Ijzim

The site of the village shows evidence of habitation since prehistoric times.Uzi ‘Ad and Kareem Sa‘id (2021) It flourished especially in the Byzantine and Mamluk periods. Multiple oil presses indicate a rural economy with olives as a major product.

In 1517 Ijzim was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire with the rest of Palestine. During the 16th and 17th centuries, it belonged to the Turabay Emirate (1517-1683), which encompassed also the Jezreel Valley, Haifa, Jenin, Beit She'an Valley, northern Jabal Nablus, Bilad al-Ruha/Ramot Menashe, and the northern part of the Sharon plain.{{Cite web |last1=al-Bakhīt |first1=Muḥammad ʻAdnān |last2=al-Ḥamūd |first2=Nūfān Rajā |title=Daftar mufaṣṣal nāḥiyat Marj Banī ʻĀmir wa-tawābiʻihā wa-lawāḥiqihā allatī kānat fī taṣarruf al-Amīr Ṭarah Bāy sanat 945 ah |url=https://www.worldcat.org/title/28579982 |access-date=2023-05-15 |website=www.worldcat.org |publisher=Jordanian University |pages=1–35 |language=en |publication-place=Amman |publication-date=1989}}{{Cite journal |last1=Marom |first1=Roy |last2=Marom |first2=Tepper |last3=Adams |first3=Matthew, J |title=Lajjun: Forgotten Provincial Capital in Ottoman Palestine |url=https://www.academia.edu/101515579 |journal=Levant |date=2023 |volume=55 |issue=2 |pages=218–241 |doi=10.1080/00758914.2023.2202484|s2cid=258602184 }}

In 1596, Ijzim was a village in the nahiya of Shafa (liwa' of Lajjun), with a population of 10 Muslim households; an estimated 55 persons. The villagers paid a fixed tax rate of 25% on a number of crops, including wheat, barley, and olives as well as on other types of produce, such as goats and beehives; a total of 12,000 akçe.Hütteroth and Abdulfattah, 1977, p. 158. As estimated in Khalidi, 1992, p. 164

The village appeared as Egzim on the map that Pierre Jacotin compiled during Napoleon's invasion of 1799.Karmon, 1960, p. [http://www.jchp.ucla.edu/Bibliography/Karmon,_Y_1960_Jacotin_Map_(IEJ_10).pdf 163] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191222063351/http://jchp.ucla.edu/Bibliography/Karmon,_Y_1960_Jacotin_Map_(IEJ_10).pdf |date=2019-12-22 }}

Ijzim was the home of the Madi family and the largest locality in the region during part of the 18th and first half of the 19th century. The Madi family hailed from the coastal region south of Mount Carmel and the western slopes of Jabal Nablus.Schölch, 1993, p. 182 At the time, the Madi were the most influential family in the southern Galilee and on the coast.Rogers, 1855, [https://books.google.com/books?id=g8hsC7vJk0YC&pg=PA31 p.31], and others, quoted in Schölch, 1993, p. 182. The family was particularly influential between the end of Jazzar Pasha´s rule (1804) and the Egyptian occupation (1831). Mas'ud al-Madi was the governor of Gaza at the time of the Egyptian invasion. He was killed in the peasant revolt in 1834,Rustum, Asad Jibrail: "New Light on the Peasants ´Revolt in Palestine April–September, 1834," JPOS 10 (1934), pp.11-15, quoted in Schölch, 1993, p.182 while other clan members were imprisoned. Some fled to Constantinople. After the return of the Ottomans, some family members were appointed as sheikhs or governors in Ijzim, Haifa, and Safad.Muhammad al-Madi was governor of Haifa as late as 1855, Public Record Office, London, Foreign Office, Series 78 (1853-1883), vol 1120 (Sidon, 29 September 1855), quoted in Schölch, 1993, p.182 By the 1850s, the al-Madi family of Ijzim no longer constituted a local power like some families of Nablus or Hebron.

In 1859 British Consul Rodgers visited the village and estimated that there were 1,000 inhabitants cultivating 64 feddans of land.Conder and Kitchener, 1882, SWP II, p. [https://archive.org/stream/surveyofwesternp02conduoft#page/41/mode/1up 41]. Quoted in Khalidi, 1992, p.164 The French explorer Victor Guérin visited in 1870 and found "an ancient marble column at the door of a mosque; in the valley below the village a large square well, built with regular stones and surmounted by a vaulted construction. Near the well a birket, no longer used, and partly filled up, and close at hand the foundations of an ancient tower, measuring 15 paces by 10, and built with large masonry."Guérin, 1875, p. [https://archive.org/stream/descriptiongogr04gugoog#page/n325/mode/1up 300], as translated by Conder and Kitchener, 1882, SWP II, p. [https://archive.org/stream/surveyofwesternp02conduoft#page/53/mode/1up 53] In 1873, the Survey of Western Palestine surveyed three ancient rock-cut tombs north of the village.Conder and Kitchener, 1882, SWP II, p. [https://archive.org/stream/surveyofwesternp02conduoft#page/53/mode/1up 53]

