Ibrahim Ebeid: MY ROOTS ARE DEEP IN PALESTINE Chapter2-part1 

Ibrahim Ebeid: MY ROOTS ARE DEEP IN PALESTINE

Chapter2-part1 

EBEID ABDUL MASSIH EL-FARR AND HIS DESCENDANTS

Ebeid, the founder of our family, was the son of Abdul Massih Ibn Ibrahim Ibn Jiryes Ibn Abdo el-Farr. Abdul Massih was an Orthodox priest.

Priests in the Eastern churches are allowed to marry; he had several daughters in addition to Ebeid his only son. We knew little about the priest because the elders were not accustomed to recording anything about the family history. Most of them were illiterate or semi-educated peasants. Schools were not widely available in those days, so I have to depend on what I heard from the elders of the town of Birzeit and the family. I was told by my aunts that Ebeid was born after the death of his father

A story was related to me that the priest, the father of Ebeid, saw a vision, or a dream, that he was dying and he would not see his newborn. The premonition came true and he died and his hope to see the newborn was not realized. Ebeid was taken care of by Ibrahim, his grandfather, and uncles. He was named Abdul Massih after his father then became known as Ebeid which is a nickname for Abdul Massih.

I tried to get more official information about Abdul Massih, the priest. Official information and records were not available because of the wars that ravaged the area for many years, especially in Palestine where the Zionist occupiers destroyed everything to eradicate Palestinian culture, history, and existence.

Ebeid was a jeweler and a builder, a wealthy man for the standard of that time. He encountered trouble with the Ottoman Turkish Authority for his activities against the Turks when they occupied our homeland. Three of his cousins were killed and he had to flee Ramleh to Birzeit, a hilly village in the center of Palestine. Ebeid’s sister was married to a man from the Abed family. Her name was probably Miriam. Ebeid decided to stay there away from trouble. He met a woman from the Abed family; most likely her name was Katrina, and married her. He bought land, olive orchards, vineyards and built a house that still exists in the village.

A Bit of History of Ramleh

The city of Ramleh was built by the Umayyad Caliph Suleiman Ibn Abdul Malik in 715 CE. It replaced the adjacent city of Lidd as the capital of the military forces administration in Palestine for the next 400 years. It was named Ramleh after a lady with the same name (Ramleh) who lived in a tent in the area and received Suleiman Ibn Abdul Malik with great respect. She offered him food and shelter when he was on a hunting trip with his entourage. At that time, he was the Commander of Palestine. Ramleh was occupied by the Zionists in 1948, and the majority of its people, including the el-Farr family, were forced into exile under the gun of the invaders.

An old view of Ramleh city

The house of Ebeid in Birzeit,was standard and typical of the houses of the villagers at that time. It was used

The mule was a necessity for the farmers because it was used for transportation and tilling the land. The fellah (peasant) kept the animal in a special place where food and water were within reach. The food was dropped to the animal through an opening similar to an arched window in the main dwelling, where people lived. Also, in the first level, rabbits were kept and goats and chickens slept. Rabbits were a good source of meat. Chickens supplied eggs, while goats yielded milk and various other dairy products such as yogurt, cheese, and butter.

Later on ,  my grandfather , Jiryes , built a utility room adjacent to the old house and it was used as a kitchen in winter time and also he dug a pit which they call the world to storage olive oil edit a utility room, a kitchen, a washroom and sometimes a guest room. The toilet was not a modern one; it was a latrine in the little yard. Also, in the front of the house was an oven where they baked bread and roasted meat and other food. The oven, or taboun as it is called in Arabic, was circular, made of some sort of clay right on the ground inside a little hut made of stones. The taboun was covered with hearth, mainly made of dried manure, mixed with hay or jift, crushed olive seeds left from the oil press, to keep it heated, and on the top was a round opening, through which they put the dough to be baked or food to be cooked. I witnessed this interesting taboun whenever I visited the house. I enjoyed the bread baked over round heated pebbles and the baked chicken with onions called mussakhan.

The second floor was wide enough to be used as an open dwelling where people ate, sat and slept. One part was higher than the other called mistabeh; it was used as the sleeping quarters for the head of the family, in that case, my grandfather. Alongside the second floor, there was another elevated floor, part of it contained little silos, “khabiyah,” to keep grains, such as wheat, lentils, and beans, and they were made of hardened clay-like mud mixed with straws. Behind these silos was a large space to keep

The house of Ebeid from outside which will be turned to a museum

hay and other materials called rawiya.

Ebeid had four daughters and two sons. The daughters were Sarah married to Hanna Ziadeh, Hanneh to Ibrahim Alloush, no children, Ni’meh to Abdallah Saadeh who was a prominent man from Birzeit and Barakeh about whom we know little; it seemed she died young and was never married.