Bayt Dajan
Encyclopedia
Bayt Dajan was a Palestinian
Arab
village situated approximately 6 kilometres (3.7 mi) southeast of Jaffa
. It is thought to have been the site of the biblical town of Beth Dagon, mentioned in the Book of Joshua
and in ancient Assyrian and Egyptian
texts.
In the mid-16th Century, Bayt Dajan formed part of an Ottoman
waqf
established by Roxelana
, the wife of Suleiman the Magnificent
, and by the late 16th century it was part of the nahiya of Ramla
in the liwa
of Gaza
. Villagers paid taxes to the Ottoman authorities for property and agricultural goods and animal husbandry conducted in the villages, including the cultivation of wheat, barley, fruit, and sesame, as well as on goats, beehives and vineyards. In the 19th Century, the village women were also locally renowned for the intricate, high quality embroidery
designs, a ubiquitous feature of traditional Palestinian costumes
.
By the time of the British Mandate in Palestine, the village housed two elementary schools, a library and an agronomic school. After an assault by the Alexandroni Brigade
during Operation Chametz on 25 April 1948 in the lead up to the 1948 Arab-Israeli war
, the village was entirely depopulated. The Israeli locality of Beit Dagan
was founded at the same site in October 1948.
n and Ancient Egypt
ian texts as "Bīt Dagana" and bet dgn respectively. Its Arabic
name, Bayt Dajan, preserves its ancient name. Beth Dagon appears in the among the list of "the uttermost cities of the tribe of the children of Judah
toward the coast of Edom
southward."
It also appears in and in the Tosephta (Ohalot 3:4) transcribed as "Beth Dagan". Moshe Sharon writes that this latter spelling, which corresponds exactly to the Arabic name, may have arisen after the village was conquered by Judea
. With Dagon
being a head deity in the Philistine pantheon of gods, Sharon speculates that under Judean control, his name was changed to Dagan, meaning "wheat", a symbol of prosperity.
Eusebius
describes the village in the 4th century CE as "very large", noting its name then as "Kafar Dagon" or "Caphardagon", situating it between Diospolis
(modern Lod) and Yamnia (Yibna
). Bayt Dajan also appears on the 6th century Map of Madaba under the name [Bet]o Dagana. Another Bayt Dajan
, not to be confused with this one, is located southeast of Nablus
.
with ruins to the southwest of Bayt Dajan, preserves the Dagon rather than Dagan spelling. In Arabic literature
, there are many references to Dajūn, which was also used to refer to Bayt Dajan itself. During his reign between 724-743 CE, the Umayyad caliph Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik
built a palace in Bayt Dajan with white marble columns. Arab
geographer al-Muqaddasi
mentions in the 10th century, a road in the Ramla
area, darb dajūn, as connecting to the town of Dajūn which had a Friday mosque
, and in a separate entry he adds that most of the town's inhabitants were Samaritans. By this time, one of the eight gates to the city of Ramla
was also named "Dajūn".
In the 11th century, Bayt Dajan served as a headquarters for the Fatimid
army in Palestine
. During the Crusader
period, Richard the Lionheart built a small castle in the village in 1191. Known as Casal Maen (or Casal Moein), it "was the utmost limit of inland occupation allowed [to the Crusaders] by Saladin," and was destroyed by Saladin
following the signing of the Treaty of Jaffa on 2 September 1192. In 1226, during Ayyubid rule, Yaqut al-Hamawi
writes that it was "one of the villages in the district of Ramlah" and devotes the rest of his discussion of it to Ahmad al-Dajani, also known as Abu Bakr Muhammad, a renowned Muslim scholar who hailed from there.
of Hasseki Sultan Imaret
in Jerusalem, established by Hasseki Hurrem Sultan (Roxelana
), the wife of Suleiman the Magnificent
. In 1596, Bayt Dajan was a village in the nahiya ("subdistrict") of Ramla, part of the Liwa of Gaza
. Villagers paid taxes to the authorities for the crops that they cultivated, which included wheat
, barley
, fruit, and sesame
as well as on other types of agricultural products, such as goat
s, beehive
s and vineyards. An Arabic inscription on marble dating to 1762 was found in Bayt Dajan. Held in the private collection of Moshe Dayan
, Moshe Sharon identified it as a dedicatory inscription for a Sufi maqam for a popular Egypt
ian saint, Ibrahim al-Matbuli, who was buried in Isdud. Also in Dayan's private collection was a headstone made of limestone with a poetic inscription in Arabic dating to 1842.
In the late 19th century, Bayt Dajan was described as moderate-sized village surrounded by olive
trees. Philip Baldensperger noted of Bayt Dajan in 1895 that:
In 1903, a cache of gold coins were found in Khirbet Dajun by villagers from Bayt Dajan, who used this site as a quarry. The discovery prompted R.A. Macalister to visit the site. Based on his observations detailed in a report for the Palestine Exploration Fund
(PEF), Macalister suggests a continuity in settlement over the historical phases in Bayt Dajan's development :
By the 20th century, the village had two elementary schools, one for boys, and one for girls. The school for boys was established during the British Mandate in Palestine in 1920. It housed a library
of 600 books and had acquired 15 dunum
s of land that were used for instruction in agronomy
. In 1934, when Fakhri al-Nashashibi
established the Arab Workers Society (AWS) in Jerusalem, an AWS branch was also opened in Bayt Dajan. By 1940, 353 males and 102 females attended the schools. In 1944-45 a total of 7,990 dunum
s of land was used for citrus
and banana
cultivation, 676 dunums for cereals and 3,195 dunums were irrigated or used for orchards.
