The moslem swine lie,the villages of Galil were Jewish up to 1800's and even

[mord]

further                        http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/126601 






Shfar'am: A Jewish Town Populated by Arab Late-Comers
 
by Hillel Fendel


(IsraelNN.com) The city of Shfar'am (pop. 34,000), ten miles east of Haifa, is known today as an Arab city in the Galilee - but it was not always that.

Though today it is nearly half-Christian, a third Muslim, and the rest Druze, it was for many years a large Jewish city - and boasted a significant Jewish presence for centuries on end.

In a project recounting the Jewish origins and history of many towns in the Land of Israel that are today considered "Arab," historian Dr. Rivka Shpak-Lissak shows that Shfar'am was populated by Jews from the days of Joshua bin Nun, and from the times of the Mishnah up until only 88 years ago.

Dr. Shpak-Lissak told Israel National News that she was surprised to learn that Arabs began to settle in many towns that re today considered "Arab" only 300 years ago.  "I started to investigate these towns," she wrote on the Omedia site, which is publishing her series in Hebrew, "in order to see if it was true that the Arabs of the Galilee are actually descendants of Jews who converted to Islam. I never imagined that I would find that in most of the towns, the Arabs started to move in only in the 17th and 18th centuries" - well after the Arab conquest in the 7th century.

Shfar'am rose to the headlines in the summer of 2005 when a soldier killed four Arabs in a bus, and was then himself killed in a lynching (though the soldier was seen handcuffed and in police custody before he was killed).

Hebrew Name Changed to Arabic
Located along the ancient highway between Acco and Nazareth, Shfar'am is named in Hebrew based on the Hebrew words shofar [ram's horn] and am [nation].  Many centuries later it was given the Arabic name Shfa-Amar, for the "health of Al-Amar," referring to an Arab who conquered the city.

During the period of the Jewish rebellion against the Romans, at the end of the Second Temple period, Shfar'am was one of the largest Jewish cities in the Galilee.  It was later mentioned in the Talmud, and the Sanhedrin (Supreme Jewish Court) was headquartered there during the 2nd century C.E.

Christians began to move there during the ensuing centuries, and Moslems moved in after the Muslim conquest in the 7th century.  Centuries later, when the Crusaders passed through the Holy Land, Arabs from Shfar'am used their town as a kick-off base to attack them.  Later, however, the Crusaders were able to build a fortress in the city.

Jews continued to live there, and records show that Sephardic Jews began to move in towards the end of the 15th century.  Subsequently, Bedouin gangs began to gain more power, which they greatly abused, and Christian and Jewish residents began to leave.  After the Ottoman Turks conquered the Land in 1516, Jews began to return. 

In 1525, three Jewish families were listed as living there, and this number grew to 10 within a decade.  Jews from Tzfat later moved to Shfar'am, and in the 17th century a synagogue was built on the ruins of an ancient one.

Last Jew Left in 1920
In 1761, Shfar'am was conquered by a Bedouin, Dahar Al-Amar, who renamed the city after himself.  Over the course of the next century, travelers such as David D'Beth Hillel reported on Jewish life in the city.  During the First World War, Jews began to leave because of various difficulties, and Avraham Al-Azri, the last remaining Jew in Shfar'am, left in 1920.

Twenty years later, Shfar'am became a base for anti-Jewish Arab forces, and in the War of Independence in 1948, Israel's new army captured the area for the newborn State of Israel.

Foreigners vs. Jews in the Holy Land
The bottom line, Dr. Lissak told Israel National News, is that the Arab claim that they have been here for "thousands of years" is far from true.  "The goal of all the rulers of the Holy Land, from the times of the Romans and onward, was always to rid the Land of the Jews," she said. "Finally, they succeeded. Many Jews simply left the Land rather than convert to Islam."

Dr. Lissak's articles on the towns of Gush Halav and Kafr Kana were summarized here, and on Tzipori and Arabeh here.  Other once-Jewish cities in the Land of Israel include Bir'am, Sakhnin and Pekiin.

[mord]

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/126513 





Historian: Jewish Towns Populated by Arab Late-Comers
 
by Hillel Fendel


(IsraelNN.com) Historian Dr. Rivka Shpak-Lissak has embarked on an ambitious project, detailing the history of Jewish towns in the Land of Israel that are now known as Arab.  Seven of her articles in this series have appeared on the Omedia website, and she has many more coming.

