Deir Yassin
Encyclopedia
Deir Yassin was a Palestinian Arab
village of around 600 people near Jerusalem. It had declared its neutrality during the 1947–1948 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine
between Arabs and Jews. It was depopulated after a massacre
of around 107 of its residents on April 9, 1948 by paramilitaries from the Irgun
and Lehi
groups.
The village buildings are today part of the Kfar Shaul Mental Health Center
, an Israeli public psychiatric hospital.
. According to Palestinian historian Walid Khalidi
, this was a common occurrence in Palestinian village names
especially those so close to Jerusalem. A large ruin that laid at the southwestern edge of Deir Yassin was known simply as "Deir".
The nucleus of settlement activity in the area during the Ottoman
era—which began in 1517—was Khirbet Ayn al-Tut ("The Ruin of the Mulberry Spring")—some 500 metres (1,640.4 ft) west of the 1948 village site. In 1596, this village was under the administration of the nahiya ("subdistrict") of Jerusalem, part of the larger District of Jerusalem. It paid taxes on wheat, barley, and olive trees.
It is unknown precisely when settlement shifted to Deir Yassin, but it is known that the village was named in honor of a Sheikh Yassin whose tomb is in a mosque
located just outside the village. In the late 19th century, the houses of Deir Yassin were built of stone and two springs—one located in the north and another in the south—provided the village with water. Most of its houses, strongly built with thick walls, were clustered in a small area known as the Hara meaning "Quarter" or "Neighborhood". All of its inhabitants were Muslim
s. In 1906, a Jewish suburb of Jerusalem, Givat Shaul
, was built across the valley from Deir Yassin. The secondary road linking the village to Jerusalem and the road to Jaffa
ran through the suburb.
During World War I
, the Ottomans fortified the hilltop of Deir Yassin as part of the defense system of Jerusalem, but on December 8, 1917, these fortifications were stormed by the Allied Forces under Edmund Allenby. The following day Jerusalem fell to the British
. Until the 1920s, Deir Yassin's inhabitants mostly depended on agriculture and livestock for income, but the extensive building projects in Jerusalem in the British Mandate period transformed its basis of economy.
Residents began to excavate large quarries of limestone which the area around Deir Yassin was rich in. This developed into an increasingly thriving industry in stone-cutting and processing; by the late 1940s there were four stone crushers functioning in the village. The business encouraged the more prosperous inhabitants to invest in trucking and others became truck drivers. In 1935, a local bus company was established in a joint venture with the neighboring Arab village of Lifta
. As Deir Yassin prospered, houses radiated from the Hara uphill and eastward, towards Jerusalem.
In the early days of the British Mandate, Deir Yassin had no school of its own and its children attended the school at Lifta or in Qalunya
. By 1943, two elementary schools were built—one for boys and one for girls. The girls' school had a resident headmistress from Jerusalem. At this time, Deir Yassin also had a bakery, two guesthouses, and a social club—the "Renaissance Club", a thrift fund, three shops, four wells and a second mosque built by Mahmud Salah, an affluent resident. Many inhabitants were employed outside the village in the nearby British Army
camps as waiters, carpenters, and foremen; others as clerks and teachers in the mandatory civil service. By this time, no more than 15% of the population was engaged in agriculture.
Relations between Deir Yassin and its Jewish neighbors had started reasonably well under the Ottomans, particularly early on when Arabic-speaking Sephardic Yemenite Jews comprised much of the surrounding population. Relations rapidly deteriorated with the growth of Zionism
in Palestine and reached their apex during the Arab revolt in 1936-1939. Relations picked up again during the economic boom years of full employment of World War II
. Thus, in 1948, Deir Yassin was a prosperous, expanding village at relative peace with its Jewish neighbors with whom much business was done.
In an effort by the Jewish militias to clear the road to Jerusalem, which was being blockaded by Arab forces, Deir Yassin was attacked and emptied of its inhabitants on April 9, 1948, by 120 Irgun
and Lehi
forces, reinforced by Haganah
troops. The invasion was part of the Haganah's Operation Nachshon
. A unit from the Palmach
, the Haganah's strike force, took part in the assault using mortars. Around 107 villagers, including women and children, and four Irgun or Lehi men were killed. The incident became known as the Deir Yassin massacre
.
A year later, the Jewish neighborhood of Givat Shaul Beth was built on Deir Yassin's land, despite scholarly protests to Israeli Prime Minister David Ben Gurion. In 1951, construction of the Kfar Shaul Mental Health Center
began using the village buildings themselves.