, during the Haganah
's offensive Mivtza Hametz (Operation Hametz
) 28–30 April 1948. This operation was held against a group of villages east of Jaffa, including Bayt Dajan. According to the preparatory orders, the objective was to "opening the way [for Jewish forces] to Lydda". Though there was no explicit mention of the prospective treatment of the villagers, the order spoke of "cleansing the area" [tihur hashetah]. The final operational order stated: "Civilian inhabitants of places conquered would be permitted to leave after they are searched for weapons." On the 30 April. it was reported that the inhabitants of the Bayt Dajan had left, and that Iraqi irregulars had moved into the village.
Bayt Dajan was one of at least 8 villages destroyed by Israel's First Transfer Committee between June and July 1948 under the leadership of Joseph Weitz. On 16 June 1948, Ben-Gurion, almost certainly based on a progress report from Weitz, noted Bayt Dajan as one of the Palestinian villages that they had destroyed. On 23 September 1948 General Avner named Bayt Dajan as a suitable village for settlement for new Jewish immigrants ("olim") to Israel. There are four Israeli settlements on village lands; Beyt Dagan, established six months after the conquest, Mishmar ha-Shiv'a established in 1949, Chemed built in 1950, and Gannot, built in 1953.
The Palestinian historian Walid Khalidi
described the village in 1992: "A number of houses remain; some are deserted, others are occupied by Jewish families, or used as stores, office buildings, or warehouses. They exhibit a variety of architectural features. One inhabited house is made of concrete and has a rectangular plan, a flat roof, rectangular front windows, and two arched side windows. Another has been converted into the Eli Cohen synagogue; it is made of concrete and has a flat roof and a round-arched front door and window. Stars of David have been painted on its front door and what appears to be a garage door. One of the deserted houses is made of concrete and has a gabled, tiled roof that is starting to collapse; others are sealed and stand amidst shrubs and weeds. Cactuses and cypress, fig, and date palm trees grow on the site. The land in the vicinity is cultivated by Israelis."
counted a population of 3,840 Arab inhabitants in his 1945 land and population survey. From the 4th century CE to the 10th century, Samaritan
s populated Bayt Dajan. In 1945, Most of the inhabitants were Muslim
s, but a Christian community of 130 also existed in the village. Palestinian refugee
s amounted to 27,355 people in 1998.
White linen garments inspired by Ramallah
styles were popular, using patchwork and appliqued sequins in addition to embroidery. A key motif was the nafnuf design: a floral pattern thought to be inspired by the locally grown orange trees. The nafnuf design evolved after World War I
into embroidery running down the dress in long panels known as "branches" (erq). This erq style was the forerunner of the "6 branch" style dresses worn by Palestinian women in different regions today. In the 1920s, a lady from Bethlehem
named Maneh Hazbun came to live in Bayt Dajan after her brother bought some orange groves there. She introduced the rashek (couching
with silk
) style of embroidery, a local imitation of the Bethlehem style.
The jillayeh (the embroidered outer garment for wedding costume) used in Bayt Dajan was quite similar to those of Ramallah. The difference was in decoration and embroidery. Typical for Bayt Dajan would be a motif consisting of two triangles, mirror-faced, with or without an embroidered stripe between them, and with inverted cypress
es at the edges. A jillayeh from Bayt Dajan (c. 1920s) is exhibited at the British Museum
. The caption notes that the dress would be worn by the bride at the final ritual of wedding week celebrations, a procession known as 'going to the well'. Accompanied by all the village women in their finest dress, the bride would go to the well to present a tray of sweets to the guardian of the well and fill her pitcher with water to ensure good fortune for her home. There are also several items from Bayt Dajan and the surrounding area is in the Museum of International Folk Art
(MOIFA) collection at Santa Fe
, USA.
made Bayt Dajan the subject of one of his paintings. The work, named for the village, was one of a series of four on destroyed Palestinian villages that he produced in 1988; the others being Yalo
, Imwas
and Yibna
.
Palestinian people
The Palestinian people, also referred to as Palestinians or Palestinian Arabs , are an Arabic-speaking people with origins in Palestine. Despite various wars and exoduses, roughly one third of the world's Palestinian population continues to reside in the area encompassing the West Bank, the Gaza...
Arab
Arab
Arab people, also known as Arabs , are a panethnicity primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships playing...
village situated approximately 6 kilometres (3.7 mi) southeast of Jaffa
Jaffa
Jaffa is an ancient port city believed to be one of the oldest in the world. Jaffa was incorporated with Tel Aviv creating the city of Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel. Jaffa is famous for its association with the biblical story of the prophet Jonah.-Etymology:...
