Name meaning from personal name, Palestine grid 193/233 Current localities Kefar Qish Date of depopulation 6 April 1948 | Subdistrict Tiberias Area 11666 dunams Current locality Kfar Kisch | |
Cause(s) of depopulation Abandonment on Arab orders | ||
Ma'dhar was a Palestinian Arab village in the Tiberias Subdistrict. It was depopulated during the 1947–1948 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine on May 12, 1948 by the Golani Brigade of Operation Gideon. It was located 12.5 km southwest of Tiberias.
History
The Crusaders referred to Ma'dhar as Kapharmater.
Ma'dhar was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire in 1517, and by 1596, it was a village of 94 inhabitants under the administration of the nahiya ("subdistrict") of Tiberias, part of the sanjak of Safad. It paid taxes on wheat, barley, goats, beehives and orchards. A map from Napoleon's invasion of 1799 by Pierre Jacotin showed the place, named as Chara, but misplaced.
By the end of the 19th century, it was described as having about 250 Muslim residents, in a village made of basalt and other stone. Water was supplied from cisterns an springs.
Ma'dhar had a school founded by the Ottomans, but closed during the British Mandate period. Ma'dhar contained a mosque and still has the ruins of a church, a burial ground, and ruined Crusader fortress called Casel de Cherio.
By 1945, the village population was 480, and the total land area was 11,666 dunums of land. 498 dunams were irrigated or used for orchards, 10,766 used for cereals, while 63 dunams were built-up (urban) land.