According to Palestinian
historian Walid Khalidi
,
The killings at Deir Yassin are regarded as one of two pivotal events that led to the exodus of around 700,000 Palestinians
from their towns and villages in 1948, along with the defeat of the Palestinians in Haifa
. News of the killings, amplified by Arab media broadcasts of atrocity, triggered fear and panic among Palestinians, who in turn increasingly evacuated their homes.
On April 10, 1948, one day after the Deir Yassin massacre, Albert Einstein
wrote a critical letter to the American Friends of Fighters for the Freedom of Israel (the U.S chapter of the Stern gang) refusing to assist them with aid or support to raise money for their cause in Palestine. On December 2, 1948, many prominent American Jews signed and published an op-ed article in the New York Times that was critical of Menachem Begin
and the massacre at Deir Yassin.
Deir Yassin was built on the eastern slopes of a hill, with an elevation of roughly 800 metres (2,624.7 ft) above sea level and commanding a wide view all around it. The village faced the western suburbs of Jerusalem which were 1 kilometre (0.621372736649807 mi) away. The city center of Jerusalem was about 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) to the east. It was separated from the city by a terraced valley planted with fig, almond, and olive orchards. Along the northern rim of the valley ran a secondary road linking Deir Yassin to the suburbs and to the main Jaffa Road
which was about 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) to the north.
The total land area of the village consisted of 2,857 dunam
s, of which 94.5% was Arab-owned, 5.3% was Jewish-owned and the remainder was public property. Cultivable land amounted to a total of 866 dunams (30%), all of which was grown with grains and owned mostly by Arabs. The built-up area of the village was 12 dunams.
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...
village of around 600 people near Jerusalem. It had declared its neutrality during the 1947–1948 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine
1947–1948 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine
The 1947–1948 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine lasted from 30 November 1947, the date of the United Nations vote in favour of the termination of the British Mandate for Palestine and the UN Partition Plan, to the termination of the British Mandate itself on 14 May 1948.This period constitutes the...
between Arabs and Jews. It was depopulated after a massacre
Deir Yassin massacre
The Deir Yassin massacre took place on April 9, 1948, when around 120 fighters from the Irgun Zevai Leumi and Lohamei Herut Israel Zionist paramilitary groups attacked Deir Yassin near Jerusalem, a Palestinian-Arab village of roughly 600 people...
of around 107 of its residents on April 9, 1948 by paramilitaries from the Irgun
Irgun
The Irgun , or Irgun Zevai Leumi to give it its full title , was a Zionist paramilitary group that operated in Mandate Palestine between 1931 and 1948. It was an offshoot of the earlier and larger Jewish paramilitary organization haHaganah...
and Lehi
Lehi (group)
Lehi , commonly referred to in English as the Stern Group or Stern Gang, was a militant Zionist group founded by Avraham Stern in the British Mandate of Palestine...
groups.
The village buildings are today part of the Kfar Shaul Mental Health Center
Kfar Shaul Mental Health Center
Kfar Shaul Mental Health Center , established in 1951, is an Israeli public psychiatric hospital located between Givat Shaul and Har Nof, Jerusalem. It is affiliated with the Hadassah Medical Center and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem...
, an Israeli public psychiatric hospital.
Ottoman rule
The first part of the village's name Deir is defined as "monastery" in ArabicArabic 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...
. According to 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...
, this was a common occurrence in Palestinian village names
Place names in Palestine
Place names in Palestine have been the subject of much scholarship and contention, particularly in the context of the Israeli-Arab conflict. The significance of place names in Palestine lies in their potential to legitimize the historical claims asserted by the involved parties, all of whom claim...
especially those so close to Jerusalem. A large ruin that laid at the southwestern edge of Deir Yassin was known simply as "Deir".
The nucleus of settlement activity in the area during the 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...
era—which began in 1517—was Khirbet Ayn al-Tut ("The Ruin of the Mulberry Spring")—some 500 metres (1,640.4 ft) west of the 1948 village site. In 1596, this village was under the administration of the nahiya ("subdistrict") of Jerusalem, part of the larger District of Jerusalem. It paid taxes on wheat, barley, and olive trees.
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...
located just outside the village. In the late 19th century, the houses of Deir Yassin were built of stone and two springs—one located in the north and another in the south—provided the village with water. Most of its houses, strongly built with thick walls, were clustered in a small area known as the Hara meaning "Quarter" or "Neighborhood". All of its 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. In 1906, a Jewish suburb of Jerusalem, Givat Shaul
Givat Shaul
Givat Shaul is a neighborhood in western Jerusalem named after the Rishon Lezion, Rabbi Yaakov Shaul Elyashar, the Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Israel, and not, as commonly believed, for the biblical King Saul, whose capital was probably located on the hill Gibeah of Saul near Pisgat Ze'ev, on the way...