The most known native families there was the (Zidan and Awaga (the largest family of the village) Ammar, Jizmawi, Bani Hermas (Beit Madi, Beit Khadish), Al-Awasi and Al-Zayd [and among them Mishnish], Al-Azayza Abd Al-Hadi, Al-Wishahi, Al-Balwata, Al-Tawafshah, Eid, Awad, Mohsen, Abu Hamda, Abu Shuqur, Abu Shuqair, Al-Wawi, Al-Jabr, Jiyab, Abu Omar, Abu Shakra and the heart of The Abd al-Mu’ti family: the family of Nawfal, al-Darawsheh, Abu Hamed, Abu Sariya, Abu Khalifa, al-Farayza, Asaad, al-Nabhani, Ghuraify, and Abu Harb).

In the 1922 census of Palestine conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Ijzim had a population 1,610, one Christian and the rest Muslims.Barron, 1923, Table XI, Sub-district of Haifa, p. [https://archive.org/stream/PalestineCensus1922/Palestine%20Census%20%281922%29#page/n35/mode/1up 33] In the 1931 census Ijzim was counted together with Khirbat Al-Manara, Al-Mazar and Qumbaza. The total population was 2,160, 88 Christians, 2,082 Muslims, in a total of 442 houses.Mills, 1932, p. [https://archive.org/details/CensusOfPalestine1931.PopulationOfVillagesTownsAndAdministrativeAreas 91]

In the 1945 statistics the population of Ijzim was 2,970; 2,830 Muslims and 140 Christians, and it had 45,905 dunams of land according to an official land and population survey. 2,367 dunams were for plantations and irrigable land, 17,791 for cereals,Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. [http://www.palestineremembered.com/download/VillageStatistics/Table%20II/Haifa/Page-090.jpg 90] while 91 dunams were built-up (urban) land.Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. [http://www.palestineremembered.com/download/VillageStatistics/Table%20III/Haifa/Page-140.jpg 140]

File:Jaba 1938.jpg

File:Jaba 1945.jpg

{{See also|Kerem Maharal}}

Ijzim was one of the three villages in the Little Triangle that blocked the Jewish transportation in the main Tel Aviv-Haifa Highway for many months during the 1948 war. Jewish forces had twice attempted to capture the village unsuccessfully. Their third attempt on the 24 July 1948 involved the use of cannon fire and air strikes in a fierce battle that lasted two days. This took place during an official truce in the fighting, the attack was therefore called a "police action", and the Israeli authorities later lied to the United Nations, claiming that no military planes were involved.Morris, 2004, pp. [https://books.google.com/books?id=uM_kFX6edX8C&pg=PA438 438]-441 An Israeli intelligence officer later reported that upon entering the village on July 28 "our forces collected 200 corpses, many of them civilians killed by our bombardment".The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, Ilan Pappe, Oneworld, Oxford, 2006, p.164-165

With the conquest of Ijzim, the majority of the villagers either were expelled or fled. The majority ended up in the Jenin area, on the other side of the armistice lines drawn in 1949. Others took refuge in the nearby Druze village of Daliyat al-Carmel. There were several dozen people from Ijzim that were allowed to remain in their homes due to connections they enjoyed with influential Jews. These individuals continued to work their fertile land, sending the agricultural produce to Haifa. They were registered in the first Israeli census and received Israeli identity cards.

In December 1948, the Jewish protectors of the residents of Ijzim and the Haifa district military commander had a dispute over the villagers' continued presence there. It was decided that the villagers that had remained in Ijzim could stay and those who had taken refuge in Daliyat al-Carmel would be permitted to return. However, the district commander later went back on his word and ordered the eviction of the villagers, who then took shelter in the nearby village of Fureidis.

Meron Benvenisti submits that one of the considerations leading to the eviction of the inhabitants of Ijzim was the interest of settlement agency officials in turning Ijzim into an immigrant moshav. In the summer of 1949, just a few months after the villagers had been evicted, a moshav made up of immigrants from Czechoslovakia and Romania was established in Ijzim.

In many other villages depopulated during the 1948 Palestinian exodus, the Arab houses were demolished and permanent Jewish settlements were built where they had stood. However, the homes of Ijzim were maintained for habitation by the new immigrants. The al-Madi family's luxurious seventeenth-century madafeh (guest house, see Diwan-khane) was transformed into a museum and then the home of a Jewish family, the village school became a synagogue, and the village cemetery, a public park. The large village mosque, constructed in the nineteenth century, was left to fall into dereliction.

