Ancient period

Settlement in Jish dates back 3,000 years. The village is mentioned in the Mishnah as Gush Halav, a city "surrounded by walls since the time of Joshua Ben Nun" (m. Arakhin 9:6).^[15] Canaanite and Israelite remains from the Early Bronze and Iron Ages have also been found there.^[7]

Classical antiquity

During the Classical period, the town was known as Gischala, a Greek transcription of the Hebrew name Gush Halav. Both Josephus and later Jewish sources from the Roman-Byzantine period mention the fine olive oil for which the village was known.^[14] According to the Talmud, the inhabitants also engaged in the production of silk.^[7] Eleazar b. Simeon, described in the Talmud as a very large man with tremendous physical strength, was a resident of the town. According to one version of events, he was initially buried in Gush Halav but later reinterred in Meron, next to his father, Shimon bar Yochai.^[16][17] Jerome recorded that Paul the Apostle lived with his parents in "Giscalis in Judea," which is understood to be Gischala.^[18][19][20]

After the fall of Gamla, Gush Halav was the last Jewish stronghold in the Galilee and Golan region during the Great Jewish Revolt against Rome (66-73 CE), and the home of John of Giscala.^[21][22]

Two ancient synagogues were discovered at Jish. The first was located at the top of the hill, below the current Maronite Church. The second one was discovered at the foot of the hill, close to a spring; one of its columns is inscribed in Aramaic with the name of a particular "Yose son of Tanhum".^[7] This synagogue went through several phases of construction and reconstruction, one destruction being dated by excavator Eric M. Meyers to the earthquake of 551.^[23] In addition to Jewish structures and burial sites dated to the 3rd through 6th centuries,^[8] both Jewish and Christian amulets have also been discovered nearby.^[24] Christian artifacts from the Byzantine period have been found at the site.^[25]

According to local tradition, two nearby rock-cut tombs contain the graves of 1st century BCE Jewish sages Shemaiah and Avtalyon.^[7]

Middle Ages

Historical sources from the 10th to the 15th centuries describe it as a large Jewish village,^[8] and it is mentioned in the 10th century by Arab geographer Al-Muqaddasi.^[26] Jewish life in the 10th and 11th centuries is attested to by documents in the Cairo Geniza.^{[citation needed]} In 1172, the Jewish traveler Benjamin of Tudela found about 20 Jews living there.^[27] Ishtori Haparchi also attended a megilla reading when he visited in 1322.^{[16][verification needed]}

Ottoman Empire

In 1596, Jish appeared in Ottoman tax registers as being in the Nahiya of Jira, of the Liwa Safad. It had a population of 71 households and 20 bachelors, all Muslim. The villagers paid taxes on goats and beehives, but most of its taxes were in the form of a fixed sum: total taxes amounted to around 30,750 akçe.^[9][28]

In the 17th century, the village had been inhabited by Druze, but they later departed from it.^[8] The Turkish traveler Evliya Çelebi, who passed by the village in 1648, wrote:

Then comes the village of Jish, with one hundred houses of accursed believers in the transmigration of souls (tenāsukhi mezhebindén). Yet what beautiful boys and girls they have! And what a climate! Every one of these girls has queenly, gazelle-like, bewitching eyes, which captivate the beholder—an unusual sight.^[29]

According to Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, Maronites first settled in Jish during the early 18th century. This may have happened as a result of the Battle of Ain Dara (1711), in which the Qaysis defeated the Yamanis and drove many of them from Mount Lebanon. Ben-Zvi recorded a local tradition, according to which two families in the village preceded the Maronite immigration; One of them—the Hashouls, the oldest family in the village— were Maronites of Jewish ancestry and were originally known by the name Shaul.^[30]

The Galilee earthquake of 1837 caused widespread damage and over 200 deaths.^[8] Three weeks afterward, contemporaries reported "a large rent in the ground...about a foot wide and fifty feet long." All the Galilee villages that were badly damaged at the time, including Jish, were situated on the slopes of steep hills. The presence of old landslides has been observed on aerial photographs. The fact that the village was built on dip slopes consisting of soft bedrock and soil has made it more vulnerable to landslides.^[31] According to Andrew Thomson, no houses in Jish were left standing. The church fell, killing 130 people, and the old town walls collapsed. A total of 235 people died, and the ground was left fissured.^[32][31] At the time, the village was noted as a mixed Muslim and Maronite village in the Safad district.^[33]

At the end of the 19th century, Jish was described as a "well-built village of good masonry" with about 600 Christian and 200 Muslim inhabitants.^[34]

A population list from about 1887 showed El Jish to have about 1,935 inhabitants; 975 Christians and 960 Muslims.^[35]

British Mandate

At the time of the 1922 census of Palestine, Jish had a population of 721–380 Christians and 341 Muslims.^[36] The Christians were classified as 71% Maronite and 29% Greek Catholic (or Melchite).^[37] By the 1931 census, Jish had 182 inhabited houses and a population of 358 Christians and 397 Muslims.^[38]

In the 1945 statistics, Jish had a population of 1,090; 350 Christians and 740 Muslims,^[39] and the village spanned 12,602 dunams, mostly Arab-owned.^[40] Of this, 1,506 dunums were plantations and irrigable land, 6,656 used for cereals,^[41] while 72 dunams were built-up (urban) land.^[42]

Israel

Israeli forces captured Jish on 29 October 1948, in Operation Hiram,^[43] after "a hard-fought battle."^[44] Benny Morris reports allegations that ten prisoners of war, identified as Moroccans fighting with the Syrian Army, and a number of villagers, including a woman and her baby, were murdered.^[45] The Israeli prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, ordered an investigation of the deaths^[46] but no IDF soldiers were brought to trial.^[47]

Elias Chacour, now Archbishop of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church, whose family resettled in Jish, wrote that when he was eight years old he discovered a mass grave containing two dozen bodies.^[48]

Many of the residents of Jish forced to leave the village in 1948 fled to Lebanon and became Palestinian refugees. Christians from the nearby town of Kafr Bir'im resettled in Lebanon and Jish,^[10][11] where today they are citizens of Israel, but continue to press for their right of return to their former villages.^[10] In October 1950, Israeli forces raided Jish and detained seven suspected smugglers who were stripped, bound, and beaten. They were released without charge.^[49]

In December 2010, a hiking and bicycle path known as the Coexistence Trail was inaugurated, linking Jish with Dalton, a neighboring Jewish village. The 2,500 meter-long trail, accessible to people with disabilities, sits 850 meters above sea level and has several lookout points, including a view of Dalton Lake, where rainwater is collected and stored for agricultural use.^[50]

Jish is known for its efforts to revive Aramaic as a living language. In 2011, the Israeli Ministry of Education approved a program to teach the language in Jish elementary schools. Maronites in Jish say that Aramaic is essential to their existence as a people, in the same way that Hebrew and Arabic are for Jews and Arabs.^[11]