Khirbat Jiddin

Khirbat Jiddin
خربة جدّين
Khirbat Jiddin mosque
Khirbat Jiddin mosque
1870s map
1940s map
modern map
1940s with modern overlay map
A series of historical maps of the area around Khirbat Jiddin (click the buttons)
Khirbat Jiddin is located in Mandatory Palestine
Khirbat Jiddin
Khirbat Jiddin
Location within Mandatory Palestine
Coordinates: 32°59′40″N 35°13′19″E / 32.99444°N 35.22194°E / 32.99444; 35.22194
Palestine grid171/266
Geopolitical entityMandatory Palestine
SubdistrictAcre
Date of depopulation11 July 1948 (Sheva' Brigade as part of Operation Dekel)
Population
 (1945)
 • Total1,500[1]
Cause(s) of depopulationMilitary assault by Yishuv forces
Current LocalitiesYehiam,[2] Kiryat, and Ga'aton[2][3]

Khirbat Jiddin (Arabic: خربة جدين), known in the Kingdom of Jerusalem as Judin, was an Ottoman fortress in the western Upper Galilee, originally built by the Teutonic Order after 1220 as a crusader castle, 16 km northeast of the city of Acre, which at the time was the capital of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. The castle was destroyed by the Mamluk sultan Baibars sometime between 1268-1271 and lay in ruins until being rebuilt and expanded by the Arab ruler Zahir al-Umar as Qal'at Jiddin (Arabic: قلعة جدين, lit. 'castle of Jiddin') in the 1760s, only to be destroyed again around 1775 by Jazzar Pasha.[5][6] The ruined fortress, known as Khirbat Jiddin, was later inhabited by the al-Suwaytat Bedouin tribe.[7]

According to a 1945 census, there were 1500 Muslims living in the area. Khirbat Jiddin land totaled 7,587 dunums, of which however all but 34 were officially listed as non-cultivable; 4,238 were owned by Arabs and 3,349 dunums owned by Jews.[7] Kibbutz Yehiam was established in the area in 1946.[8]

Today the remains of the castle are the central part of Yehi'am Fortress National Park.

  1. ^ Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics, 1945, p. 4
  2. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference Khalidi19 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Morris, 2004, p. xxi, settlement #30
  4. ^ | unit_pref = dunam | area_total_dunam = 7,587Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 40
  5. ^ Yeruham National Park, English version, 18/8/2013.
  6. ^ Pringle et al., 1994.
  7. ^ a b "Jiddin, Khirbat". PalestineRemembered.com. Retrieved 9 April 2015.
  8. ^ About Kibbutz Yehiam