. It is thought to have been the site of the biblical town of Beth Dagon, mentioned in the Book of Joshua
Book of Joshua
The Book of Joshua is the sixth book in the Hebrew Bible and of the Old Testament. Its 24 chapters tell of the entry of the Israelites into Canaan, their conquest and division of the land under the leadership of Joshua, and of serving God in the land....
and in ancient Assyrian and Egyptian
Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. Egyptian civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh...
texts.
In the mid-16th Century, Bayt Dajan formed part of an Ottoman
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
waqf
Waqf
A waqf also spelled wakf formally known as wakf-alal-aulad is an inalienable religious endowment in Islamic law, typically denoting a building or plot of land for Muslim religious or charitable purposes. The donated assets are held by a charitable trust...
established by Roxelana
Roxelana
Haseki Hürrem Sultan was the wife of Süleyman the Magnificent of the Ottoman Empire.-Names:Sixteenth-century sources are silent as to her maiden name, but much later traditions, for example Ukrainian folk traditions first recorded in the 19th century, give it as "Anastasia" , and Polish...
, the wife of Suleiman the Magnificent
Suleiman the Magnificent
Suleiman I was the tenth and longest-reigning Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, from 1520 to his death in 1566. He is known in the West as Suleiman the Magnificent and in the East, as "The Lawgiver" , for his complete reconstruction of the Ottoman legal system...
, and by the late 16th century it was part of the nahiya of Ramla
Ramla
Ramla , is a city in central Israel. The city is predominantly Jewish with a significant Arab minority. Ramla was founded circa 705–715 AD by the Umayyad Caliph Suleiman ibn Abed al-Malik after the Arab conquest of the region...
in the liwa
Liwa (arabic)
Liwa or Liwa is an Arabic term meaning district, banner, or flag, a type of administrative division. It was interchangeable with the Turkish term "Sanjak" in the time of the Ottoman Empire. After the fall of the empire, the term was used in the Arab countries formerly under Ottoman rule...
of Gaza
Gaza
Gaza , also referred to as Gaza City, is a Palestinian city in the Gaza Strip, with a population of about 450,000, making it the largest city in the Palestinian territories.Inhabited since at least the 15th century BC,...
. Villagers paid taxes to the Ottoman authorities for property and agricultural goods and animal husbandry conducted in the villages, including the cultivation of wheat, barley, fruit, and sesame, as well as on goats, beehives and vineyards. In the 19th Century, the village women were also locally renowned for the intricate, high quality embroidery
Embroidery
Embroidery is the art or handicraft of decorating fabric or other materials with needle and thread or yarn. Embroidery may also incorporate other materials such as metal strips, pearls, beads, quills, and sequins....
designs, a ubiquitous feature of traditional Palestinian costumes
Palestinian costumes
Palestinian costumes are the traditional clothing worn by Palestinians. Foreign travelers to Palestine in the 19th and early 20th centuries often commented on the rich variety of the costumes worn, particularly by the fellaheen or village women...
.
By the time of the British Mandate in Palestine, the village housed two elementary schools, a library and an agronomic school. After an assault by the Alexandroni Brigade
Alexandroni Brigade
The Alexandroni Brigade is an Israel Defense Forces brigade that fought in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. Along with the 7th Armoured Brigade both units had 139 killed during the first battle of Latrun - Operation Ben Nun Alef .The unit is currently a reserve unit.-Katz controversy:In 1998, Teddy Katz...
during Operation Chametz on 25 April 1948 in the lead up to the 1948 Arab-Israeli war
1948 Arab-Israeli War
The 1948 Arab–Israeli War, known to Israelis as the War of Independence or War of Liberation The war commenced after the termination of the British Mandate for Palestine and the creation of an independent Israel at midnight on 14 May 1948 when, following a period of civil war, Arab armies invaded...
, the village was entirely depopulated. The Israeli locality of Beit Dagan
Beit Dagan
-Transportation:Beit Dagan's main transportation hub is the Beit Dagan Junction , between highway 44 and road 412, serving as a bus terminal for lines to Rishon LeZion, Tzrifin, Ashkelon, Tel Aviv, Petah Tikva, Rehovot, etc....
was founded at the same site in October 1948.
History
The village has a millennium long history. It is mentioned in AssyriaAssyria
Assyria was a Semitic Akkadian kingdom, extant as a nation state from the mid–23rd century BC to 608 BC centred on the Upper Tigris river, in northern Mesopotamia , that came to rule regional empires a number of times through history. It was named for its original capital, the ancient city of Assur...
n and Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. Egyptian civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh...
ian texts as "Bīt Dagana" and bet dgn respectively. Its Arabic
Arabic language
Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
name, Bayt Dajan, preserves its ancient name. Beth Dagon appears in the among the list of "the uttermost cities of the tribe of the children of Judah
Tribe of Judah
According to the Hebrew Bible, the Tribe of Judah was one of the Tribes of Israel.Following the completion of the conquest of Canaan by the Israelite tribes after about 1200 BCE, Joshua allocated the land among the twelve tribes....
toward the coast of Edom
Edom
Edom or Idumea was a historical region of the Southern Levant located south of Judea and the Dead Sea. It is mentioned in biblical records as a 1st millennium BC Iron Age kingdom of Edom, and in classical antiquity the cognate name Idumea was used to refer to a smaller area in the same region...
southward."
