Умм-эль-Фахм: История и современность израильского города.

City in Haifa District, Israel

Umm al Fahm (أمّ الفحم, Umm al Faḥm; Um el Faḥem) is a city located northwest of Jenin in the Haifa District of Israel. In its population was , nearly all of whom are Arab citizens of Israel. The city is situated on the Umm al Fahm mountain ridge, the highest point of which is Mount Iskander ( above sea level), overlooking Wadi Ara. Umm al Fahm is the social, cultural and economic center for residents of the Wadi Ara and Triangle regions.

Umm al Fahm literally means "Mother of Charcoal" in Arabic.

Several archaeological sites around the city date to the Iron Age II, as well as the Persian, Hellenistic, Roman, early Muslim and the Middle Ages.

In 1265 C. E. (663 H.), after Baybars won the territory from the Crusaders, the revenues from Umm al Fahm were given to the Mamluk na'ib al saltana (viceroy) of Syria, Jamal al Din al Najibi.

In 1517 the village was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire with the rest of Palestine. During the 16th and 17th centuries, Umm al Fahm belonged to the Turabay Emirate (1517 1683), which encompassed also the Jezreel Valley, Haifa, Jenin, Beit She'an Valley, northern Jabal Nablus, Bilad al Ruha/Ramot Menashe, and the northern part of the Sharon plain. The In 1596 Umm al Fahm appeared in the tax registers as being in the Nahiya of Sara of the Liwa of Lajjun. It had a population of 24 households, all Muslim, and paid taxes on wheat, barley, summer crops, olive trees, occasional revenues, goats and/or beehives, and a press for olive oil or grape syrup. Describing the social fabric of the villages, scholars noted that<blockquote>Umm al Fahm’s rise to regional ascendancy began with the migration and settlement of the khalīlī Aghbariyya, Mahamid, and Jabarin clans from Bayt Jibrin during the late 18th –early 19th centuries. This population movement formed part of a significant wave of migration from Jabal al Khalil (Hebron highlands) to the area of Jenin [ ] The Mahajina, came to Umm al Fahm from [the] Galilee, completing the village’s fundamental partition into four quarters (hārāt/hamāyil), each with their own headmen, guesthouses and allotments in the village’s common land (mushā‘). The Khalīlīs brought with them a new, ‘bunched settlement pattern’, involving a main settlement surrounded by satellite villages, hamlets, and farms for grazing and agriculture next to water sources and ancient ruins. In 1838, Edward Robinson recorded Umm al Fahm on his travels, and again in 1852, when he noted that there were 20 to 30 Christian families in the village. The Christian families of Umm al Fahm owned large tracts of land in Umm al Fahm as well as watermills at Lajjun. In 1870/1871 (1288 AH), an Ottoman census listed the village in the nahiya of Shafa al Gharby. In 1872, Charles Tyrwhitt Drake noted that Umm al Fahm was "divided into four quarters, El Jebarin, El Mahamin, El Maj’ahineh, and El Akbar’iyeh, each of which has its own sheikh." In 1883, the Palestine Exploration Fund's Survey of Western Palestine described Umm al Fahm as having around 500 inhabitants, of which some 80 people were Christians. The place was well built of stone, and the villagers were described as being very rich in cattle, goats and horses. It was the most important place in the area besides Jenin. The village was divided into four quarters, el Jebarin, el Mahamin, el Mejahineh, and el Akbariyeh, each quarter having its own sheikh. A maqam for a Sheikh Iskander was noted on a hill above; Conder and Kitchener wrote that the village's Qadi said Sheikh Iskander was a king of the children of Israel, while others saw it as a maqam dedicated for Alexander the Great.