Some of the villagers of Ijzim attempted to hold on to their land, living for a few years in tin-roofed shacks and other temporary structures. However, all of them — with the exception of one family — finally broke down and agreed to exchange their land holdings in Ijzim for building plots in the village of Fureidis. The one Arab family that withstood the pressure to leave continues to live in its own house beside a sacred spring called Sitt Maqura, where today both Arabs and Jews come to pray and light candles.

Ami Ayalon, a former head of the Shin Bet secret service agency, lives in one of the former houses of Ijzim.Pappe, 2006, p. [https://books.google.com/books?id=yjeXQVmGrwcC&pg=PA164 164]

Andrew Petersen, an archaeologist specializing in Islamic architecture, surveyed the village in 1994, and described two larger structures; the mosque and the "castle".Petersen, 2001, pp. [https://www.academia.edu/21539664/Gazetteer_4_D-J 152-154]

Ijzim is among the Palestinian villages for which commemorative Marches of Return have taken place, such as those organized by the Association for the Defence of the Rights of the Internally Displaced.{{Cite web |last=Charif |first=Maher |title=Meanings of the Nakba |url=https://www.palquest.org/en/highlight/6585/meanings-nakba |access-date=2023-12-05 |website=Interactive Encyclopedia of the Palestine Question – palquest |language=en}}

• Adnan Awad, politician, revolutionary
• Mas'ud al-Madi, politician, revolutionary
• Mu'in al-Madi, politician
• Taqiuddin al-Nabhani, judge, Islamic scholar, politician
• Yusuf an-Nabhani, judge, poet, Islamic scholar