It also appears in and in the Tosephta (Ohalot 3:4) transcribed as "Beth Dagan". Moshe Sharon writes that this latter spelling, which corresponds exactly to the Arabic name, may have arisen after the village was conquered by Judea
Judea
Judea or Judæa was the name of the mountainous southern part of the historic Land of Israel from the 8th century BCE to the 2nd century CE, when Roman Judea was renamed Syria Palaestina following the Jewish Bar Kokhba revolt.-Etymology:The...
. With Dagon
Dagon
Dagon was originally an Assyro-Babylonian fertility god who evolved into a major northwest Semitic god, reportedly of grain and fish and/or fishing...
being a head deity in the Philistine pantheon of gods, Sharon speculates that under Judean control, his name was changed to Dagan, meaning "wheat", a symbol of prosperity.
Eusebius
Jerome
Saint Jerome was a Roman Christian priest, confessor, theologian and historian, and who became a Doctor of the Church. He was the son of Eusebius, of the city of Stridon, which was on the border of Dalmatia and Pannonia...
describes the village in the 4th century CE as "very large", noting its name then as "Kafar Dagon" or "Caphardagon", situating it between Diospolis
Lod
Lod is a city located on the Sharon Plain southeast of Tel Aviv in the Center District of Israel. At the end of 2010, it had a population of 70,000, roughly 75 percent Jewish and 25 percent Arab.The name is derived from the Biblical city of Lod...
(modern Lod) and Yamnia (Yibna
Yibna
Yibna was a Palestinian village of 5,420 inhabitants, located 15 kilometers southwest of Ramla. Yibna was occupied by Israeli forces on June 4, 1948, and was depopulated during the military assault and expulsion.-History:...
). Bayt Dajan also appears on the 6th century Map of Madaba under the name [Bet]o Dagana. Another Bayt Dajan
Beit Dajan, Nablus
Beit Dajan is a Palestinian town in the Nablus Governorate in the north central West Bank, located east of Nablus. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, it had a population of approximately 3,589 in mid-year 2006....
, not to be confused with this one, is located southeast of Nablus
Nablus
Nablus is a Palestinian city in the northern West Bank, approximately north of Jerusalem, with a population of 126,132. Located in a strategic position between Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim, it is the capital of the Nablus Governorate and a Palestinian commercial and cultural center.Founded by the...
.
Islamic era
The nearby site of Khirbet Dajūn, a telTEL
- Acronyms :TEL is a three-letter acronym for:* Tetra-ethyl lead, a gasoline additive to make leaded gasoline* Tokyo Electron, a semiconductor equipment manufacturer* Transporter erector launcher, a mobile missile launch platform...
with ruins to the southwest of Bayt Dajan, preserves the Dagon rather than Dagan spelling. In Arabic literature
Arabic literature
Arabic literature is the writing produced, both prose and poetry, by writers in the Arabic language. The Arabic word used for literature is adab which is derived from a meaning of etiquette, and implies politeness, culture and enrichment....
, there are many references to Dajūn, which was also used to refer to Bayt Dajan itself. During his reign between 724-743 CE, the Umayyad caliph Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik
Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik
Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik 10th Umayyad caliph who ruled from 723 until his death in 743. When he was born in 691 his mother named him after her father....
built a palace in Bayt Dajan with white marble columns. Arab
Arab
Arab people, also known as Arabs , are a panethnicity primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships playing...
geographer al-Muqaddasi
Al-Muqaddasi
Muhammad ibn Ahmad Shams al-Din Al-Muqaddasi , also transliterated as Al-Maqdisi and el-Mukaddasi, was a medieval Arab geographer, author of Ahsan at-Taqasim fi Ma`rifat il-Aqalim .-Biography:Al-Muqaddasi, "the Hierosolomite" was born in Jerusalem in 946 AD...
mentions in the 10th century, a road in the Ramla
Ramla
Ramla , is a city in central Israel. The city is predominantly Jewish with a significant Arab minority. Ramla was founded circa 705–715 AD by the Umayyad Caliph Suleiman ibn Abed al-Malik after the Arab conquest of the region...
area, darb dajūn, as connecting to the town of Dajūn which had a Friday mosque
Mosque
A mosque is a place of worship for followers of Islam. The word is likely to have entered the English language through French , from Portuguese , from Spanish , and from Berber , ultimately originating in — . The Arabic word masjid literally means a place of prostration...
, and in a separate entry he adds that most of the town's inhabitants were Samaritans. By this time, one of the eight gates to the city of Ramla
Ramla
Ramla , is a city in central Israel. The city is predominantly Jewish with a significant Arab minority. Ramla was founded circa 705–715 AD by the Umayyad Caliph Suleiman ibn Abed al-Malik after the Arab conquest of the region...
was also named "Dajūn".
