Yesterday we visited the site of Kafar Bir’em, the site of a Palestinian Christian village located in the mountains just south of the Israeli-Lebanon border. Kate has already written a post about it. Here are some images of my own.
The village was evacuated during the 1948 war and a few years later destroyed to make way for the Israeli town Moshav Dovev and the neighbouring Bar’am kibbutz. Like many former Palestinian villages the ruins are now set in a national park. The focal point of the park is an ancient synagogue, around which picnic tables are set. No mention is made on the information boards of the village, or the church just beyond the synagogue that still serves the village’s displaced Christian Maronite communities. We attended the weekly service there, in which much of the liturgy was proclaimed in Aramaic.
Further information about the history of the village, and the ongoing attempts to clarify the status of its former residents, on The Committee for the Uprooted of Kafar Bi’rem website.
Please click the images to view larger versions. The pictures can also be viewed on Flickr.