The bottom line, Dr. Lissak told Israel National News, is that the Arabs have not been here for thousands of years, as they claim, and that in fact most of the formerly Jewish towns of the Galilee were populated by Arabs only within the last 300 years or so. 

"The goal of all the rulers of the Holy Land, from the times of the Romans and onward, was always to rid the Land of the Jews," she said. "Finally, they succeeded. Many Jews simply left the Land rather than convert to Islam."

The series began last month with a short treatise on the town of Tzipori, famous from the times of the Mishna. The article noted that the Supreme Israeli-Arab Tracking Committee was preparing a "march of return" from Nazareth to Tzipori, to mark Catastrophe Day [Israel's Independence Day].  "We should remind the marchers," wrote Dr. Lissak, "that Tzipori was a Jewish city for 2,000 years, while the [adjacent] Arab village Safuriya was founded only in 1561." 

Dr. Lissak was born in "the Land," she told Arutz-7, received a doctorate in history, and lectured in Tel Aviv University and Hebrew University. She has also specialized in American history.

Other originally-Jewish cities highlighted in the series include Kafr Kana, Biram, Pekiin, Sakhnin, Gush Halav, and Arabeh.

Kafr Kana
The latest article is on Kafr Kana, just north of Upper Nazareth in the Lower Galilee.  Some 260 Arab families lived there in 1945, and it now has a population of 18,000 people, mostly Moslems and some Christians - leading many to forget its Jewish past.  It was a Jewish city during the period of the First Temple (between 2,800 and 2,400 years ago), as well as under Persian rule during the Second Temple period several centuries later.  Josephus fortified the city against the Romans in the year 66 C.E., and after Jerusalem fell, priests from the Elyashiv watch moved to Kana.  Talmudic sages lived there, and tradition has it that Rava and Rav Huna are buried there.  Remnants of a 4th-century synagogue have been found in Kana.

Kana continued to be a thriving Jewish town in the ensuing centuries, though Christians began to move in as well.  Eighty Jewish families were reported to be living there in 1473.  Rabbi Ovadiah from Bartinura, whose student visited the town, reported that he heard that its Jews, though by then a minority among Christians, were living there peacefully.  Somewhere in the 17th century, Bedouin and Arab attacks, as well as Turkish taxation, forced the Jews out, and Arabs replaced them.

During the War of Independence 300 years later, Arab terrorist gangs from Kafr Kana attacked nearby Jewish towns, until the IDF conquered it in July 1948.

Gush Halav
Another now-Arab town whose roots are Jewish is Jish, north of Tzfat (Safed).  Known also by its Jewish name Gush Halav, the town is mentioned in the Mishna as having been walled since the times of Joshua ben Nun - i.e., nearly 3,300 years ago. Gush Halav was the last Jewish stronghold in the Galilee and Golan region during the First Jewish Revolt against Rome (66-73 CE); its fall was described at length by Josephus.

As was the case with other towns and cities in the Galilee, a dynamic Jewish presence continued in Gush Halav well into the second half of the second millennium C.E.  Archaeologists have excavated a synagogue at Gush Halav that was in use from the 3rd to 6th centuries, and a Jewish burial site similar to that at Beit She'arim has been excavated.  The Prophet Joel is said to be buried in Gush Halav. 

Many Jews continued to live in Gush Halav, but by the 18th century - by which time the town was renamed Jish - their number had dwindled.  Maronite Christians then began arriving in Jish, joining the few Jews who still remained.  In 1948, most of the population left, but Arabs from nearby villages took their place.  Jish-Gush Halav now has a population of some 2,700 - none of them Jews.

(to be continued)

[mord]

Jewish Towns Populated by Arab Late-Comers: Part 2
 
by Hillel Fendel


(IsraelNN.com) Historian Dr. Rivka Shpak-Lissak has embarked on an ambitious project, detailing the history of Jewish towns in the Land of Israel that are now known as Arab.  Seven of her articles in this series have appeared on the Omedia website, and she says she has many more coming.

The bottom line, Dr. Lissak told Arutz-7, is that the Arab claim that they have been here for "thousands of years" is far from true.  In fact, she says,  most of the Galilee's formerly Jewish towns were populated by Arabs only within the last 300 years or so - erasing many signs of the towns' Jewish origins in the process.