In the 11th century, Bayt Dajan served as a headquarters for the Fatimid
Fatimid
The Fatimid Islamic Caliphate or al-Fāṭimiyyūn was a Berber Shia Muslim caliphate first centered in Tunisia and later in Egypt that ruled over varying areas of the Maghreb, Sudan, Sicily, the Levant, and Hijaz from 5 January 909 to 1171.The caliphate was ruled by the Fatimids, who established the...
army in Palestine
Palestine
Palestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....
. During the Crusader
Crusades
The Crusades were a series of religious wars, blessed by the Pope and the Catholic Church with the main goal of restoring Christian access to the holy places in and near Jerusalem...
period, Richard the Lionheart built a small castle in the village in 1191. Known as Casal Maen (or Casal Moein), it "was the utmost limit of inland occupation allowed [to the Crusaders] by Saladin," and was destroyed by Saladin
Saladin
Ṣalāḥ ad-Dīn Yūsuf ibn Ayyūb , better known in the Western world as Saladin, was an Arabized Kurdish Muslim, who became the first Sultan of Egypt and Syria, and founded the Ayyubid dynasty. He led Muslim and Arab opposition to the Franks and other European Crusaders in the Levant...
following the signing of the Treaty of Jaffa on 2 September 1192. In 1226, during Ayyubid rule, Yaqut al-Hamawi
Yaqut al-Hamawi
Yāqūt ibn-'Abdullah al-Rūmī al-Hamawī) was an Islamic biographer and geographer renowned for his encyclopedic writings on the Muslim world. "al-Rumi" refers to his Greek descent; "al-Hamawi" means that he is from Hama, Syria, and ibn-Abdullah is a reference to his father's name, Abdullah...
writes that it was "one of the villages in the district of Ramlah" and devotes the rest of his discussion of it to Ahmad al-Dajani, also known as Abu Bakr Muhammad, a renowned Muslim scholar who hailed from there.
Ottoman rule
During early Ottoman rule in Palestine, the revenues of the village of Bayt Dajan were in 1557 designated for the new waqfWaqf
A waqf also spelled wakf formally known as wakf-alal-aulad is an inalienable religious endowment in Islamic law, typically denoting a building or plot of land for Muslim religious or charitable purposes. The donated assets are held by a charitable trust...
of Hasseki Sultan Imaret
Hasseki Sultan Imaret
Hasseki Sultan Imaret was an Ottoman public soup kitchen established in Jerusalem to feed the poor during the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent...
in Jerusalem, established by Hasseki Hurrem Sultan (Roxelana
Roxelana
Haseki Hürrem Sultan was the wife of Süleyman the Magnificent of the Ottoman Empire.-Names:Sixteenth-century sources are silent as to her maiden name, but much later traditions, for example Ukrainian folk traditions first recorded in the 19th century, give it as "Anastasia" , and Polish...
), the wife of Suleiman the Magnificent
Suleiman the Magnificent
Suleiman I was the tenth and longest-reigning Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, from 1520 to his death in 1566. He is known in the West as Suleiman the Magnificent and in the East, as "The Lawgiver" , for his complete reconstruction of the Ottoman legal system...
. In 1596, Bayt Dajan was a village in the nahiya ("subdistrict") of Ramla, part of the Liwa of Gaza
Liwa (arabic)
Liwa or Liwa is an Arabic term meaning district, banner, or flag, a type of administrative division. It was interchangeable with the Turkish term "Sanjak" in the time of the Ottoman Empire. After the fall of the empire, the term was used in the Arab countries formerly under Ottoman rule...
. Villagers paid taxes to the authorities for the crops that they cultivated, which included wheat
Wheat
Wheat is a cereal grain, originally from the Levant region of the Near East, but now cultivated worldwide. In 2007 world production of wheat was 607 million tons, making it the third most-produced cereal after maize and rice...
, barley
Barley
Barley is a major cereal grain, a member of the grass family. It serves as a major animal fodder, as a base malt for beer and certain distilled beverages, and as a component of various health foods...
, fruit, and sesame
Sesame
Sesame is a flowering plant in the genus Sesamum. Numerous wild relatives occur in Africa and a smaller number in India. It is widely naturalized in tropical regions around the world and is cultivated for its edible seeds, which grow in pods....
as well as on other types of agricultural products, such as goat
Goat
The domestic goat is a subspecies of goat domesticated from the wild goat of southwest Asia and Eastern Europe. The goat is a member of the Bovidae family and is closely related to the sheep as both are in the goat-antelope subfamily Caprinae. There are over three hundred distinct breeds of...
s, beehive
Beehive
A beehive is a structure in which bees live and raise their young.Beehive may also refer to:Buildings and locations:* Bee Hive, Alabama, a neighborhood in Alabama* Beehive , a wing of the New Zealand Parliament Buildings...
s and vineyards. An Arabic inscription on marble dating to 1762 was found in Bayt Dajan. Held in the private collection of Moshe Dayan
Moshe Dayan
Moshe Dayan was an Israeli military leader and politician. The fourth Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces , he became a fighting symbol to the world of the new State of Israel...
, Moshe Sharon identified it as a dedicatory inscription for a Sufi maqam for a popular Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
ian saint, Ibrahim al-Matbuli, who was buried in Isdud. Also in Dayan's private collection was a headstone made of limestone with a poetic inscription in Arabic dating to 1842.
