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Template:Infobox Palestinian Authority municipality A-Ram or al-Ramm (Template:Lang-ar;) is a Palestinian town which lies northeast of Jerusalem, just outside the city's municipal border. The village is part of the built-up urban area of Jerusalem, the Atarot industrial zone and Beit Hanina lie to the west, and Neve Ya'akov borders it on the south. with a built-up area of 3,289 dunums. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, a-Ram had a population of 25,595 in 2006. The head of a-Ram village council estimates that 58,000 people live there, more than half of them holding Israeli identity cards.

History

In Crusader sources, Al-Ram was named Aram, Haram, Rama, Ramatha, Ramitta, or Ramathes.

Al-Ram was one of 21 villages given by King Godfrey as a fief to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre

All the inhabitants of the village who were mentioned in Crusader sources between 1152 and 1160 had names which imply they were Christian.

The village was mentioned around 1161, when a dispute about a land boundary was settled.

Ottoman era

In 1838 Edward Robinson found the village to be very poor and small, but large stones and scattered columns indicated that it had previously been an important place. In 1870 the French explorer Victor Guérin found the village to have 200 inhabitants.

In 1883, the Palestine Exploration Fund's Survey of Western Palestine described Er Ram as a "small village in a conspicuous position on the top of a white hill, with olives. It has a well to the south. The houses are of stone, partly built of old material". "West of the village is a good birkeh with a pointed vault; lower down the hill a pillar-shaft broken in two, probably from the church. On the hill are cisterns. Drafted stones are used up in the village walls. At Khan er Ram, by the main road, is a quarry with half-finished blocks still in it, and two cisterns. The Khan appears to be quite modern, and is in ruins. There are extensive quarries on the hill-sides near it."

British Mandate era

In the 1922 census of Palestine conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Ram had a population 208, all Muslims. This had increased in the 1931 census to 262, still all Muslim, in 51 houses.

In a survey in 1945, Er Ram had a population of 350 Arabs, and a total land area of 5,598 dunams. 441 dunams were designated for plantations and irrigable land, 2,291 for cereals, while 14 dunams were built-up area.

post-1948

In the wake of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, and after the 1949 Armistice Agreements, Al-Ram came under Jordanian rule. It was captured by Israel along with the rest of East Jerusalem and the West Bank, and has been under Israeli occupation since then.

In 2006, the Israeli High Court rejected three petitions objecting to the construction of a security barrier separating a-Ram from Jerusalem. The route of the fence planned to encircle northern Jerusalem has been revised several times. The latest plan calls for a "minimalist" route that leaves the village of A-Ram east of the fence. According to the current plan, still subject to revision, the fence will approach A-Ram, near the Atarot airport and Qalandiyah.

Crusader remains

Two structures in the town have been identified.

Tower

A tower, which was later part of a courtyard building, is of Crusader origin.

Former Crusader church

The former (old) mosque of Al-Ram was once a Crusader parish church.

In 1838, Robinson noted that "A small mosk with columns seems once to have been a church".

In 1870, Guérin described "a mosque, replacing a former Christian church, of which it occupies the choir; the inhabitants venerate there the memory of Shaykh Hasen. The columns of this sanctuary come from the church."

In 1881, Lieutenant Conder reported: "At the shrine which is so conspicuous near this village are remains of a former chapel. The lintel stone (as it would seem), with a bas-relief of rosettes, has been found by Dr. Chaplin within the building, and a very curious stone mask is in his possession, obtained from the village. It represents a human face without hair or beard, the nose well-cut, the eyes and mouth very feebly designed. ' The mask is hollowed out behind, and has two deep holes at the back as if to fix it to a wall. It is over a foot in longer diameter, and curiously resembles some of the faces of the Moabite collection of Mr. Shapira. There cannot well be any question of its genuine character, and nothing like it has been found, so far as I know, in Palestine.'

In 1883, SWP noted that "west of the village is the Muqam of Sheik Hasein, once a small Christian basilica". It further described it as "The remains of the north aisle 6 feet 8 inches wide, are marked by four columns 2 feet in diameter. The chamber of the saint's tomb occupies part of the nave, and into its north wall the lintel of the old door is built, a stone 10 feet long, half of which is visible, with designs as shown. In the courtyard east of this chamber is an old well of good water and a fine mulberry-tree. In the west wall of the Mukam other stones, with discs in low relief, are built in."

Sister cities

• Zemun, Serbia
• Bondy, France - in progress since 2010.

