Safsaf

Safsaf (Arabic: صفصاف‎, the weeping willow, also known in Roman times as Safsofa) was a Palestinian village located 9 kilometres northwest of Safed, present-day Israel. Its villagers fled to Lebanon after the Safsaf massacre in October 1948, during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War.

Not to be confused with Safsaf, Libya.
Safsaf

صفصاف

Safsofa
Village
Safsaf in 1938
Etymology: "the Osier willow"[1]
1870s map
1940s map
modern map
1940s with modern overlay map
A series of historical maps of the area around Safsaf (click the buttons)
Safsaf
Location within Mandatory Palestine
Coordinates: 33°00′42″N 35°26′44″E
Palestine grid192/268
Geopolitical entityMandatory Palestine
SubdistrictSafad
Date of depopulation29 October 1948[2]
Area
 • Total7,391 dunams (7.391 km2 or 2.854 sq mi)
Population
 (1945)
 • Total910[4][3]
Cause(s) of depopulationMilitary assault by Yishuv forces
Secondary causeFear of being caught up in the fighting
Current LocalitiesKfar Hoshen,[5][6] Bar Yohai[7]

History

The village was called Safsofa in Roman times.[8]

According to Yaqut, it was harried in 950 CE by the Hamdanid ruler of Aleppo, Sayf al-Dawla.[9]

Ottoman era

In the early sixteenth century CE, Safsaf was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire, and by the 1596 tax records, it was a village in the nahiyah ("subdistrict") of Jira, part of Sanjak Safad. It had a population of 25 households, an estimated 138 persons, all Muslim. The villagers paid a fixed tax rate of 25% on several agricultural items, including wheat, barley, olives and fruits, as well as other types of produce, such as beehives and goats; a total of 3,714 akçe. A quarter of the revenue went to a waqf (religious endowment).[10][11]

In 1838 Safsaf was noted as a village in the Safad district,[12] while in 1875 Victor Guérin described it as a village with fifteen Muslim families.[13]

In 1881 the PEF's Survey of Western Palestine described Safsaf as a small village situated on a plain, with a population of about 100. They also noted that "ornamented stones of a preexisting public building" had been built into the doorway of the village mosque.[14] The villagers cultivated olive and fig trees and vineyards.[15]

A population list from about 1887 showed Safsaf to have about 740 inhabitants, all Muslim.[16]

British Mandate era

Safsaf became a part of the British Mandate in 1922. During this time, the village lay on the eastern side of the Safad-Tarshiha highway and extended in a northeast-southwest direction. All the residents of Safsaf were Muslims. A mosque and several shops were located in the village center, and an elementary school was established during this period. Agriculture was the main economic activity, and it was both irrigated from springs and rainfed. Fruits and olives were cultivated on the land north of the village.[6]

In the 1922 census of Palestine Safsaf had a population of 521 Muslims,[17] increasing in the 1931 census to 662, still all Muslims, in a total of 124 houses.[18]

Safsaf. 1945. Survey of Palestine

In the 1945 statistics the population was 910 Muslims,[4] with a total of 7,391 dunams of land, according to an official land and population survey.[3] Of this, a total of 2,586 dunums were allotted to cereals; 769 dunums were irrigated or used for orchards,[6][19] while a 72 dunams was built-up (urban) area.[20]

1948, and aftermath
Main article: Safsaf massacre

On October 29, 1948, Israeli forces assaulted the village as part of Operation Hiram.[21] After the villagers surrendered, some 50-70 men were massacred while bound and four women reported being raped.[6][22][23][24] The IDF records for this massacre remain classified.

In 1949 Kfar Hoshen was established on village land, followed by Bar Yohai in 1979, also on village land.[6]

In 1992 the village site was described: "The site is overgrown with grass and scattered trees among which can be seen a few terraces and piles of stones from destroyed houses. A few houses are inhabited by Israelis. A fraction of surrounding land is cultivated by the settlements, and the rest is forested."[6]

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See also
  • List of Arab towns and villages depopulated during the 1948 Palestinian exodus
  • Killings and massacres during the 1948 Palestine War

References
  1. Palmer, 1881, p. 95
  2. Morris, 2004, p. xvi, village #45. Also gives causes of depopulation.
  3. Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 71
  4. Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics, 1945, p. 11
  5. Morris, 2004, p. xxi, Settlement #49, established January 1949.
  6. Khalidi, 1992, p. 491
  7. Established in 1979. Khalidi, 1992, p. 491
  8. Khalidi, 1992, p. 490
  9. Le Strange, 1890, p. 526
  10. Hütteroth and Abdulfattah, 1977, p.177, quoted in Khalidi, 1992, p. 490
  11. Note that Rhode, 1979, p. 6 writes that the register that Hütteroth and Abdulfattah studied was not from 1595/6, but from 1548/9
  12. Robinson and Smith, 1841, vol 3, 2nd appendix, p. 134
  13. Guérin, 1880, pp. 418-419
  14. Conder and Kitchener, 1881, SWP I, p. 257. Quoted in Khalidi, 1992, p. 491
  15. Conder and Kitchener, 1881, SWP I, p.200. Quoted in Khalidi, 1992, p. 491
  16. Schumacher, 1888, p. 190
  17. Barron, 1923, Table XI, Sub-district of Safad, p. 41
  18. Mills, 1932, p. 110
  19. Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 121
  20. Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 171
  21. Welcome to Safsaf, Palestine Remembered, retrieved 2007-12-12
  22. Benvenisti, 2000, p. 153
  23. Nazzal, 1978, pp. 93-96
  24. Morris, 2004, p. 481

Bibliography
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