Makhamra family

Makhamra family
The Makhamra family, also Muhamara or Mahamara, is an extended family from the Palestinian city of Yatta, in the Hebron Governorate, West Bank. It is one of the largest clans in the southern Hebron Hills. The Makhamra family has a tradition of descending from a Jewish Arab tribe from Khaybar which was expelled from the Arabian Peninsula.
Etymology
According to a common interpretation, in Palestinian Arabic the meaning of Makhamra is "winemakers", an act forbidden in Islam.
Reports
Yitzhak Ben-Zvi (1920s)
Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, an ethnographer and historian who later became the second President of Israel, visited Yatta during the 1920s and interviewed the village's mukhtar, 'Ibn Aram. Ben-Zvi later wrote that the ancestor of three of the six clans that make up the village was Muheimar, a Jew who came up from the desert with his tribe and conquered the village, probably in the second half of the 18th century.
Wanderers' Association (1929)
The "Wanderers' Association", a group of secular Jewish travellers who toured the southern Hebron Hills in 1929 and published their findings and experiences in a series of articles in Haaretz, also wrote about the Makhamara family. When they arrived in Yatta, the locals told them that the name of their ancient village was "al-Jayur", and that "our forefathers were originally from the children of Israel; one family arrived here, possibly before 700 years ago, and they were known as 'Kheibar' [...] Our forefathers first engaged in a temporary war with the local populace, and later paid the entire price for the land. [....] back in Muhammad and Ali's time, when they conquered the towns with the sword, they forced us to convert, and since then, we are Muslim." When asked whether there were more Jews in the area, they replied that "There were many Jews in Hebron and the villages". They also added that several of them would not eat camel meat, which is forbidden in Judaism. The same visit was also reported in Davar.
In another article, David Benbenishti from the Wanderers' Association reported meeting two shepherds from the Makhamara family at Khirbet Khureisa, who also told them that their ancestors were Jews from Khaybar. When they later visited the nearby town of As-Samu, locals there informed them that several of the villagers were linked to the Makhamara family as a result of intermarriage and said that they regularly mocked them by stating, "You are Jews, so you are cheaters". Later, in Dura, they were also told about the Jewish origins of the Makhamara family; one local claimed they were from Khirbit Kheibar, which he claimed was a nearby ruin (but was not found on the map), while another claimed they came from Hebron.
Hannukah (1938)
In 1938, Arab families from Yatta were reported to celebrate the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah, lighting candles retrieved from the Jewish community of Hebron.
Tzvi Misinai (2009)
Several members of the Makhamra clan were interviewed for a Channel 1 article about Tzvi Misinai and admitted that they are aware of their Jewish origins, although today they consider themselves Muslims for many generations since their ancestors converted to Islam.
According to other reports, the Makhamra family in Yatta practice endogamy and do not intermarry with other local families. There are also mezuzah slots visible in building doorways.
Analysis
The Makhamra family's tradition of Jewish origin has been the subject of several explanations. Ben-Zvi, for instance, accepted the oral tradition according which the Mahkamras sprang from the Jews who were expelled from Khaybar in the Hejaz and eventually settled in Yatta.
Yatta has been identified with the site of the ancient town of Juttah, also mentioned in the Hebrew Bible. In the 4th century CE, Eusebius wrote that Yatta was "a very large village of Jews". In contrast to other areas of Judea, the southern Hebron Hills retained a Jewish population after the Bar Kokhba revolt, as evidenced by historical texts and archaeological sites (including multiple synagogues). The Jewish presence is recorded up until the Muslim conquest, when the synagogues of Susya and Eshtemoa were repurposed as mosques. It remains unclear whether local Jews had fled the area or had converted to Islam.
Another theory, backed by scholars such as Mordechai Nissan, contends that the current inhabitants of Yatta may be the descendants of a Jewish population that lived there during the Second Temple period and later converted to Islam. Ben-Zvi also mentioned Shalem's view, which suggests that the traditional descent from Khaybar actually refers to a nearby ruin of the same name, either located in close proximity to Khirbet Karmil (ancient Carmel), or identical to it.
Today
In the 2010s, Makhamra clan members has been linked to Palestinian terrorism. On June 8, 2016, two members of the clan, Khaled Mahmara and Muhammad Mahamara, carried out a shooting attack in Sarona Market, Tel Aviv, during which four people were killed. Some writers have attributed that activity to their desire to show their neighbors that despite their "Jewish past", they are sided with the Palestinians in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.
Members of the clan are today reluctant to acknowledge their Jewish heritage, probably due to the fear that Israel will use that to support its claim for ownership over the land.
See also
History of the Jews in Khaybar
Khirbet Kheibar
Yatta
References
Arabic-language surnames
Palestinian families
Palestinian people of Jewish descent
Groups claiming Jewish descent