, was built across the valley from Deir Yassin. The secondary road linking the village to Jerusalem and the road to 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:...
ran through the suburb.
British Mandate period
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...
, the Ottomans fortified the hilltop of Deir Yassin as part of the defense system of Jerusalem, but on December 8, 1917, these fortifications were stormed by the Allied Forces under Edmund Allenby. The following day Jerusalem fell to the British
British Army
The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...
. Until the 1920s, Deir Yassin's inhabitants mostly depended on agriculture and livestock for income, but the extensive building projects in Jerusalem in the British Mandate period transformed its basis of economy.
Residents began to excavate large quarries of limestone which the area around Deir Yassin was rich in. This developed into an increasingly thriving industry in stone-cutting and processing; by the late 1940s there were four stone crushers functioning in the village. The business encouraged the more prosperous inhabitants to invest in trucking and others became truck drivers. In 1935, a local bus company was established in a joint venture with the neighboring Arab village of Lifta
Lifta
Lifta was an Arab village on the outskirts of Jerusalem. Its population fled during the Arab-Jewish hostilities of 1947/48 and the efforts to relieve the Siege of Jerusalem . The village and spring for which it is named are now a park on the hillside between the western entrance to Jerusalem and...
. As Deir Yassin prospered, houses radiated from the Hara uphill and eastward, towards Jerusalem.
In the early days of the British Mandate, Deir Yassin had no school of its own and its children attended the school at Lifta or in Qalunya
Qalunya
Qalunya was a Palestinian Arab village located west of Jerusalem.Prior to the village's destruction in 1948, with the exception of 166 dunums, Qalunya's land was privately owned: 3,594 dunums were owned by Arabs, while 1,084 dunums were owned by Jews....
. By 1943, two elementary schools were built—one for boys and one for girls. The girls' school had a resident headmistress from Jerusalem. At this time, Deir Yassin also had a bakery, two guesthouses, and a social club—the "Renaissance Club", a thrift fund, three shops, four wells and a second mosque built by Mahmud Salah, an affluent resident. Many inhabitants were employed outside the village in the nearby British Army
British Army
The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...
camps as waiters, carpenters, and foremen; others as clerks and teachers in the mandatory civil service. By this time, no more than 15% of the population was engaged in agriculture.
Relations between Deir Yassin and its Jewish neighbors had started reasonably well under the Ottomans, particularly early on when Arabic-speaking Sephardic Yemenite Jews comprised much of the surrounding population. Relations rapidly deteriorated with the growth of Zionism
Zionism
Zionism is a Jewish political movement that, in its broadest sense, has supported the self-determination of the Jewish people in a sovereign Jewish national homeland. Since the establishment of the State of Israel, the Zionist movement continues primarily to advocate on behalf of the Jewish state...
in Palestine and reached their apex during the Arab revolt in 1936-1939. Relations picked up again during the economic boom years of full employment of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. Thus, in 1948, Deir Yassin was a prosperous, expanding village at relative peace with its Jewish neighbors with whom much business was done.
April 1948 invasion
Irgun
The Irgun , or Irgun Zevai Leumi to give it its full title , was a Zionist paramilitary group that operated in Mandate Palestine between 1931 and 1948. It was an offshoot of the earlier and larger Jewish paramilitary organization haHaganah...
and Lehi
Lehi (group)
Lehi , commonly referred to in English as the Stern Group or Stern Gang, was a militant Zionist group founded by Avraham Stern in the British Mandate of Palestine...
forces, reinforced by 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 :...
troops. The invasion was part of the Haganah's Operation Nachshon
Operation Nachshon
Operation Nachshon was an Jewish military operation during the 1948 war. Lasting from 5–20 April 1948, its objective was to break the Siege of Jerusalem by opening the Tel-Aviv - Jerusalem road blockaded by Palestinian Arabs and to supply food and weapons to the isolated Jewish community of...
. A unit from the Palmach
Palmach
The Palmach was the elite fighting force of the Haganah, the underground army of the Yishuv during the period of the British Mandate of Palestine. The Palmach was established on May 15, 1941...
, the Haganah's strike force, took part in the assault using mortars. Around 107 villagers, including women and children, and four Irgun or Lehi men were killed. The incident became known as the Deir Yassin massacre
Deir Yassin massacre
The Deir Yassin massacre took place on April 9, 1948, when around 120 fighters from the Irgun Zevai Leumi and Lohamei Herut Israel Zionist paramilitary groups attacked Deir Yassin near Jerusalem, a Palestinian-Arab village of roughly 600 people...
.
