Malha

Malha
المالحة מלחה
Etymology: The salt-pan[1]
Village boundaries of Maliha in the Mandatory Palestine period
Palestine grid167/129
Geopolitical entityMandatory Palestine
SubdistrictJerusalem
Date of depopulation21 April 1948, 15 July 1948[2]
Area
 • Total13,449 dunams (13.449 km2 or 5.193 sq mi)
Population
 (1948[5])
 • Total1,940[4][3]
Cause(s) of depopulationInfluence of nearby town's fall
Secondary causeMilitary assault by Yishuv forces

Malha is a neighborhood in southwest Jerusalem, between Pat, Ramat Denya and Kiryat Hayovel in the Valley of Rephaim. Before 1948, Malha was an Arab village known as al-Maliha (Arabic: المالحة).

Excavations in Malha revealed structures from the Bronze Age. In biblical times, it was the site of Manahat, located in the territory of Judah. In the fifth century, it was inhabited by Christian Georgians. During Ottoman times, it was a Muslim town with locals originating from Transjordan and Egypt. In the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, the village's inhabitants fled, and Jewish refugees from Middle Eastern countries settled there, with some of the land already purchased by Sephardic Jews before the war.

Malha is now an upscale neighborhood featuring the Malha Shopping Mall, Teddy Stadium, and the Jerusalem Technology Park.

  1. ^ Palmer, 1881, p. 322
  2. ^ Morris, 2004, p. xx, village #361. Also gives the cause for depopulation
  3. ^ a b Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 57
  4. ^ Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics, 1945, p. 25
  5. ^ Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics Archived 2012-02-12 at the Wayback Machine Depopulated Jerusalem Localities of the year 1948 by Selected Variables