Deiran (Arabic: ديران) is an archaeological site in modern-day Rehovot, Israel.

History

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Khirbat Deiran was inhabited during the Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine periods, with a major expansion to about 60 dunams during the early centuries of Islamic rule.[1] Archaeologist Buchenino reported possible evidence of Jewish or Samaritan occupation on site during the Roman and Byzantine periods.[2] Klein identified Khirbet Deiran as Kerem Doron ("vineyard of Doron"), a place mentioned in Talmud Yerushalmi (Peah 7:4), but Fischer believes that there is "no special reason" for this identification,[1] while Kalmin is unsure whether Doron was a place or a person.[3]

During the Ottoman period the area was inhabited by the Sawtariyya Arabs, who used to inhabit the site in tents with their flocks.[4][5][6]

Jewish settlement

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Rehovot was founded as a moshava on Deiran's lands in 1890 by Polish Jewish immigrants who had come with the First Aliyah, seeking to establish a township which would not be under the influence of the Baron Edmond James de Rothschild, on land which was purchased from a Christian Arab by the Menuha Venahala society, an organization in Warsaw that raised funds for Jewish settlement in Eretz Israel.[7][8]

The once "abandoned or sparsely populated" estate,[9] now lied in the center of the built-up area of the Rehovot.[1][10] According to Marom, Deiran offered "a convenient launching pad for early land purchase initiatives which shaped the pattern of Jewish settlement until the beginning of the British Mandate".[9]

In March 1892, a dispute over pasture rights erupted between the residents of Rehovot and the neighboring village of Zarnuqa, which took two years to resolve. Another dispute broke out with the Suteriya Bedouin tribe, which had been cultivating some of the land as tenant farmers. According to Moshe Smilansky, one of the early settlers of Rehovot, the Bedouins had received compensation for the land, but refused to vacate it. In 1893, they attacked the moshava. Through the intervention of a respected Arab sheikh, a compromise was reached, with the Sautariyya Bedouins receiving an additional sum of money, which they used to dig a well.[4]

References

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  1. ^ a b c M. Fischer; I. Taxel; D. Amit (2008). "Rural settlement in the vicinity of Yavneh in the Byzantine period: A religio-archaeological perspective". Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research. 350 (350): 7–35. doi:10.1086/BASOR25609264. S2CID 163487105.
  2. ^ A. Bouchenino (2007). "Building remains and industrial installations from the early Islamic period at Khirbat deiran, Reḥovot". Atiqot. 56: 119–144, 84*–85*.
  3. ^ Richard Kalmin (2006). Jewish Babylonia between Persia and Roman Palestine. Oxford University Press. pp. 180, 252. ISBN 978-0-19-530619-4.
  4. ^ a b Ben-Bassat, Yuval (April 2013). "Conflicting Accounts of Early Zionist Settlement: A Note on the Encounter between the Colony of Re ovot and the Bedouins of Khirbat Duran †". British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies. 40 (2): 139–148. doi:10.1080/13530194.2013.790290. ISSN 1353-0194.
  5. ^ Ben-Bassat, Yuval (May 2013). "Rural Reactions to Zionist Activity in Palestine before and after the Young Turk Revolution of 1908 as Reflected in Petitions to Istanbul". Middle Eastern Studies. 49 (3): 349–363. doi:10.1080/00263206.2013.783823. ISSN 0026-3206.
  6. ^ Ben-Bassat, Yuval (2009-01-01). "Proto-Zionist––Arab Encounters in Late Nineteenth-Century Palestine: Socioregional Dimensions". Journal of Palestine Studies. 38 (2): 42–63. doi:10.1525/jps.2009.38.2.42. ISSN 0377-919X.
  7. ^ Joanna Paraszczuk (12 March 2010). "Rehovot keeps an eye on the past as it looks to the future". The Jerusalem Post. Archived from the original on 22 February 2014. Retrieved 29 March 2014.
  8. ^ O. Efraim; S. Gilboa (2007). "Reḥovot". In Berenbaum, Michael; Skolnik, Fred (eds.). Encyclopaedia Judaica. Vol. 17 (2nd ed.). Detroit: Macmillan Reference. ISBN 978-0-02-866097-4.
  9. ^ a b Marom, Roy (2022-11-01). "Jindās: A History of Lydda's Rural Hinterland in the 15th to the 20th Centuries CE". Lod, Lydda, Diospolis. 1: 26.
  10. ^ Marom, Roy (2021-06-09). "The Abu Hameds of Mulabbis: an oral history of a Palestinian village depopulated in the Late Ottoman period". British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies. 50: 87–106. doi:10.1080/13530194.2021.1934817. ISSN 1353-0194. S2CID 236222143.