Sheikh Badr, Jerusalem

Sheikh Badr was on a hilltop south of Jaffa Road, extending from the present-day Hebrew University of Jerusalem at Givat Ram to the Jerusalem International Convention Center (Binyanei HaUma). Its western flank was bordered to the north by the Jewish neighborhood of Romema,Khalidi, 1992, p. 303 founded in 1921,{{cite news |url=http://www.jpost.com/IsraelGuide/JerusalemAreaTours/Article.aspx?id=166732 |title= Walking Tour: Authentic Romema |publisher=The Jerusalem Post |first= Aviva |last= Bar-Am |date= 10 April 2008 |access-date=23 October 2012}} placing it close to the entrance to the city of Jerusalem.

The site is now occupied by the International Convention Center and the Crowne Plaza Hotel.{{cite book | author = Ruth Kark and Michal Oren-Nordheim | page = 151 | title = Jerusalem and its Environs | publisher = The Hebrew University Magnus Press and Wayne State University Press | year = 2001}}

Archaeological excavations indicate that the area of Sheikh Badr was inhabited from Iron Age II to the Byzantine period (late 8th century BCE to early 7th century CE). It appears to have been "strategically located at the top of the ascent from the coastal plain (or descent for those leaving the Old City of Jerusalem)". Digs were carried out in 1949, 1968 and 1992–1993.

An Ottoman village list of about 1870 described Schech Bedr as a Muslim Wali in Jerusalem, with ruins from earlier settlements.Socin, 1879, p. [https://archive.org/stream/zeitschriftdesde01deut#page/160/mode/1up 160]

During the British Mandate for Palestine, Sheikh Badr was a semi-rural Arab village in western Jerusalem which benefited from its proximity to the major Jewish neighborhoods and thus increased employment opportunities.{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Os3pePtpyUwC&q=sheikh+badr+jerusalem&pg=PA64 |title=The Politics of Jerusalem Since 1967 |first=Michael |last=Dumper |publisher=Columbia University Press |year=1997 |isbn=0231106408|page=64}} The villagers grew wheat in what is now Sacher Park.Alcalay, Ammiel. [https://books.google.com/books?id=OhPhho0x3TkC&dq=sheikh+badr&pg=PA292 "I Had Thought of Writing a Book Based on the Following Facts"], in Sephardic-American Voices: Two hundred years of a literary legacy, Diane Matza, ed. 1998: UPNE, p. 291. {{ISBN|0874518903}}.

During the 1947–1948 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine, the Haganah set in motion a plan to occupy (and if met with resistance, evacuate) Arab villages in order to protect nearby Jewish communities and to strengthen the Jewish hold on these sites. Sheikh Badr and Lifta were the first Arab villages to undergo mass evacuation. To create a "general air of insecurity" that would speed up the process, the Lehi blew up the home of the village mukhtar, Haj Suleiman Hamini, on January 11, 1948.Krystall, Nathan [http://www.badil.org/phocadownload/Badil_docs/publications/Jerusalem1948-CHAP4.PDF "The Fall of the New City 1947–1950"] in Jerusalem 1948: The Arab Neighbourhoods and their Fate in the War, Salim Tamari, ed. Jerusalem: Institute for Jerusalem Studies and Badil Resource Center, 1999. Retrieved 23 October 2012. Two days later Haganah launched another raid on Sheikh Badr, damaging 20 houses. The Arab residents evacuated Sheikh Badr between January 14 and 19, after which British policemen came in to guard the vacated homes. However, Jews from the neighborhood of Nahlaot made several raids on the deserted village, destroying and setting fire to remaining property.{{Cite web|url=http://www.palestine-encyclopedia.com/EPP/Chapter07_2of7.htm|title=Encyclopedia of the Palestine Problem|year=1991|publisher=palestine-encyclopedia.com|access-date=23 October 2012|archive-date=20 February 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120220032305/http://www.palestine-encyclopedia.com/EPP/Chapter07_2of7.htm|url-status=dead}}

File:Sb_cemetery_2.JPG.]]