In the late 19th century, Bayt Dajan was described as moderate-sized village surrounded by olive
Olive
The olive , Olea europaea), is a species of a small tree in the family Oleaceae, native to the coastal areas of the eastern Mediterranean Basin as well as northern Iran at the south end of the Caspian Sea.Its fruit, also called the olive, is of major agricultural importance in the...
trees. Philip Baldensperger noted of Bayt Dajan in 1895 that:
The inhabitants are very industrious, occupied chiefly in making mats and baskets for carrying earth and stones. They own camelCamelA camel is an even-toed ungulate within the genus Camelus, bearing distinctive fatty deposits known as humps on its back. There are two species of camels: the dromedary or Arabian camel has a single hump, and the bactrian has two humps. Dromedaries are native to the dry desert areas of West Asia,...
s for carrying loads from JaffaJaffaJaffa is an ancient port city believed to be one of the oldest in the world. Jaffa was incorporated with Tel Aviv creating the city of Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel. Jaffa is famous for its association with the biblical story of the prophet Jonah.-Etymology:...
to Jerusalem, cultivate the lands, and work at building etc., in Jaffa or on the railway works. The women flock every day to Jaffa and on Wednesday to RamlehRamlaRamla , is a city in central Israel. The city is predominantly Jewish with a significant Arab minority. Ramla was founded circa 705–715 AD by the Umayyad Caliph Suleiman ibn Abed al-Malik after the Arab conquest of the region...
- to the market held there, with chickens, eggs and milk.
In 1903, a cache of gold coins were found in Khirbet Dajun by villagers from Bayt Dajan, who used this site as a quarry. The discovery prompted R.A. Macalister to visit the site. Based on his observations detailed in a report for the Palestine Exploration Fund
Palestine Exploration Fund
The Palestine Exploration Fund is a British society often simply known as the PEF. It was founded in 1865 and is still functioning today. Its initial object was to carry out surveys of the topography and ethnography of Ottoman Palestine with a remit that fell somewhere between an expeditionary...
(PEF), Macalister suggests a continuity in settlement over the historical phases in Bayt Dajan's development :
"Thus we have three epochs in the history of Beth-Dagon — the first on an as yet unknown site, from the AmoriteAmoriteAmorite refers to an ancient Semitic people who occupied large parts of Mesopotamia from the 21st Century BC...
to the RomanRoman EmpireThe Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
periods; the second at Dajiin, extending over the Roman and early Arab periods; the third at the modern Beit Dejan, lasting to the present day. It is probable that the present population could, had they the necessary documents, show a continuous chain of ancestry extending from the first city to the last."
By the 20th century, the village had two elementary schools, one for boys, and one for girls. The school for boys was established during the British Mandate in Palestine in 1920. It housed a library
Library
In a traditional sense, a library is a large collection of books, and can refer to the place in which the collection is housed. Today, the term can refer to any collection, including digital sources, resources, and services...
of 600 books and had acquired 15 dunum
Dunum
Dunum is a municipality in the district of Wittmund, in Lower Saxony, Germany....
s of land that were used for instruction in agronomy
Agronomy
Agronomy is the science and technology of producing and using plants for food, fuel, feed, fiber, and reclamation. Agronomy encompasses work in the areas of plant genetics, plant physiology, meteorology, and soil science. Agronomy is the application of a combination of sciences like biology,...
. In 1934, when Fakhri al-Nashashibi
Nashashibi
Nashashibi is the name of a prominent Palestinian family based in Jerusalem. Many of its members held senior positions in the government of Jerusalem. Raghib al-Nashashibi was Mayor of Jerusalem .- History :...
established the Arab Workers Society (AWS) in Jerusalem, an AWS branch was also opened in Bayt Dajan. By 1940, 353 males and 102 females attended the schools. In 1944-45 a total of 7,990 dunum
Dunum
Dunum is a municipality in the district of Wittmund, in Lower Saxony, Germany....
s of land was used for citrus
Citrus
Citrus is a common term and genus of flowering plants in the rue family, Rutaceae. Citrus is believed to have originated in the part of Southeast Asia bordered by Northeastern India, Myanmar and the Yunnan province of China...
and banana
Banana
Banana is the common name for herbaceous plants of the genus Musa and for the fruit they produce. Bananas come in a variety of sizes and colors when ripe, including yellow, purple, and red....
cultivation, 676 dunums for cereals and 3,195 dunums were irrigated or used for orchards.
1948 War and aftermath
In "lets not forget \Beit \Dajan Yaffa" on www.beitdajan-yaffa.com Dr Ayman Hammoudeh (Amman-Jordan) interviewed 60 men and women in 2009 and 2010 who were either born in Beit Dajan in the 1920s-1940s or visited it after 1948. They gave their personal encounters about the life in Beit Dajan before the Nakba and during the dark days of Nakba. The village of Bayt Dajan was depopulated in the weeks leading up to the 1948 Arab-Israeli war1948 Arab-Israeli War
The 1948 Arab–Israeli War, known to Israelis as the War of Independence or War of Liberation The war commenced after the termination of the British Mandate for Palestine and the creation of an independent Israel at midnight on 14 May 1948 when, following a period of civil war, Arab armies invaded...
