Ein Karem Online

Ein Karem and surrounding agricultural terraces located to the west of Jerusalem were also incorporated in the Municipal boundaries of West Jerusalem, as well as Lifta and Deir Yassin as described above. Land ownership in 1948 in this village was as follows:
Palestinian           13,449 dunums
Jewish                     1,362 dunums
Public                     218 dunums
Total                       15,029 dunums
Thus, Palestinians owned 90%, the Jews 9% and the rest was public.
In 1948, this village had a population of 4,500 predominantly Palestinians, as Ein Karem is the birthplace of John the Baptist. In July of 1948, all the inhabitants of this village were forced to leave by the Jewish armed forces. Today, all the village homes are inhabited by Jews. The Churches that still exist in the village have become museums without congregations. The Jewish Hadassah Hospital is built on the lands of the village. However, it is one of the major ironies of history that the Yad Vashem, a memorial to the Jewish victims of the Nazis, is built on the terraced land of the dispossessed, exiled, and involuntarily "absentee" Palestinians of Ein Karem. The Jewish memorial built on the lands of Ein Karem, is a witness to the fact that the Palestinians are the last victims of Hitler, as they had to pay the price with their villages, land and country, Palestine, for the establishment of the Jewish State. http://www.sabeel.org/news/newslt15/matar.htm

The following is an excerpt from the book, Jerusalem and I. By Hala Sakakini
On other days still we would go for a drive to Ein Karem, that lovely Arab village southwest of Jerusalem whose simple stone houses spread out over a mountain slope facing the West. As soon as we arrived there Father would go straight to a local open-air coffeehouse to smoke a narghileh, while Aunt Melia, Dumia and I would stroll up the mountain along the narrow road leading to the Russian convent. From there the views all around were breathtaking. You could see the mountains falling down to the deep valley in neat, cultivated terraces. Everywhere the green of the vines, the vegetables and the numerous fruit trees added to the beauty of the picture. Sometimes we would walk in the other direction to the village spring where we would watch the peasant women filling their beautifully shaped earthenware jars. At the spring there were always a number of women, some coming to get water and others leaving, all carrying their jars carefully perched on their heads and walking freely and gracefully. Most attractive were the little girls of about ten or eleven in their long flowing peasant dresses carrying smaller jars on their heads. On a high spot on the main road, a few kilometers outside Ein Karem, there was another popular café, which the Jerusalemites frequented in summer. It was called Ash-Sharafeh, which in Arabic means The High Spot. Opposite this café across the road to the west was located the Deeb estate. It stretched over a large area from the top of the mountain and few terraces down the slope. From any spot on the estate the view was magnificent. After the Palestine War in 1948, this place was turned into memorial grounds by the state of Israel. The Deeb estate where we so often picnicked with our friends the Shukri Deebs and the Anestas Hananias is now known as Mount Herzl. (The author of the book, Jerusalem and I, is a member of a well known Jerusalem family who had to flee their home in West Jerusalem at the height of the struggle for the city. Her father Khalil Sakakini was an intellectual, educator, and a passionate advocate of Palestinian rights.) Rufaida Mikdadi is a free-lance translator and an interpreter
http://www.sabeel.org/news/newslt15/mikdadi.htm

Reflections of a Native Son: A Jerusalem Memoir Professor Fouad Moughrabi, Department of Political Science, University of Tennessee.
I was born on a hill overlooking Ein Kerem. From the top of that hill, one could easily see the skyline of Jerusalem during the day and its shining lights during the night. My father managed a resort run by the Anglican Church atop Jebel El-Rab (the hill of God)...... If you want to read the whole story go to
http://www.alnakba.org/testimony/fouad.htm

The first place was the village of Ein Karem and consisted of plains and rough terrain, houses for its people, orchards of pomegranate, olives, figs and oak trees, water wells, and old Roman vineyards. The document showed the borders of the village from the four directions: Al-Malha Al-Kubra south, Ein Qaroun, Qalounia, Harash, Sataf and Zawyet Al-Bukhtyari north, Ein Al-Sheqaq west, and Al-Malha Al-Kubra and Beit Mazmeil east
If you want to read the whole story go to
http://www.palestine-info.net/jerusalem/thestoryofabu.htm