A year later, the Jewish neighborhood of Givat Shaul Beth was built on Deir Yassin's land, despite scholarly protests to Israeli Prime Minister David Ben Gurion. In 1951, construction of the Kfar Shaul Mental Health Center
Kfar Shaul Mental Health Center
Kfar Shaul Mental Health Center , established in 1951, is an Israeli public psychiatric hospital located between Givat Shaul and Har Nof, Jerusalem. It is affiliated with the Hadassah Medical Center and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem...
began using the village buildings themselves.
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...
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...
,
Many of the village houses on the hill are still standing and have been incorporated into an Israeli hospital for the mentally ill that was established on the site. Some houses outside the fence of the hospital grounds are used for residential and commercial purposes, or as warehouses. Outside the fence, there are carob and almond trees and the stumps of olive trees. Several wells are located at the southwestern edge of the site. The old village cemetery , southeast of the site, is unkempt and threatened by debris from a ring road that has been constructed around the village hill. One tall cypress tree still stands at the center of the cemetery.
The killings at Deir Yassin are regarded as one of two pivotal events that led to the exodus of around 700,000 Palestinians
1948 Palestinian exodus
The 1948 Palestinian exodus , also known as the Nakba , occurred when approximately 711,000 to 725,000 Palestinian Arabs left, fled or were expelled from their homes, during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and the Civil War that preceded it. The exact number of refugees is a matter of dispute...
from their towns and villages in 1948, along with the defeat of the Palestinians in Haifa
Haifa
Haifa is the largest city in northern Israel, and the third-largest city in the country, with a population of over 268,000. Another 300,000 people live in towns directly adjacent to the city including the cities of the Krayot, as well as, Tirat Carmel, Daliyat al-Karmel and Nesher...
. News of the killings, amplified by Arab media broadcasts of atrocity, triggered fear and panic among Palestinians, who in turn increasingly evacuated their homes.
On April 10, 1948, one day after the Deir Yassin massacre, Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein was a German-born theoretical physicist who developed the theory of general relativity, effecting a revolution in physics. For this achievement, Einstein is often regarded as the father of modern physics and one of the most prolific intellects in human history...
wrote a critical letter to the American Friends of Fighters for the Freedom of Israel (the U.S chapter of the Stern gang) refusing to assist them with aid or support to raise money for their cause in Palestine. On December 2, 1948, many prominent American Jews signed and published an op-ed article in the New York Times that was critical of Menachem Begin
Menachem Begin
' was a politician, founder of Likud and the sixth Prime Minister of the State of Israel. Before independence, he was the leader of the Zionist militant group Irgun, the Revisionist breakaway from the larger Jewish paramilitary organization Haganah. He proclaimed a revolt, on 1 February 1944,...
and the massacre at Deir Yassin.
After 1948
A year after the massacre, the settlement Givat Shaul Beth was founded by religious Jews on the place of former Deir Yassin. It was later incorporated as a neighborhood into the city of Jerusalem. In 1980, the remaining ruins of the village were bulldozed to clear the ground for new Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods. The streets in the new neighborhoods were named after units of the Irgun, which perpetrated the massacre, and units of the Hagannah. In the early 1980s, most of the Deir Yassin cemetery was bulldozed and a new highway to Givat Shaul Bet was built in its place.Geography
Jaffa Road
Jaffa Road is one of the longest and oldest streets in Jerusalem. It crosses the city from east to west, from the Old City walls to downtown Jerusalem, the western portal of Jerusalem and the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway. It is lined with shops, businesses and restaurants...
which was about 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) to the north.
The total land area of the village consisted of 2,857 dunam
Dunam
A dunam or dönüm, dunum, donum, dynym, dulum was a non-SI unit of land area used in the Ottoman Empire and representing the amount of land that can be plowed in a day; its value varied from 900–2500 m²...
s, of which 94.5% was Arab-owned, 5.3% was Jewish-owned and the remainder was public property. Cultivable land amounted to a total of 866 dunams (30%), all of which was grown with grains and owned mostly by Arabs. The built-up area of the village was 12 dunams.
Demographics
Khirbet Ayn al-Tut had a population of 39 in 1596, during early Ottoman rule. In the 1922 British Mandate census, Deir Yassin had a population of 254. Its population had increased from 428 in 1931 to 750 in 1948 and its houses from 91 in the former year to 144 in the latter. Before its depopulation in 1948, it is estimated that Deir Yassin had 610 residents in 1945. The five hamulas (clans) of Deir Yassin were the Shahada, 'Aql, Hamidad, Jabir and Jundi.See also
- List of Arab towns and villages depopulated during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War
- List of villages depopulated during the Arab-Israeli conflict
External links
- Welcome To Dayr Yasin
- Dayr Yasin, by Rami Nashashibi (1996), Center for Research and Documentation of Palestinian Society.