References

1. "The Separation Barrier surrounding a-Ram". Btselem. January 1, 2014. Retrieved 18 January 2014.
2. The Separation Barrier surrounding a-Ram Projected Mid -Year Population for Jerusalem Governorate by Locality 2004- 2006 Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics.
3. http://www.palestine-pmc.com/details.asp?cat=3&id=568
4. Pringle, 1998, p. 179
5. Conder and Kitchener, 1883, SWP III, p. 11
6. de Roziére, 1849, pp. 263: Haram, cited in Röhricht, 1893, RRH, p. 16-17, No 74
7. Röhricht, 1893, RRH, pp. 70- 71, No 278; p. 92, No 353
8. ^ Pringle, 1998, p. 180
9. Röhricht, 1893, RRH, pp. 96, No 365
10. ^ Robinson and Smith, 1841, vol 2, pp. 315-317
11. Guérin, 1874, p. 199 ff
12. Conder and Kitchener, 1883, SWP III, p. 13
13. ^ Conder and Kitchener, 1883, SWP III, p. 155
14. Barron, 1923, Table V||, Sub-district of Jerusalem, p. 14
15. Mills, 1932, p. 42
16. Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 58
17. Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 104
18. Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 154
19. High Court: A-Ram fence is our defense, Dec. 13, 2006, The Jerusalem Post
20. Harel, Amos (November 10, 2003). "Separation fence to include wide area east of Jerusalem". Haaretz. Retrieved 18 January 2014.
21. Pringle, 1997, p. 88
22. Wilson, 1881, p. 214: picture
23. Guérin, 1874, p. 200, as translated in Pringle, 1998, p. 180
24. Conder, 1881, p. 196
25. Conder and Kitchener, 1883, SWP III, p. 438

Bibliography

• Barron, J. B., ed. (1923). Palestine: Report and General Abstracts of the Census of 1922. Government of Palestine.
• Conder, C. R. (1881). "Lieutenant Conder´s reports". Quarterly statement - Palestine Exploration Fund. 13: 158–208.
• Conder, Claude Reignier; Kitchener, H. H. (1883). The Survey of Western Palestine: Memoirs of the Topography, Orography, Hydrography, and Archaeology. Vol. 3. London: Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund.
• Guérin, Victor (1874). Description Géographique Historique et Archéologique de la Palestine (in French). Vol. 2: Samarie, pt. 1. Paris: L'Imprimerie Nationale.
• Hadawi, Sami (1970). Village Statistics of 1945: A Classification of Land and Area ownership in Palestine. Palestine Liberation Organization Research Center.
• Mills, E., ed. (1932). Census of Palestine 1931. Population of Villages, Towns and Administrative Areas (PDF). Jerusalem: Government of Palestine.
• Palmer, E. H. (1881). The Survey of Western Palestine: Arabic and English Name Lists Collected During the Survey by Lieutenants Conder and Kitchener, R. E. Transliterated and Explained by E.H. Palmer. Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund.
• Pringle, Denys (1997). Secular buildings in the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem: an archaeological Gazetter. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521 46010 7.
• Pringle, Denys (1998). The Churches of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem: Volume II L-Z (exluding Tyre). Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0 521 39037 0.
• Robinson, Edward; Smith, Eli (1841). Biblical Researches in Palestine, Mount Sinai and Arabia Petraea: A Journal of Travels in the year 1838. Vol. 2. Boston: Crocker & Brewster. ( pp. 108, 114, 141)
• Röhricht, Reinhold (1893). (RRH) Regesta regni Hierosolymitani (MXCVII-MCCXCI) (in Latin). Berlin: Libraria Academica Wageriana. (Index: p. 491: Aram (Haram), p. 504: Rama, Ramatha )
• Röhricht, Reinhold (1904). (RRH Ad) Regesta regni Hierosolymitani Additamentum (in Latin). Berlin: Libraria Academica Wageriana. (Index: p. 129: Aram #74; p. 134: er Ram #74; Rama #30a; (Rame? #512)
• de Roziére, ed. (1849). Cartulaire de l'église du Saint Sépulchre de Jérusalem: publié d'après les manuscrits du Vatican (in Latin and French). Paris: Imprimerie nationale.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: unrecognized language (link)
• Wilson, Charles Williams, ed. (1881, 1884): Picturesque Palestine, Sinai and Egypt. vol 1 of 4.

External links

• Welcome To al-Ram
• SWP map 17, IAA
• SWP map 17, Wikimedia commons
• Al-Ram Town (Fact Sheet), ARIJ
• Ar Ram Town Profile, ARIJ
• Ar Ram Areal photo, ARIJ
• "Another Palestinian Ghetto in East Jerusalem: Israel Closes the Segregation Wall in Al Ram". Applied Research Institute–Jerusalem. 21 March 2005.
• Oz Rosenberg (11 April 2012). "IDF closes off central Palestinian town to vehicles". Haaretz.

v t e Jerusalem Governorate
Subdistrict	Jerusalem J1 (Territories of East Jerusalem unilaterally annexed by Israel in its Jerusalem Municipality)
Cities	Abu Dis al-Eizariya (Bethany) al-Ram
Municipalities	Hizma Biddu Bir Nabala Kafr 'Aqab Qatanna
Villages	'Anata 'Arab al-Jahalin Beit 'Anan Beit Duqqu Beit Hanina Beit Ijza Beit Iksa Beit Safafa Beit Surik Jaba al-Jib al-Judeira Khan al-Ahmar Mukhmas Nabi Samwil al-Qubeiba Qalandia Rafat as-Sawahira ash-Sharqiya Sharafat ash-Sheikh Sa'd Shuafat az-Za'ayyem
Refugee camps	Qalandia Camp Shu'fat Camp

• Cities in the West Bank
• Jerusalem Governorate