The Jahalin Bedouin lived in the Tel Arad region of the Negev prior to the 1948. In the early 1950s, the Jahalin were evicted from their traditional lands by the Israeli army. They re-grouped east of Jerusalem but were forced to end their pastoral life-style after the Israeli conquest of the West Bank in 1967. They are currently based in the village of 'Arab al-Jahalin east of Jerusalem.
In March 1875 Claude R. Conder, leader of the Palestine Exploration Fund survey team, reported the land south of Ain Jidy, close to Masada, belonged to the Jahalin. He met one of their sheikhs, Abu Dahuk, and noted the size and strength of their horses and their fondness for tobacco. He states that they had recently been driven from their country by Dhullam Arabs and mentions a war going on three hours from the team's camp at Beit Jibrin. Earlier in the same year one of Conder's colleagues on the survey listed the Jahalin as numbering 150 men, with 100 tents.
On 17 April 2012 a documentary about the Jahalin, "Nowhere left to go" directed by Harvey Stein, was premiered at the French Cultural Centre. Jerusalem.
Famous quotes containing the word bedouin:
“Among all the world’s races, some obscure Bedouin tribes possibly apart, Americans are the most prone to misinformation. This is not the consequence of any special preference for mendacity, although at the higher levels of their public administration that tendency is impressive. It is rather that so much of what they themselves believe is wrong.”
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