Roman and Byzantine Kfar Hanania

The earliest mentions of the village occur in sources from the Roman and Byzantine periods in Galilee, when it was then a Jewish village known as Kefar Hananya (or Kfar Hanania),^[8] that served as a center for pottery production in the Galilee.^[10][11] Most of the cooking ware in the Galilee between the 1st century BCE and the beginning of the 5th century CE was produced here.^[12] A Byzantine-period synagogue was partially carved out of the rock, probably during the 5th century CE, and its remains have been excavated east of the village.^[15] Khalidi mentions shafts and bases of columns, caves, a pool, and a burial ground discovered in archaeological excavations.^[14]

During the Second Temple period, within a distance of less than a kilometer from Kfar Hananya, was the thriving village of Bersabe (now Khirbet es-Saba [Kh. Abu esh-Shebaʿ], Beer Sheba of the Galilee), a village mentioned in the writings of Josephus.^[16]

Among the Kfar Hanania's most respected personages who is said to have been buried there was a Tanna (Jewish sage) of the 1st century, Eliezer ben Jacob I.^[17] The Talmud mentions it as the home of Rabbi Jacob of Kfar Hanan, a third-generation amora. As a result of Aramaic influence, the village became known as Kafr Hanan, a shortened form of Hananiah.^[9]

An Aramaic inscription dated to the 5th or 6th century was found on a kelilah (a polycandelon, i.e. a bronze chandelier holding glass lamps and suspended from the ceiling) in or near the Galilean village of Kefar Makr near Acre, reading "This polycandelon [kelilah] … [offered] to the holy place [the synagogue] of Kefar Hananyah. May they be remembered for good. Amen, selah, shalom, ptp t". The chandelier, now exhibited in a Belgian museum, bears the inscription next to the images of Judaic religious objects: two menorahs (seven-branched candlesticks), a lulav (palm frond) and a shofar (ram's horn); for illustrations see here.^{[18][19][20][21][22]}

Crusader to Mamluk period

Ya'akov ben Netan'el, who visited the village in the 12th century during the period of Crusader rule, writes about the ruins of a synagogue quarried into the hill.^[3] Potential references to the village include a mention of the "widow of Ben al-'Anani" in a 12th-century Genizah document and to Kfar Hanan in the 13th century.^[3] In 1211, Samuel ben Samson travelled from Tiberias and Kfar Hanania before stopping in Safed.^[25] In the 14th century, another traveller transcribes the village's name as Kefar Hanin.^[3]

Ottoman period: Kafr ʿInan

In 1522, Jewish traveler Moses ben Mordecai Bassola found about 30 families of Musta'arabi Jews (Arabic-speaking Jews, as opposed to Sephardi Jews) among the residents, most of whom of priestly stock, making it the fifth largest Jewish community in the country at the time, out of the eight places named by him.^{[26][27][28][29]} An Ottoman census taken two years later (1525) listed 14 Jewish families.^[29]

It is during the rule of the Ottoman Empire that the form Kafr ʿInān (Kafr 'Anan) first appears. The village is listed in the tax records of either 1549 or 1596, as forming part of the nahiya (subdistrict) of Jira, part of Safad Sanjak, with 21 households and 8 bachelors; an estimated population of 259. All the villagers were Muslim. They paid taxes on goats, beehives and on its press, which was used either for olives or grapes; a total of 12,272 akçe. All of the revenue went to a Waqf.^[30][31] A map from Napoleon's invasion of 1799 by Pierre Jacotin showed the place, named as "K. Hanein".^[32]

In 1881, the PEF's Survey of Western Palestine described the village as being built of stone and having 150-200 Muslim residents. The arable land in the village comprised gardens and olive trees.^[33]

A population list from about 1887 showed that Kafr 'Inan had 80 inhabitants; all Muslim.^[34]

British Mandate period

In the 1922 census of Palestine conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Kufr Enan had a population of 179; all Muslims,^[35] increasing in the 1931 census to 264, still all Muslims, in a total of 47 houses.^[36]

In the 1945 statistics, Kafr 'Inan had 360 Muslim inhabitants,^[7] with a total of 5,827 dunums (1,440 acres) of land according to an official land and population survey.^[6] Of this, a total of 1,740 dunums were used for the cultivation of cereals, 1,195 dunums were irrigated or used for orchards and most of these (1,145 dunums) were planted with olive trees,^[7][14][37] while 21 dunams were built-up (urban) area.^[7][38] The village, however, occupied an area of only 25 dunams (6.1 acres).^[39]

The village houses, made of stone with mud mortar, were bunched close together and separated by semi-circular, narrow alleys. Many new houses were constructed during the last years of Mandatory Palestine. Springs and domestic wells supplied drinking water. Olives and grain were the main crops. Grain was grown in the nearby flat zones and valleys.^[14]

Israeli period

Roman to Byzantine-period village

In 1933, Joseph Braslavsky was the first to identify the quarried synagogue in Kafr 'Inan, based on the testimony of a local Arab peasant.^[44][45] In 1989, the site was surveyed by Zvi Ilan. Adan-Bayewitz, of the Martin (Szusz) Department of Land of Israel Studies and Archaeology at Bar Ilan University conducted archaeological research at the site from 1987 to 1988, and excavated a late Roman-era pottery kiln in 1992–1993, with a stone-paved approach.^[46][47]