Shfaram

Shfaram ( שפרעם ) is an Israeli city located at the East of Kiryat-ATA and whose population is mainly of origin Arab and Druze. It shelters many archaeological vestiges. Shfaram was the second city occupied by the Sanhédrin, and a Jewish community resided at it of XVIe at the XXe century.

It is under the reign of the emperor Marc-Aurèle that Sanhédrin of 161 with 180 remained there. According to the oral tradition kept by the Jewish community of Shfaram since XVIIIe century, the Synagog of this same community, " Mahané Shkhina" , is held with the site of the building which sheltered Sanhédrin then.

Ancient Shfaram is located at the current site of the station of police force, the churches and the street of the Jews. The latter shelters a relatively modern synagog dating from the XIXe century, recognizable by the Ménorah which surmounts it. The keys of the building are today with the hands of a close Arab family.

The church located not far from the synagog is, according to the testimony of Sir Laurence Oliphant, built on the vestiges of a Byzantine church , built itself on those of an older synagog. Not far from the church draws up the current building of the police force, vestige of the fortress built by Osman III at the XVIIIe century. The latter could contain a stable of 400 horses. It was destroyed in 1910. One can still see over the pediment of the carry-South, the dedication in the honor of the builder and the year of his construction. The roof of the building offers a panorama extending from Haïfa to Saint-Jean-in Acre, and of Rosh-Hanikra to the Mont Carmel.

The Croisés build in Shfaram a fortress of which there does not remain any vestige. It may be that the fortress of Osman III was built on its site.

At the time of the third crusade, Saladin fixes at Shfaram its general headquarter, in order to protect the road connecting Haïfa to Saint-Jean-in Acre. Years 1535 with 1539, one counts ten Jewish families. According to a testimony going back to 1636, the existence of a synagog in the city is mentioned. But it is only at the XVIIIe century that the Jewish community of Shfaram becomes its extensive, under the control of the rabbi Haïm Aboulafia, personality recognized even among the population Bedouin E of the area. The Juif S of Shfaram then live mainly work of the ground and particularly of the culture of the cotton, which they export since the port of Saint-Jean-in Acre towards the Egypt and the Europe.

At the XIXe century, at the time of the short period of Egyptian invasion, the Jewish community of the city pays its taxes in measurements of corn and barley, according to the writings of Paolo Vita-Finzi, Jewish Italian who fulfills the British function of consule with Saint-Jean-in Acre at the beginning of the XXe century. Brace Montefiore, in a report/ratio drawn up by in 1839 counts 107 Jews Sépharade S in Shfaram.

Thus the Jewish community of the city in 1849 addresses to Moïse Montefiore: " Us, your humble servants let us collapse under the weight of poverty and of the famine, the majority of the holy community already left the places, and there remain only some poor in the search of bread. We, your humble servants, lived fruit of the ground, but, with the oppression whose we are the object, we are any more measures some neither to cultivate nor to sow, and we fear, whom D.ieu preserves us, to have to give up the splendid synagog " Mahané Shkhina" ".

The majority of the community gives up then the places for Tibériade and Haïfa, leaving their grounds to the hands of the Druzes and the Arab Christians.

The Jewish community of Shfaram was mainly made up of Moroccan Jews of which about thirty settled in 1850, and a dozen in 1887. In 1920, it has there no more Jews with Shfaram.

During the Israeli-Arab war of 1948, Shfaram is used as a basis for the armed forces Druzes shouldered by some Arabs of the city, for the offensive on the Kibboutz Ramat-Yohanan. Shfaram counts today 20.000 inhabitants, including 45% of Chrétiens, 35% of Musulmans and the remainder of Druzes.

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