Until 1948, Jewish burials in Jerusalem were conducted in the centuries-old Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives. In January 1948, the Arab siege of Jerusalem made the Mount of Olives inaccessible, as the route to the cemetery passed through hostile Arab villages.{{cite web |url=http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P1-188515070.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140610053926/http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P1-188515070.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=10 June 2014 |title=The Path of Justice |first=Aviva |last=Bar-Am |date=31 December 2010 |access-date=7 October 2012 |work=The Jerusalem Post}} (subscription required) After war broke out in May 1948, two temporary burial grounds were opened in central Jerusalem – one in Sheikh Badr and the other on the grounds of the first Shaare Zedek Hospital.{{cite web |url=http://www.jewish-funerals.org/har-menuchos-cemetery |title=Burial in Jerusalem: The Har Menuchos Cemetery – Part I |first=M. |last=Samsonowitz |date=16 October 2002 |access-date=7 October 2012 |publisher=Dei'ah VeDibur |archive-date=17 December 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151217123803/http://www.jewish-funerals.org/har-menuchos-cemetery |url-status=dead }}

File:S bader view.JPG. The Israel Supreme Court building is at right.]]

The Sheikh Badr cemetery functioned as a temporary burial ground from its opening on May 31, 1948, through late 1950. Unlike regular Jewish burials in Israel in which the deceased is placed directly into the grave, the deceased in Sheikh Badr were placed in wooden caskets above-ground to expedite their removal once the war ended. An adjoining quarry was also used for burials; here, bodies were buried in three layers, one atop the other, with a layer of dirt between each one. In late 1950, approximately 300 soldiers buried in the cemetery were reinterred on Mount Herzl, and 600 civilians were reinterred on Har HaMenuchot.Rossoff, Dovid (2005), pp. 389–390. In mid-1955, the decision was made to bury the remaining bodies in the Sheikh Badr cemetery in earth and to erect a headstone over each grave.

In 1949 Sheikh Badr was incorporated into a larger area renamed Givat Ram.{{cite web |url=http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~semitic/wl/publications/binyaneihauma.html |title=Excavations on the Site of the Jerusalem International Convention Center (Binyanei Ha'uma): The Pottery and Other Small Finds |first1=B |last1=Arubas |first2=H |last2=Goldfus |publisher=Shelby White-Leon Levy Program for Archaeological Publications |access-date=23 October 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060521073023/http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~semitic/wl/publications/binyaneihauma.html |archive-date=21 May 2006 }}

• Yitzhak Navon

• Depopulated Palestinian locations in Israel
• List of villages depopulated during the Arab-Israeli conflict

{{reflist}}

{{refbegin}}

• {{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|last1=Conder|first1=C.R.|author-link1=Claude Reignier Conder|last2=Kitchener|first2=H.H.|author-link2=Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener|year=1883|url=https://archive.org/details/surveyofwesternp03conduoft|title=The Survey of Western Palestine: Memoirs of the Topography, Orography, Hydrography, and Archaeology|location=London|publisher=Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund|volume=3}}
• {{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|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}}
• {{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 journal | author = Socin, A. | author-link = Albert Socin| title = Alphabetisches Verzeichniss von Ortschaften des Paschalik Jerusalem | journal = Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins | volume = 2 | pages = 135–163 | url = https://archive.org/details/zeitschriftdesde01deut | year = 1879}}

{{Refend}}

• [http://www.palestineremembered.com/GeoPoints/al_Shaykh_Badr_3821/index.html Welcome To al-Shaykh Badr]
• Survey of Western Palestine, Map 17: [http://www.iaa-archives.org.il/zoom/zoom.aspx?folder_id=93&type_id=6&id=8379 IAA], [http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Survey_of_Western_Palestine_1880.17.jpg Wikimedia commons]

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

Category:Neighbourhoods of Jerusalem

Category:Iron Age sites in Israel

Category:1948 disestablishments in Mandatory Palestine