Zekharia

Zekharia (זְכַרְיָה) is a moshav in central Israel. Located near Beit Shemesh, it falls under the jurisdiction of Mateh Yehuda Regional Council. In it had a population of.

Settlement in the area dates back to the Iron Age. During the Roman era a town named Beit Zacharia was located on the hill, which according to legend was the burial place of the prophet Zechariah. By the Mamluk era, it had become a Muslim village, and was known by various names, including Zakariyya al-Battih, Kefr Zakaria, Az-Zakariyya or simply Zakariyya. Although the village had been allotted to the Arab state in the 1947 United Nations partition plan, the area was captured by Israeli forces during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War and the remaining Arab population was expelled in 1950, after which a new Jewish moshav, now Hebraized as Zekharia, was founded on the site.

Geography
Zekharia is located off the road between Beit Guvrin and the Jerusalem-Jaffa highway. It is 268 meters above sea level. It is bordered on the southeast by the Elah Valley, about 5 km southwest of Beit Shemesh. The mountain of Azekah can be seen directly to the south of the village.

The Tell rests upon a high hilltop, whereas the village lay on a slightly elevated part of the valley below, on the northwest side of the hill. The hill rises to a maximum elevation of 372 meters above sea level, with a mean elevation of approximately 275 meters above sea level. The village lay next to the road between Bayt Jibrin and the Jerusalem-Jaffa highway. The streams of Wadi Ajjur and al-Sarara were located a few kilometers north of the village.

Antiquity
Beth Zacharia (on a nearby hill) is said to have existed in Roman times. According to legend, the body of the prophet Zechariah was found here in 415 CE and a church and monastery were established in the lower village by the same name. The Madaba Map displays the lower town as the burial site of the prophet Zechariah. The village lay beside the Tell, also called Az-Zakariyya.

A tomb, dating from the early Iron Age, has been excavated here. Among the pottery found in the grave was a figurine, representing Astarte.

A town called Beit Zacharia (var. Kefar Zacharia) existed on the hill in Roman times.

According to Sozomen, the body of the prophet Zachariah was found here in 415 C.E. and a church and monastery were established. The village was under the administrative jurisdiction of Bayt Jibrin.

Mamluk period
On April 29, 1309 (=Dhu al-Qa’da 18, in the Hijri year 708), in  the early Mamluk era, two representatives from Az-Zakariyya; Farraj bin Sa‘d bin Furayj and Nassar bin ‘Amara bin Sa‘id; promised that the revenues of Az-Zakariyya should go to the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

However, by the end of Mamluk era, the village was a dependency of Hebron, and formed part of the waqf supporting the Ibrahimi Mosque. The villagers obtained their drinking water from two communal wells:- al-Saflani well which was drilled next to Wadi 'Ajjur, and al-Sarara well located north of the village.

In the 1480s C.E. Felix Fabri described how he stayed in a "roomy inn", next to a "fair mosque" in the village.

Ottoman period
In 1517, Az-Zakariyya was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire with the rest of Palestine, and in 1596 the village appeared in the Ottoman tax registers  listed as Zakariyya al-Battih under the administration of the nahiya ("subdistrict") of Quds (Jerusalem), part of the Sanjak of Quds. It had a population of 47 Muslim households (an estimated 259 persons) and paid a fixed tax rate of 33,3% on wheat, barley, olives, beehives, and goats; a total of 11,000 akçe. All of the revenue went to a waqf.

A Maqam (shrine) in the village dedicated to the prophet Zechariah was noticed by Edward Robinson in 1838, while van de Velde, recorded its name as Kefr Zakaria in the 1850s.

In 1863 Victor Guérin found the place to have five hundred inhabitants, while an Ottoman village list of about 1870 showed that Az-Zakariyya had 41 houses and a population of 128, though the population count included men only.

In 1883,  the PEF's Survey of Western Palestine described  Zakariyya as sitting on a slope above a broad valley surrounded by olive groves.

In 1896 the population of (Tell) Zakarja  was estimated to be about 636 persons.