, during the Haganah
Haganah
Haganah was a Jewish paramilitary organization in what was then the British Mandate of Palestine from 1920 to 1948, which later became the core of the Israel Defense Forces.- Origins :...
's offensive Mivtza Hametz (Operation Hametz
Operation Hametz
Operation Hametz was a Jewish operation towards the end of the British Mandate of Palestine. It was launched at the end of April 1948 with the objective of capturing villages inland from Jaffa and establishing a blockade around the town.-Background:...
) 28–30 April 1948. This operation was held against a group of villages east of Jaffa, including Bayt Dajan. According to the preparatory orders, the objective was to "opening the way [for Jewish forces] to Lydda". Though there was no explicit mention of the prospective treatment of the villagers, the order spoke of "cleansing the area" [tihur hashetah]. The final operational order stated: "Civilian inhabitants of places conquered would be permitted to leave after they are searched for weapons." On the 30 April. it was reported that the inhabitants of the Bayt Dajan had left, and that Iraqi irregulars had moved into the village.
Bayt Dajan was one of at least 8 villages destroyed by Israel's First Transfer Committee between June and July 1948 under the leadership of Joseph Weitz. On 16 June 1948, Ben-Gurion, almost certainly based on a progress report from Weitz, noted Bayt Dajan as one of the Palestinian villages that they had destroyed. On 23 September 1948 General Avner named Bayt Dajan as a suitable village for settlement for new Jewish immigrants ("olim") to Israel. There are four Israeli settlements on village lands; Beyt Dagan, established six months after the conquest, Mishmar ha-Shiv'a established in 1949, Chemed built in 1950, and Gannot, built in 1953.
The Palestinian historian Walid Khalidi
Walid Khalidi
Walid Khalidi is an Oxford University-educated Palestinian historian who has written extensively on the Palestinian exodus. He is General Secretary and co-founder of the Institute for Palestine Studies, established in Beirut in December 1963 as an independent research and publishing center...
described the village in 1992: "A number of houses remain; some are deserted, others are occupied by Jewish families, or used as stores, office buildings, or warehouses. They exhibit a variety of architectural features. One inhabited house is made of concrete and has a rectangular plan, a flat roof, rectangular front windows, and two arched side windows. Another has been converted into the Eli Cohen synagogue; it is made of concrete and has a flat roof and a round-arched front door and window. Stars of David have been painted on its front door and what appears to be a garage door. One of the deserted houses is made of concrete and has a gabled, tiled roof that is starting to collapse; others are sealed and stand amidst shrubs and weeds. Cactuses and cypress, fig, and date palm trees grow on the site. The land in the vicinity is cultivated by Israelis."
Demographics
During early Ottoman rule in 1596, there were 633 inhabitants in Bayt Dajan. In the 1922 British Mandate census, the village had 1,714 residents, rising to 2,653 in 1931. There were 591 houses in the latter year. Sami HadawiSami Hadawi
Sami Hadawi was a Palestinian scholar and author. He is known for documenting the effects of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War on the Arab population in Palestine and published statistics for individual villages prior to Israel's establishment. Hadawi worked as a land specialist until he was exiled from...
counted a population of 3,840 Arab inhabitants in his 1945 land and population survey. From the 4th century CE to the 10th century, Samaritan
Samaritan
The Samaritans are an ethnoreligious group of the Levant. Religiously, they are the adherents to Samaritanism, an Abrahamic religion closely related to Judaism...
s populated Bayt Dajan. In 1945, Most of the inhabitants were Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
s, but a Christian community of 130 also existed in the village. Palestinian refugee
Palestinian refugee
Palestinian refugees or Palestine refugees are the people and their descendants, predominantly Palestinian Arabic-speakers, who fled or were expelled from their homes during and after the 1948 Palestine War, within that part of the British Mandate of Palestine, that after that war became the...
s amounted to 27,355 people in 1998.
Culture
Bayt Dajan was known to be among the wealthiest communities in the Jaffa area, and their embroideresses were reported to be among the most artistic. A center for weaving and embroidery, it exerted influences on many other surrounding villages and towns. Costumes from Beit Dajan were noted for their varied techniques, many of which were adopted and elaborated from other local styles.White linen garments inspired by Ramallah
Ramallah
Ramallah is a Palestinian city in the central West Bank located 10 kilometers north of Jerusalem, adjacent to al-Bireh. It currently serves as the de facto administrative capital of the Palestinian National Authority...
styles were popular, using patchwork and appliqued sequins in addition to embroidery. A key motif was the nafnuf design: a floral pattern thought to be inspired by the locally grown orange trees. The nafnuf design evolved after World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
into embroidery running down the dress in long panels known as "branches" (erq). This erq style was the forerunner of the "6 branch" style dresses worn by Palestinian women in different regions today. In the 1920s, a lady from Bethlehem
Bethlehem
Bethlehem is a Palestinian city in the central West Bank of the Jordan River, near Israel and approximately south of Jerusalem, with a population of about 30,000 people. It is the capital of the Bethlehem Governorate of the Palestinian National Authority and a hub of Palestinian culture and tourism...
named Maneh Hazbun came to live in Bayt Dajan after her brother bought some orange groves there. She introduced the rashek (couching
Couching
In embroidery, couching and laid work are techniques in which yarn or other materials are laid across the surface of the ground fabric and fastened in place with small stitches of the same or a different yarn....
with silk
Silk
Silk is a natural protein fiber, some forms of which can be woven into textiles. The best-known type of silk is obtained from the cocoons of the larvae of the mulberry silkworm Bombyx mori reared in captivity...