• Depopulated Palestinian locations in Israel

{{reflist|25em}}

{{refbegin}}

• {{cite journal | author = Uzi ‘Ad and Kareem Sa‘id | title = Remains from the prehistoric to the late Ottoman periods at Kerem Maharal | journal = 'Atiqot | volume = 105 | year = 2021 | pages = 69–199, 168–171 | url = http://www.atiqot.org.il/ArticleList.aspx?id=1055 }}
• {{cite book |editor = Barron, J.B. |title = Palestine: Report and General Abstracts of the Census of 1922 |url = https://archive.org/details/PalestineCensus1922 |publisher = Government of Palestine |year = 1923 }}
• {{cite book|title=Sacred Landscape: The Buried History of the Holy Land Since 1948|url=https://archive.org/details/sacredlandscapeb00benvrich|url-access=registration|first=M.|last=Benvenisti|author-link=Meron Benvenisti|year=2000|isbn=978-0-520-23422-2|publisher=University of California Press}}
• {{cite book|last1=Conder|first1=C.R.|author-link1=Claude Reignier Conder|last2=Kitchener|first2=H.H.|author-link2=Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener|year=1882|url=https://archive.org/details/surveyofwesternp02conduoft|title=The Survey of Western Palestine: Memoirs of the Topography, Orography, Hydrography, and Archaeology|location=London|publisher=Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund|volume=2}}
• {{cite book|title=Village Statistics, April, 1945|url=http://web.nli.org.il/sites/nli/Hebrew/library/Pages/BookReader.aspx?pid=856390|author=Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics|year=1945}}
• {{cite book|last=Guérin|first=V.|author-link=Victor Guérin|title=Description Géographique Historique et Archéologique de la Palestine|url=https://archive.org/details/descriptiongogr04gugoog|volume=2: Samarie, pt. 2|year=1875|publisher=L'Imprimerie Nationale|location=Paris|language=fr}}
• {{cite book|title=Village Statistics of 1945: A Classification of Land and Area ownership in Palestine|url=http://www.palestineremembered.com/Articles/General-2/Story3150.html|first=S.|last=Hadawi|author-link=Sami Hadawi|year=1970|publisher=Palestine Liberation Organization Research Center}}
• {{cite book |last1=Hütteroth|first1=W.-D.|author-link1=Wolf-Dieter Hütteroth |first2=K. | last2=Abdulfattah |author-link2=Kamal Abdulfattah|title=Historical Geography of Palestine, Transjordan and Southern Syria in the Late 16th Century |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wqULAAAAIAAJ |year=1977 |publisher=Erlanger Geographische Arbeiten, Sonderband 5. Erlangen, Germany: Vorstand der Fränkischen Geographischen Gesellschaft |isbn=3-920405-41-2 }}
• {{cite journal|author = Karmon, Y.|title = An Analysis of Jacotin's Map of Palestine|url = http://www.jchp.ucla.edu/Bibliography/Karmon,_Y_1960_Jacotin_Map_(IEJ_10).pdf|journal = Israel Exploration Journal|volume = 10|issue = 3,4|year = 1960|pages = 155–173; 244–253|access-date = 2015-04-28|archive-date = 2019-12-22|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20191222063351/http://jchp.ucla.edu/Bibliography/Karmon,_Y_1960_Jacotin_Map_(IEJ_10).pdf|url-status = dead}}
• {{cite book|title=All That Remains: The Palestinian Villages Occupied and Depopulated by Israel in 1948|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_By7AAAAIAAJ|first=W.|last=Khalidi|author-link=Walid Khalidi|year=1992|location=Washington D.C.|publisher=Institute for Palestine Studies|isbn=0-88728-224-5}}
• {{cite book | editor = Mills, E. | title = Census of Palestine 1931. Population of Villages, Towns and Administrative Areas | url = https://archive.org/details/CensusOfPalestine1931.PopulationOfVillagesTownsAndAdministrativeAreas | publisher = Government of Palestine | location = Jerusalem | year = 1932 }}
• {{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uM_kFX6edX8C |first=B. |last=Morris |author-link=Benny Morris |year=2004 |title=The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited |isbn=978-0-521-00967-6 |publisher=Cambridge University Press }}
• Mülinen, Egbert Friedrich von 1908, [https://archive.org/details/beitrgezurkennt00mlgoog Beiträge zur Kenntnis des Karmels] "Separateabdruck aus der Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palëstina-Vereins Band XXX (1907) Seite 117-207 und Band XXXI (1908) Seite 1-258." Ikzim p.[https://archive.org/stream/beitrgezurkennt00mlgoog#page/n230/mode/2up 287] ff
• {{cite book|last=Palmer|first=E.H.|author-link=Edward Henry Palmer|year=1881|url=https://archive.org/details/surveyofwesternp00conduoft|title=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|publisher=Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund}}
• {{cite book|last=Pappé|first=I.|author-link=Ilan Pappé|year=2006|url=https://archive.org/details/ethniccleansingo00papp|url-access=registration|title=The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine|location=London and New York|publisher=Oneworld|isbn=1-85168-467-0}}
• {{cite book|last=Petersen|first=Andrew|title=A Gazetteer of Buildings in Muslim Palestine (British Academy Monographs in Archaeology)|url=https://www.academia.edu/21539664|volume=1|year=2001|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-727011-0}}
• Rogers, Edward Thomas (1855) [https://books.google.com/books?id=g8hsC7vJk0YC Notices of the modern Samaritans: illustrated by incidents in the life of Jacob Esh Shelaby] Published by S.Low, 55 pages
• {{cite book|title=Palestine in Transformation, 1856-1882: Studies in Social, Economic, and Political Development|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cMVtAAAAMAAJ|first1=Alexander|last1=Schölch|year=1993|publisher=Institute for Palestine Studies|isbn=0-88728-234-2}}
• {{cite journal | last = Schumacher | first = G. | author-link = Gottlieb Schumacher | title = Population list of the Liwa of Akka | journal = Quarterly Statement - Palestine Exploration Fund | volume = 20 | pages = 169–191 | url = https://archive.org/details/quarterlystateme19pale | year = 1888 }}
• {{cite book|title=Corpus Inscriptionum Arabicarum Palaestinae, H-I|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=X1uNAgAAQBAJ|first=M.|last=Sharon|author-link=Moshe Sharon|year=2013|volume=5|publisher=BRILL|isbn=978-90-04-25097-0}} (Sharon, 2013, p. [https://books.google.com/books?id=X1uNAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA303 303])

{{refend}}

• [http://www.palestineremembered.com/Haifa/Ijzim/index.html Welcome To Ijzim]
• [http://www.zochrot.org/en/village/48978 Ijzim], Zochrot
• Survey of Western Palestine, Map 8: [https://web.archive.org/web/20141015091439/http://www.iaa-archives.org.il/zoom/zoom.aspx?folder_id=93&type_id=6&id=8389 IAA], [http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Survey_of_Western_Palestine_1880.08.jpg Wikimedia commons]
• {{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20120817221713/http://www.jalili48.com/pub/xENShowGallery.aspx?Sub=What_Remained_of_the_destroyed&Sub2=Ijzim Ijzim photos]}}, from Dr. Moslih Kanaaneh
• [http://www.alnakba.org/villages/haifa/ijzim.htm Ijzim], from the Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center

{{Palestinian Arab villages depopulated during the 1948 Palestine War}}

Category:Arab villages depopulated during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War

Category:District of Haifa