built-up portion of the former village was located.

Israeli farmers cultivate fruit and olives on the village site, which is fenced in and covered with rubble and the remains of buildings.

Bibliography

• Barron, J. B., ed. (1923). Palestine: Report and General Abstracts of the Census of 1922. Government of Palestine.
• Benjamin of Tudela (2003). Thomas Wright (ed.). Early Travels in Palestine (Illustrated ed.). Courier Dover Publications. ISBN 978-0-486-42871-0.
• Conder, C.R.; Kitchener, H.H. (1881). The Survey of Western Palestine: Memoirs of the Topography, Orography, Hydrography, and Archaeology. Vol. 1. London: Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund. (p. 205)
• Dauphin, Claudine (1998). La Palestine byzantine, Peuplement et Populations. BAR International Series 726 (in French). Vol. III : Catalogue. Oxford: Archeopress. ISBN 0860549054.
• Department of Statistics (1945). Village Statistics, April, 1945. Government of Palestine.
• Finn, J. (1877). Byeways in Palestine. Vol. 1. London: James Nisbet & Co.
• Guérin, V. (1880). Description Géographique Historique et Archéologique de la Palestine (in French). Vol. 3: Galilee, pt. 2. Paris: L'Imprimerie Nationale.
• Hadawi, S. (1970). "Village Statistics of 1945: A Classification of Land and Area ownership in Palestine". Palestine Liberation Organization Research Center. Archived from the original on 2018-12-08. Retrieved 2009-08-18. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
• Hütteroth, Wolf-Dieter; Abdulfattah, Kamal (1977). Historical Geography of Palestine, Transjordan and Southern Syria in the Late 16th Century. Erlanger Geographische Arbeiten, Sonderband 5. Erlangen, Germany: Vorstand der Fränkischen Geographischen Gesellschaft. ISBN 3-920405-41-2.
• Khalidi, W. (1992). All That Remains:The Palestinian Villages Occupied and Depopulated by Israel in 1948. Washington D.C.: Institute for Palestine Studies. ISBN 0-88728-224-5.
• Mills, E., ed. (1932). Census of Palestine 1931. Population of Villages, Towns and Administrative Areas. Jerusalem: Government of Palestine.
• Morris, B. (2004). The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-00967-6.
• Palmer, E.H. (1881). 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 (2005). The Towns of Palestine Under Muslim Rule. British Archaeological Reports. ISBN 1841718211.
• Robinson, E.; Smith, E. (1841). Biblical Researches in Palestine, Mount Sinai and Arabia Petraea: A Journal of Travels in the year 1838. Vol. 3. Boston: Crocker & Brewster.
• Rhode, H. (1979). Administration and Population of the Sancak of Safed in the Sixteenth Century. Columbia University.
• Schumacher, G. (1888). "Population list of the Liwa of Akka". Quarterly Statement - Palestine Exploration Fund. 20: 169–191.
• Schwarz, Rabbi Joseph (1850). A descriptive geography and brief historical sketch of Palestine. Isaac Leeser. Philadelphia: A. Hart.

External links

• Welcome To 'Alma
• 'Alma, Zochrot
• Survey of Western Palestine, Map 4: IAA, Wikimedia commons
• 'Alma at Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center
• 'Alma, Dr. Khalil Rizk.