) style of embroidery, a local imitation of the Bethlehem style.
The jillayeh (the embroidered outer garment for wedding costume) used in Bayt Dajan was quite similar to those of Ramallah. The difference was in decoration and embroidery. Typical for Bayt Dajan would be a motif consisting of two triangles, mirror-faced, with or without an embroidered stripe between them, and with inverted cypress
Cypress
Cypress is the name applied to many plants in the cypress family Cupressaceae, which is a conifer of northern temperate regions. Most cypress species are trees, while a few are shrubs...
es at the edges. A jillayeh from Bayt Dajan (c. 1920s) is exhibited at the British Museum
British Museum
The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...
. The caption notes that the dress would be worn by the bride at the final ritual of wedding week celebrations, a procession known as 'going to the well'. Accompanied by all the village women in their finest dress, the bride would go to the well to present a tray of sweets to the guardian of the well and fill her pitcher with water to ensure good fortune for her home. There are also several items from Bayt Dajan and the surrounding area is in the Museum of International Folk Art
Museum of International Folk Art
The Museum of International Folk Art is a state-run institution in Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA. It is one of many cultural institutions operated by the New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs...
(MOIFA) collection at Santa Fe
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Santa Fe is the capital of the U.S. state of New Mexico. It is the fourth-largest city in the state and is the seat of . Santa Fe had a population of 67,947 in the 2010 census...
, USA.
Artistic representations
Palestinian artist Sliman MansourSliman Mansour
Sliman Mansour , is a Palestinian painter, considered an important figure among contemporary Palestinian artists. Mansour is considered an artist of the intifada whose work gave visual expression to the cultural concept of sumud....
made Bayt Dajan the subject of one of his paintings. The work, named for the village, was one of a series of four on destroyed Palestinian villages that he produced in 1988; the others being Yalo
Yalo
Yalo was a Palestinian Arab village located 13 kilometres southeast of Ramla. Identified by Edward Robinson as the ancient Canaanite city of Aijalon, after the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, Jordan formally annexed Yalo along with the rest of the West Bank...
, Imwas
Imwas
Imwas was a Palestinian Arab village located southeast of the city of Ramla and from Jerusalem in the Latrun salient of the West Bank. Often identified with the biblical Emmaus, over the course of two millennia, Imwas was intermittently inhabited and was ruled by the Romans , Arab caliphates,...
and Yibna
Yibna
Yibna was a Palestinian village of 5,420 inhabitants, located 15 kilometers southwest of Ramla. Yibna was occupied by Israeli forces on June 4, 1948, and was depopulated during the military assault and expulsion.-History:...
.
See also
- Beit DaganBeit Dagan-Transportation:Beit Dagan's main transportation hub is the Beit Dagan Junction , between highway 44 and road 412, serving as a bus terminal for lines to Rishon LeZion, Tzrifin, Ashkelon, Tel Aviv, Petah Tikva, Rehovot, etc....
- List of Arab towns and villages depopulated during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War
- List of villages depopulated during the Arab-Israeli conflict
- Palestinian costumesPalestinian costumesPalestinian costumes are the traditional clothing worn by Palestinians. Foreign travelers to Palestine in the 19th and early 20th centuries often commented on the rich variety of the costumes worn, particularly by the fellaheen or village women...
- Sakher HabashSakher HabashSakher Habash was a Palestinian leader of the Fatah movement.-Biography:Habash was born in Bayt Dajan, near Jaffa, in 1939. He became a refugee in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, ending up first in Ramallah, then in the Balata refugee camp near Nablus...
Additional reading
- Widad KawarWidad KawarWidad Kawar is an internationally renowned collector of Jordanian and Palestinian ethnic and cultural arts. She has amassed an extensive collection of dresses, costumes, textiles, and jewelry over the past 45 years, seeking to preserve a culture that has been largely dispersed by conflict...
/Shelagh Weir: Costumes and Wedding Customs in Bayt Dajan
External links
- Palestine Remembered - Bayt Dajan
- Coat dress, in British Museum
- Black Beit Dajan dress, with a rare embroidered scarf
- Detail of a sleeve from a Beit Dajan thob al abayed, 1920's - 30's (Tareq Rajab Museum, Kuwait)
- Beit-Dajan dress, together with costumes from Safryieh and Asdoud
- Thob of Beit Dajan (Jaffa District). This "thob" is rich in embroidery, main colour is red touched with lilac and green. It has "manajel" on the sides, and is worn with a belt.
- A Book about Beit Dajan - Jaffa (Pre-release), لكي لا ننسى ... بيت دجن, by Ayman J. Hammoudeh, MD, FACC