Jifna
Jifna is a Palestinian village in the Ramallah and al-Bireh Governorate in the central West Bank of the State of Palestine, located north of Ramallah and north of Jerusalem. Jifna has retained a Christian majority since the 6th century. Its total land area consists of 6,015 dunams, of which 420 are designated as built-up areas, most of the remainder being covered with olive, fig and apricot groves. Jifna is governed by a village council, led by chairman Jabi Na'im Kamil.
Jifna was known as Gophnah at the time of the First Jewish-Roman War, and after its conquest became a Roman regional capital, though remaining predominantly Jewish. Jewish presence at the site is thought to have ended in the aftermath of the Bar Kokhba revolt. Later, the town grew less significant politically, but nevertheless prospered as a Christian locality under Byzantine and later Arab rule due to its location on a trade route. St. George's Church in Jifna was built in the 6th century, but fell into disrepair and was not rebuilt until the arrival of the Crusaders in the late 10th century. However, it again fell into ruin after the Crusaders were driven out by the Ayyubids. In modern times, the ruins of St. George's Church have become a tourist attraction. During the period of Ottoman control in Palestine the tower of an ancient Roman structure in Jifna became the location of a jail house.
Jifna has local traditions and legends relating to the Holy Family, and to the village water-spring. It is also locally known for its apricot harvest festival; each year, during the late Spring period, hundreds travel to the village to harvest the fruit during its brief season.
History
Classical period
Jifna is first recorded in written history at the time of the Roman conquest during the 1st century, when it appears in various records as "Gophna". Gophna was described by Flavius Josephus as the second city of Judea, after Jerusalem, in his account of the First Jewish-Roman Wars during the 1st century. The town is depicted as Gophna in the Map of Madaba, situated north of Gibeon, and is also mentioned in rabbinic literature as Beit Gūfnīn, literally meaning a "house of vineyards". The Talmud mentions the place as being inhabited by priests of Aaron's lineage.The earliest mention of Jifna, then Gophna, in the historical record is in Josephus' account of the escape of Judah Maccabee from Antiochus V during the Maccabean revolt, circa 164 BCE. Under Roman rule, Gophna became a regional administrative center, the capital of a toparchy in the Iudaea Province. It was known by the Romans as Cofna. Around 50, the Roman general Cassius sold the population into slavery, for failure to pay taxes. They were freed, however, by Mark Antony shortly after he came to power. Jifna was within the area under John b. Hananiah's command in 66, during the First Jewish-Roman War, and was the headquarters of one of the twelve toparchies of Judea. The Roman emperor Vespasian occupied the town in the year 68, established an army garrison there, and concentrated within the city Jewish priests and other local notables who had surrendered to him. Titus, the future Roman emperor, passed through Gophna during his march to besiege Jerusalem in the year 70. Gophna had a sizable priestly Jewish population on the wake of the Bar Kokhba Revolt in the 130s, and it is possible that an entire synagogue congregation of Gophna relocated to Sepphoris in Galilee by the 3rd century.
A burial cave was found in Jifna in 1995, and excavations at the site revealed potsherds typical of the Hasmonean, Herodian, and early Roman periods, indicating that the cave was used up until the Bar Kokhba revolt. A number of ossuaries and sarcophagi from the classical period with inscriptions in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek were also discovered at the vicinity of Jifna. One inscription includes the Hebrew words lgh, which may refer to the priestly family Bilgah. Another inscription references "Yo'ezer the Scribe". The name Yo'ezer appears in first-century epitaphs from the Jerusalem necropolis and in Josephus as a priestly and aristocratic name.
The last evidence for Jewish presence in Gophna is a Greek-written marriage document that was found in a cave at Wadi Murabba'at in the Judaean Desert, and dates to 124 CE. Based on archeological evidence, it is believed that Jewish presence at the site ceased in the aftermath of the Bar Kokhba revolt.
It was suggested by Edward Robinson that Jifna was Ophni of Benjamin, mentioned in the Book of Joshua as one of the "twelve cities", later scholars, however, argue that Gophna was only founded during the Second Temple period.
Late Roman and Byzantine periods
Among the discoveries from the Late Roman period in Jifna are a Greek-language epitaph, a decorated sarcophagus with figures from Greek mythology, and another adorned sarcophagus, in the manner of Nablus, Sebaste, and the central coastal plain, possibly of Samaritan origin. Those epigraphic and artistic findings suggest that the site was then inhabited by pagans of Hellenistic or Roman culture. In the opinion of Eitan Klein, they demonstrate that after the Bar Kokhba revolt, the formerly Jewish settlement was resettled by high-class Roman citizens, possibly ex-soldiers or members of the Roman administration who were granted land in the village and its surroundings. It is unclear whether the Samaritan style sarcophagus was used by a Samaritan population who may have lived in the area during this period, or was used by pagans who purchased it from a workshop near Nablus.The building of a church dedicated to Saint George during the 6th century indicates that by this time Jifna, now under Byzantine rule, had become a Christian town. Besides the church, other remains from this era are located in Jifna, including a Jewish tomb, a tower once used by the Ottomans as a prison, a Roman villa, an olive oil press and a winery. Additionally, a funerary stone stele with a Greek inscription was found in the church area.
