Kafra
كفرة
Kafra well, ca 1920
Kafra well, ca 1920
Etymology: "The village"[1]
1870s map
1940s map
modern map
1940s with modern overlay map
Kafra is located in Mandatory Palestine
Kafra
Kafra
Location within Mandatory Palestine
Coordinates: 32°35′35″N 35°29′27″E / 32.59306°N 35.49083°E / 32.59306; 35.49083
Palestine grid196/222
Geopolitical entityMandatory Palestine
SubdistrictBaysan
Date of depopulationMay 16, 1948[2]
Area
[3]
 • Total9,172 dunams (9.172 km2 or 3.541 sq mi)
Population
 (1945)
 • Total430[4][3]
Cause(s) of depopulationInfluence of nearby town's fall

Kafra (Arabic: كفرة), was a Palestinian Arab village located 10.5 kilometres north of Baysan. Built along both sides of the Wadi Kafra, the village had been known by this name since at least the time of the Crusades.[5] It was depopulated by the Israel Defense Forces during the 1948 Palestine War on May 16, 1948.[2]

History

Adolf Neubauer connected it with a place mentioned in the Talmud, called Kefra.[6][7]

The Crusaders spelled it Cafra.[5]

Ottoman era

In 1870/1871 (1288 AH), an Ottoman census listed the village in the nahiya (sub-district) of Shafa al-Shamali.[8]

In 1875, Victor Guérin visited and found many basalt ruins, but the village itself was deserted.[9]

In 1882, the PEF's Survey of Western Palestine described the village as being "a ruined village with traces of antiquity. Dr. Tristram mentions it as inhabited in 1866, and containing drafted masonry, but the ruins do not appear important."[10]

British mandate era

In the 1922 census of Palestine, conducted by the Mandatory Palestine authorities, Kafra had a population of 273; all Muslims,[11] increasing slightly in the 1931 census to 298; all Muslims except 1 Christian, in a total of 81 houses.[12]

In the 1945 statistics, the population was 430 Muslims,[4] with a total of 9,172 dunams of land.[3] Of this, 36 dunams were for plantations and irrigated land, 7,284 for cereals,[13] while 18 were built-up land.[14]

References

  1. ↑ Palmer, 1881, p. 162
  2. 1 2 Morris, 2004, p. xvii, village #118. Also gives cause of depopulation
  3. 1 2 3 Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 43
  4. 1 2 Department of Statistics, 1945, p. 6
  5. 1 2 Khalidi, 1992, p. 52
  6. ↑ Neubauer, 1868, p. 277
  7. ↑ Conder and Kitchener, 1882, SWP II, p. 100
  8. ↑ Grossman, David (2004). Arab Demography and Early Jewish Settlement in Palestine. Jerusalem: Magnes Press. p. 256.
  9. ↑ Guérin, 1880, p. 128
  10. ↑ Conder and Kitchener, 1882, SWP II, p. 119
  11. ↑ Barron, 1923, Table IX, p. 31
  12. ↑ Mills, 1932, p. 79
  13. ↑ Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 85
  14. ↑ Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 134

Bibliography

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.