Kafr Ein - History

History

Kafr Ein is transliterated as "spring village". The village contains ten springs and ten reservoirs, one of which was recently damaged.

It is believed that there is an ancient site at the top of a local mountain known as Haraek. Haraek is believed to contain a church and a mosque. According to local legend, the site was destroyed during the Crusades and the single villager who survived its destruction came down to found Kafr Ein.

Kafr Ein was ruled by the Barghouti family throughout the later half of Ottoman rule of Palestine, located within the sheikhdom of Bani Zeid. It produced 52 qintars of olive oil annual, exporting it to Jerusalem or Nablus mainly for traditional soap-making.

The French explorer Victor Guérin passed by the village in 1870, and noted that it "did not seem very considerable." In 1882, the Palestine Exploration Fund's Survey of Western Palestine described "Kefr Ain" as a "small hamlet on a hill-slope, supplied by the Ain Matrun, in the valley south-west."

In a census conducted in 1922 by the British Mandate authorities, the village, called Kufr 'Ain, had a population of 376, all Muslims.

In 1945 the population was 550, all Arabs, while the total land area was 7,145 dunams, according to an official land and population survey. Of this, 4,928 were allocated for plantations and irrigable land, 724 for cereals, while 19 dunams were classified as built-up areas.