Middle Ages
Jifna, along with most of Palestine, was annexed by the Rashidun Caliphate under Umar ibn al-Khattab after the Battle of Ajnadayn in 634. The town became less politically significant under the Arab dynasties of the Umayyads, Abbasids and Fatimids, but remained a major regional center for trade and commerce, due to its location along the Jerusalem–Nazareth road. It was known by the Arabs as Gafeniyyah.Sources are vague, but it is likely that St. George's Church fell into disrepair during the early decades of Islamic rule, and that unfavorable circumstances for the Christian population prevented them from rebuilding it. However, it was partially rebuilt with old materials by the Crusaders, who conquered the area in 1099. The Crusaders built a large courtyard building in Jifna. It had a monumental gate with a portcullis, with a large vaulted hall and thick walls of fine masonry. After their defeat to the Ayyubids under Saladin in 1187, the church again fell into ruin. A document dated 1182 with the signature of one Raymundus de Jafenia, might indicate a Christian presence at this time. According to the American biblical scholar Edward Robinson, there are remains of massive walls in the center of the village, now filled by houses. They were relics of a castle built by the Crusaders. However, the masonry has no characteristics of the Crusader period; rather, the remains display the Arab architectural style of the post-Crusader period, most likely of the 18th century, judging by the dressing of the stones.
Ottoman era
After the Crusaders were succeeded by the Ayyubids and then the Mamluks, the Ottoman Empire conquered Palestine in 1517, and Jifna came under their control for the following 400 years. In 1596 it appeared in the tax registers under the name of "Jifna an-Nasara", being in the nahiya of Jerusalem of the Jerusalem Sanjak, with a population of 21 households. The villagers paid a fixed tax-rate of 33.3% on agricultural products, including wheat, barley, olive trees, vineyards, fruit trees, goats and beehives, in addition to occasional revenues; a total of 6,470 akçe. It was under the administration of the Bani Zeid subdistrict, part of the larger Jerusalem District, throughout Ottoman rule, being the only all-Christian village in the district. During this period, the main commodity of Jifna was olive oil. Ottoman activity in the village was minimal, but they used the remains of Jifna's castle, known as "Burj Jifna", as a jail house sometime during the 19th century. In the early 1830s, Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt conquered most of the Levant, including Palestine. In 1834 there was a revolt against the Egyptian authorities in the Jifna area; 26 residents of Jifna were subsequently exiled to Egypt for their alleged participation in the uprising. They were joined, voluntarily, by two prominent local priests.An Eastern Orthodox Church was built in the village in 1858, and a larger Latin church dedicated to St. Joseph was built in 1859, adjacent to the ruins of St. George's Church. In the courtyard of St. George's Church is a sarcophagus. St. George's Church has continued to serve as a place of worship into the modern era and has been the site of archaeological excavation since the mid-19th century. Mass is still held at its altar on certain occasions.
In 1882 the PEF's Survey of Western Palestine described Jifna as an Important Christian village, with a Latin Church and a convent.
Also in the 1880s, Jifna was frequently taxed by Ottoman authorities. It also came into consistent armed conflict with another Christian village, Bir Zeit, which in one incident, resulted in the deaths of five men from that village. In retaliation, residents of Bir Zeit uprooted and burned 125 of Jifna's olive groves.
Modern times
In 1917, during World War I, the Ottomans were defeated by British and Arab forces. After a brief period of military rule, Jifna and its region came under the control of the League of Nations British Mandate, in 1922. In 1947 the United Nations proposed the partitioning of Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab states, with Jifna being a part of the projected Arab state. However, after the 1948 Arab-Israeli War the whole West Bank region, including Jifna, was annexed by Transjordan to form the Kingdom of Jordan, and the Arab state was stillborn. After the Six-Day War in 1967, Jifna came under Israeli occupation.In 1995 the Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip between the Palestinian National Authority and Israel, Jifna was placed in "Area B". Thus, its administrative and civil affairs were transferred to the PNA, while security matters remained in Israeli control. Throughout the Second Intifada, Jifna did not experience violence to the same extent as other parts of the West Bank, such as in nearby Ramallah, although its residents did face travel restrictions and economic hardship.
On 31 July 2015 a 15-year-old resident was shot dead by an IDF sniper after allegedly throwing a firebomb at an army outpost. In April 2019, the village was attacked by a Fatah official and his gunmen, a number of whom made demands that the village's Christian residents pay the medieval jizya tax, in response to the police questioning of his son for allegedly assaulting a Christian woman from Jifna and her children. The incident did not result in casualties and was condemned by Palestinian government and church officials.