British Mandate era
In the 1922 census of Palestine conducted by the British Mandate authorities,  Zakaria  had a population of 683, all Muslim, increasing in  the 1931 census to 742, still all Muslims, in 189 occupied houses.

In the 1945 statistics the population was 1,180, all Muslims,  with a total of 15,320 dunams of land. In 1944/45 a total of 6,523 dunums of village land was allocated to cereals,  961 dunums were irrigated or used for orchards, of which 440 dunums were planted with olive trees,  while 70  dunams were built-up (urban) areas. In the 1946 Tax Form of Mandatory Palestine, there were 357 "assessable inhabitants" living in Zakariyya, of which 232 were landowners.

1948 and aftermath
The village was located inside the territory allotted to a future Arab state in the UN's 1947 partition plan.

In the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, Az-Zakariyya was the longest lasting Arab community in the southern Jerusalem Corridor. The village was captured in October 1948 during Operation Ha-Har, when the Israeli military used artillery to shell Az-Zakariyya and stormed the village at night. In the course of Operation Yoav, the 54th Battalion of the Givati Brigade, found the village "almost empty", as most of the residents had temporarily fled to the nearby hills. Two residents were executed by Israeli soldiers. Many of the villagers returned to their homes after the cessation of hostilities. In December 1948 the army evicted about 40 "old men and women" to the West Bank.

In March 1949 the Interior Ministry requested the eviction of "145 or so" remaining villagers: the official in charge of the Jerusalem District said there were many good houses in the village which could be used to accommodate several hundred new Jewish immigrants. In January 1950 David Ben-Gurion, Moshe Sharett and Yosef Weitz decided to evict the villagers, "but without coercion."

On March 19, 1950, the transfer of the Arabs of Zakariya was approved and the last eviction was carried out on June 9, 1950, on the orders of David Ben-Gurion, Moshe Sharett and Yosef Weitz, and most ended up on the-then Jordanian-occupied West Bank refugee camps of al-Arroub and Dheisheh Refugee Camp, where the village's war refugees had settled. The manner of expulsion of the villagers is not mentioned.

Many evictions were on 17 May 1950 by the military. Fifteen families comprising 65 people, were transferred to the town of Ramla, while the rest of the community, some 130 people, were taken to a location near the Jordanian border where they were ordered to walk over. To hasten the process, "soldiers shot in the air several times".

State of Israel


Two weeks after the village was emptied, the Jewish Agency resettled families of Jewish-Kurdish settlers near the village, later moving them inside the former Palestinian village to become residents of a new moshav, now Hebraized as Zekharia. Most of the resettled families were Kurdish Jewish immigrants.

During the 1960s, most of the older buildings in the village were decrepit and unsafe and had to be demolished to make room for new, safer housing. Some view this as part of a national program to "level" depopulated villages.



In 1992, Walid Khalidi described the remaining structures of the Arab village: "The mosque and a number of houses, some occupied by Jewish residents and others deserted, remain on the site. Large sections of the site itself are covered with wild vegetation. The mosque is in a state of neglect and an Israeli flag is planted on top of the minaret. [..] One of the occupied houses is a two-storey stone structure with a flat roof. Its second story windows have round arches and grillwork. Parts of the surrounding lands are cultivated by Israeli farmers."

Landmarks
The tomb of Zecharia, which has been attributed to both the Hebrew prophet Zecharia and Zechariah, father of John the Baptist, is located on the moshav, within the mosque. The site is mentioned in sources as early as the fourth century, in the writings of Sozomenos, and it appears on the Madaba map.

In the 1970s, there was a resurgence of Jewish interest in the site, which became a pilgrimage destination for Jews from Kurdistan, Iraq, Iran, Cochin and elsewhere in India, and elsewhere, who prayed there and lit candles.

Culture
The village was known for its Palestinian costumes. A wedding dress from Zakariyya (ca. 1930) is part of the collection in Museum of International Folk Art (MOIFA) at Museum of New Mexico at Santa Fe.

Notable residents
British mandate period
 * Nasr Abdel Aziz Eleyan