From the Pages of the Defter (ص 185)

غرض

عنوان

From the Pages of the Defter (ص 185)

المحتوى

hamula head, conforming to the new laws while preserving options to later divide and re-divide
holdings among themselves without incurring transfer fees.
The third case, brought by Bayt Kahil villagers, focuses on property mortgages and the
inconclusively much-debated question of whether the Land Code resulted in the
impoverishment of peasants, and mass landlessness engendered by new economic situations
which compelled rural farmers to take usurious loans. This case shows that the tapu office, the
sharia court, and the Ottoman Agricultural Bank all worked in conjunction with each other, at
least in a town the size of Hebron, whose population at the turn of the twentieth century was
about 20,000.°”°
In conclusion, it is argued that these three end-of-the-nineteenth century cases reflect
the great degree to which Land Code reforms had been incorporated into Hebron society. The
first section of this chapter traces the development of Jamrura and surrounding villages over
the Ottoman centuries, providing background and context for the three case studies that follow
in this chapter’s subsequent sections.
A Historical Sketch of Ottoman-era Jamrura and Its Environs
Until recent decades, when Israel confiscated parts of the farmlands (mezra‘) of Jamrura in the
name of security and under the Absentee Property Law of 1950, very little was generally known
about this historically non-settled, agricultural area which, since 1949, straddles the Green Line
3° | have calculated this number from the 1905 nufiis population registries for the city. ISA, RG83, nufus.
168

هو جزء من

From the Pages of the Defter

تاريخ

٢٠١٦

المنشئ

Susynne McElrone

مجموعات العناصر

Generated Pages Set

Theses رسائل ماجستير ودكتوراه