TRIBAL TERRITORY OF BENJAMIN

Psagot Wineries, territory of Benjamin, courtesy Jerusalem Post

The present day Matteh Binyamin Regional Council in Israel is loosely based on the ancient tribal territory of Binyamin (Benjamin). The main difference is, whereas the ancient territory included Jerusalem as its most southern city, as well as Jericho to the east, today’s regional council does not. And whereas the town of Shiloh is part of the regional council today, it was part of the tribe of Ephraim in ancient times. Since 1981, the council seat was located in the town of Psagot to the north of Jerusalem and on the eastern outskirts of Ramallah.

The tribe of Benjamin was descended from Benjamin, the youngest son of Jacob by Rachel, who died on the road between Beit El and Ephrat, shortly after giving birth to him. Just before her death, she named him “Ben-oni” (son of my sorrow); but Jacob named him “Ben Yamin”, son of the right hand; that is, of good luck. During the time of Joshua, Benjamin was allotted a slice of territory, which stretched from the southern border of Jerusalem and the border of Judah in the south, to the Ephraimite lands south of Ai and Bet Horon in the north, and from Jericho and the Jordan to the east, to the easternmost border of Dan in the west. Beginning with Joshua 18:21, the cities of Benjamin were stated as follows (in alphabetical order): Avim, Beerot, Bet El, Bet Haarava, Bet Hoglah, Ch’phar Haamonai, Ch’phirah, Eleph, Geva, Givat, Givon (Gibeon), Irpeel, Jericho, Jerusalem, Kiryat, Mizpah, Motza, Ophni, Ophrah, Parah, Ramah, Rakem, Tarala, Zelah, Zemaraim. The territory also included the towns of Anatot and Atarot. All but Motza lie in, what is today known as, the West Bank. Later, the tribe gave Israel its first king, in the person of Saul son of Kish, from the town of Geva. (Mordechai, of Purim fame, was said to have been a descendant.) When Saul died, his son, Ish-Bosheth, reigned for two years over all the tribes except Judah. After David became king, he made Jerusalem the capital of Israel and it was left to his son Solomon to build the Temple on Mount Moriah located within the city limits. At the secession of the northern tribes, Benjamin remained loyal to the House of David and therefore shared the destiny of Judah at the time before, during and after, the Babylonian Captivity.

Since the Biblical period, Jews have continued to live in, and make pilgrimages to, the various sites in the territory of Benjamin such as in Jerusalem, especially since the Arab conquest in the 7^th century. The Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives to the east of today’s Old City, is known as the oldest active Jewish cemetery in the world. For thousands of years, Jews would also make frequent pilgrimages to the Tomb of Samuel north of Jerusalem. Until the Crusader conquest in 1099, Jericho had an important Jewish community, augmented by Jewish refugees from Khaibar after the vicious onslaughts of the armies of Mohammed. After the Crusader conquest, the Jewish population of the territory, dwindled considerably. During their rule, Jewish travelers would often visit the area and write of their experiences. One such traveler, Benjamin of Tudela (a town in northern Spain near Spanish-occupied Catalonia) arrived in Israel c. 1170. He concentrated his writings on the area’s Jewish communities, for example in the town of Mizpah, which he called “Nov”, located in the vicinity of the Tomb of Samuel.  

After the Crusader period, the area recovered somewhat. Pilgrimages to the Tomb of Samuel became so important that during the reign of the Chief Rabbi Isaac Sholal in the early 16^th century, after Israel’s conquest by the Ottoman Turks, a takkanah (rabbinic ruling) was passed that prohibited any unseemly drinking at the site. Beginning in the late 16^th and early 17^th centuries when Ottoman authority began to wane, the local Arabs would often made frequent attacks on Jews. For instance, since the 18^th century, the Mount of Olives cemetery was constantly under threat of vandalism and confiscation.

In 1854, farmland was purchased from the Arab village of Qalunya, on the western outskirts of Jerusalem, by a Baghdadi Jew, Shaul Yehuda, with the aid of the British consul James Finn. Four Jewish families settled there and the town of Motza was re-established. One family established a tile factory - one of the earliest industries in the region. In 1871, local resident Yehoshua Yellin, while plowing his fields, discovered a large subterranean hall from the Byzantine period that he turned into a travellers' inn which provided overnight shelter for pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem. In 1881, land was purchased in Shiloah (Silwan), on the eastern side of Jerusalem, for newly-arrived Jews from Yemen. Yemenite Jews also settled on land near the town of Givon in 1895 calling it “Givon Hadashah”. Abandoned for a time, the site was resettled in 1924. In 1912, the Palestine Land Development Corporation purchased land in and near the village of Kalandia allowing for Atarot to be re-established two years later. By 1922, the official census recorded the Benjamin region’s Jewish population as follows: Jerusalem 33,971, Shiloah 153, Qalunya 88, Kalandia 22, Ramallah 7, Jericho 6. During the Arab riots in the 20s and 30s, Jews were ethnically cleansed from parts of Jerusalem and totally from Shiloah as well as other places. In 1939, the village of Bet Haaravah was established in the Jordan Valley north of the Dead Sea.

During the War of Independence, the ancient Jewish community around the Tomb of Samuel was driven out, becoming the first Palestinian refugees of the war. Bet Haaravah and Atarot were totally destroyed and its residents expelled. After the war, the eastern half of Jerusalem was found to be under Arab occupation. Title to the land of Kalandia had long ago been transferred to the Jewish National Fund (which still owns the property), but the land was soon taken over by Arab squatters in which condition it remains to this day and the land of Atarot was turned into an extension of Kalandia airport. After the Six Day War in 1967, these lands, as with the rest of Judea and Samaria, were liberated but Jews were still banned from the area due to the combined forces of the Israeli government and army, and the local Arabs. However, despite the ban on Jews, an industrial zone was established in Atarot alongside the airport. Ophra was revived in 1975, as was Beit El in 1977 and Mitzpe Yericho near Jericho the same year. Givon was re-established the next year. Geva, the boyhood home of King Saul, was revived in 1984. Since the 80s, Jews have even been moving back into Shiloah. In 1998, the Shaar Binyamin Industrial Zone was established about 2 miles north of Geva.