In the 1922 census of Palestine, conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Umm al Fahm had a population of 2,191; 2,183 Muslims and 8 Christians, increasing in the 1931 census to 2443; 2427 Muslim and 16 Christians, in 488 inhabited houses. Umm al Fahm was the birthplace of Palestinian Arab rebel leader Yusuf Hamdan. He died there in 1939 during a firefight with British troops. In the 1945 statistics the population was counted together with other Arab villages from the Wadi Ara region, the first two of which are today part of Umm al Fahm, namely Aqqada, Ein Ibrahim, Khirbat el Buweishat, al Murtafi'a, Lajjun, Mu'awiya, Musheirifa and Musmus. The total population was 5,490; 5,430 Muslims and 60 Christians, with 77,242 dunams of land, according to the official land and population survey. 4332 dunams were used for plantations and irrigable land, 44,586 dunams for cereals, while 128 dunams were built up (urban) land.

In 1948, there were 4,500 inhabitants, mostly farmers, in the Umm al Fahm area. After the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, the Lausanne Conference of 1949 awarded the entire Little Triangle to Israel, which wanted it for security purposes. On 20 May 1949, the city's leader signed an oath of allegiance to the State of Israel. Following its absorption into Israel, the town's population grew rapidly (see box). By 1960, Umm al Fahm was given local council status by the Israeli government. Between 1965 and 1985, it was governed by elected councils. In 1985, Umm al Fahm was granted official city status. In October 2010, a group of 30 right wing activists led by supporters of the banned Kach movement clashed with protesters in Umm al Fahm. Many policemen and protesters were injured in the fray.

The growing influence of fundamentalist Islam has been noted by several scholars. Since the 1990s, the municipality has been run by the Northern Islamic Movement. Ex mayor Sheikh Raed Salah was arrested in 2003 on charges of raising millions of dollars for Hamas. He was freed after two years in prison. He was replaced in November 2008 by Khaled Aghbariyya. Today the mayor is Samir Sobhi Mahamed. Because of its proximity to the border of the West Bank, the city is named very often as a possible candidate for a land swap in a peace treaty with the Palestinians to compensate them for land used by Jewish settlements. In a survey of Umm al Fahm residents conducted by and published in the Israeli Arab weekly Kul Al Arab in July 2000, 83% of respondents opposed the idea of transferring their city to Palestinian jurisdiction. The proposal by Avigdor Lieberman for a population exchange was rejected by Israeli Arab politicians as ethnic cleansing.

Since the establishment of Israel, Umm al Fahm has gone from being a village to an urban center that serves as a hub for the surrounding villages. Most breadwinners make their living in the building sector. The remainder work mostly in clerical or self employed jobs, though a few small factories have been built over the years. According to CBS, there were 5,843 salaried workers and 1,089 self employed in 2000. The mean monthly wage in 2000 for a salaried worker was NIS 2,855, a real change of 3.4% over the course of 2000. Salaried males had a mean monthly wage of NIS 3,192 (a real change of 4.6%) versus NIS 1,466 for females (a real change of −12.6%). The mean income for the self employed was 4,885. 488 residents received unemployment benefits and 4,949 received an income guarantee. In 2007, the city had an unofficial 31 percent poverty rate. Haat Delivery is a food delivery start up based in Umm al Fahm. The service was launched in 2020 and handles tens of thousands of orders a month.

According to CBS, there are a total of 17 schools and 9,106 students in the city: 15 elementary and 4 junior high schools for more than 5,400 elementary school students, and 7 high schools for more than 3,800 high school students. In 2001, 50.4% of 12th grade students received a Bagrut matriculation certificate.

The Umm al Fahm Art Gallery was established in 1996 as a venue for contemporary art exhibitions and a home for original Arab and Palestinian art. The gallery operates under the auspices of the El Sabar Association. Yoko Ono held an exhibition there in 1999, and some of her art is still on show. The gallery offers classes to both Arab and Jewish children and exhibits the work of both Arab and Jewish artists. In 2007, the municipality granted the gallery a large plot of land on which the Umm al Fahm Museum of Contemporary Art will be built.