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Concept
Afula
Summary
Afula (עֲפוּלָה, ʿĂfūlā) is a city in the Northern District of Israel, often known as the "Capital of the Valley" due to its strategic location in the Jezreel Valley. As of , the city had a population of .
Afula's ancient tell suggests habitation from the Late Calcolithic period to the Ayyubid period. It has been proposed that Afula is the location of the village Arbela mentioned in the Onomasticon of Eusebius and the 7th century Samaritan village of Kirjath Ophlatha. A fortress was built at the site during the Mamluk period.
A small Palestinian Arab village during the Ottoman period, it was sold in 1872 with the entire Jezreel valley to the Lebanese Sursock family. In 1925, the same area was acquired by the American Zionist Commonwealth as part of the Sursock Purchase. The majority Muslim and Christian population were removed, and replaced by Jewish immigrants, marking the foundation of modern Afula. After the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, Afula was settled by Jewish immigrants from Iraq, Yemen and Romania. In 1972, it gained the status of a city. The 1990s saw Jewish immigration from Ethiopia and the former Soviet Union contribute to the growth of the city. Since 1995, the city has almost doubled its population.
The name follows that of the small Arab village which occupied the site until WW1, possibly originating in the Canaanite-Hebrew root ʿofel "fortress tower", or the Arab word for "ruptured".
An ancient mound or tell known as Tell ʿAfula, located in the heart of modern ʿAfula, suggests almost continuous habitation from the Late Chalcolithic (fourth millennium BCE) to the Ayyubid period in the 13th century. At the beginning of the twentieth century the mound served as a refuse dump for the nearby Arab village of el-Fuleh.
For archaeological finds from Tell ʿAfula predating the Crusader/Mamluk fortress, see the archaeology paragraph.
ʿAfula is possibly the place ʿOphlah, mentioned in the lists of Pharaoh Thutmose III. Zev Vilnay suggested to identify Afula with biblical Ophel, mentioned in 2 Kings.
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