"The goal of all the rulers of the Holy Land, from the times of the Romans and onward, was always to rid the Land of the Jews," she said. "Finally, they succeeded. Many Jews simply left the Land rather than convert to Islam."

Dr. Lissak's articles on the towns of Gush Halav and Kafr Kana were summarized here. 

Tzipori: Coming Full-Circle
Another important once-Jewish town is Tzipori, just north of Nazareth and Migdal HaEmek, where Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi concluded his monumental work, the Mishna. When the Supreme Israeli-Arab Tracking Committee prepared a "march of return" from Nazareth to Tzipori, to mark Catastrophe Day [Israel's Independence Day], Dr. Lissak wrote, "We should remind the marchers that Tzipori was a Jewish city for 2,000 years, while the [adjacent] Arab village Safuriya was founded only in 1561." 

Tzipori was known to have been Jewish in the times of Ezra and Nechemiah, and was the administrative capital of the Galilee under the Hashmoneans (2nd century BCE).  Pompei conquered it for Rome in 63 C.E., but it remained proudly Jewish; Josephus called it the "pride of the entire Galilee." Towards the end of the 2nd century C.E., the Sanhedrin (Supreme Jewish Court) relocated to Tzipori, which served as a center for Torah study and dissemination; its scholars took part in the formation of the Jerusalem Talmud.

Beginning in the 5th century, the proportion of Christians in the town increased; there is evidence of continued Jewish presence for at least another 500 years afterwards.  The present-day Arab village of Tzafuriya was founded nearby in 1561, and its residents took part in the Arab riots against the Jews near 400 years later, in 1936-9.  During the 1948 War of Independence, Tzipori was the site of a major battle in which the young Israeli army routed Arab forces comprised of neighboring village residents and reinforcements from Syria and Lebanon.

In 1949, the modern-day Moshav Tzipori was founded by Bulgarian and Turkish Jews, joined later by Jewish immigrants from Romania.  Over 600 Jews currently live there, sometimes studying the Mishna - the marble gravesite of whose author, Rabbi Yehuda, has been uncovered nearby.

Once again, however, Arabs are trying to de-Judaize the area, Caroline Glick reports: Arab squatters from the Kablawi clan have, in recent years, built themselves an illegal village of some 20 houses in the form of storage containers on stolen Jewish land adjacent to the fields of Tzipori.  Jews in the area have established a replica of the early 20th-century HaShomer (Guardsman) for the same purpose as its forebearer: protecting Jewish farming communities from Arab marauders. 

Arabeh: Forgotten Jewish Roots
Another example of a Jewish-city-turned-Arab in the Galilee is Arabeh, six kilometers south of Carmiel.  During the Second Temple period, it was a Jewish town named Arav, the third-largest such town in the Galilee.  It was destroyed by the Romans during the Great Rebellion of 66-70, though its inhabitants had previously fled to safety.  It was later rebuilt and served as a center of Torah study; Rabi Yochanan ben Zakkai, who lived there for 18 years, and Rabi Hanina ben Dosa established a yeshiva there. 

When the Christians became more powerful in the Land, the Jews of Arav, together with the other Jews of the Galilee, suffered humilitation and the burning of their synagogues.  Even worse occurred in subsequent centuries at the hands of the Christians and ruling Byzantines.  Jewish presence in Arav apparently ended when the Arabs conquered the Holy Land in 638; even most of the Christians in the city converted to Islam.  Some 300 years ago, the Moslems conducted a massacre of the Druze residents living nearby.  Nearly 20,000 people live there today, most of them Moslems and some Christians. The town's Jewish roots are all but forgotten.

[Madeline]

It's good to report what lies buried beneath false Muslim histories.  So many civilizations have been lost forever once Islam stamps on them:  Berbers, Assyrians, Chaldeans, Nubians, Copts, Zoroastrians....and Jews.  They are considered to come from "the time of darkness, " meaning the time before the 'illumination' of Islam.  And they are mandated to be forgotten.  Can you imagine all these souls of dead civilizations crying out to be remembered, and for vengence?  It is so important to be remembered after one dies, for an individual.  And for a society too.  What the words need is a massive history lesson of all that Islam buried, including from our textbooks.