Masmiya Shalom colony

Masmiya was a settlement in the lowlands near present-day Gadera. Its inhabitants were mainly miners, and there is evidence of its existence as early as the 1880s. The Masmiya settlement was divided into two settlements:

• Greater Masmiya(new name: Masmiya al-Hadla): In 1945, its land area was 20,687 Turkish dunams, of which 229 were owned by Jews, with a population of 2,520 inhabitants.

• Huraniya, also known as Masmiya al-Zawaira (Little Masmiya): In 1945, its land area was 6,478 Turkish dunams, with a population of 530 inhabitants. It was likely established at the end of the 19th century due to internal conflict in Greater Samia.

Masmiya was considered a friendly village towards the Jews. However, in the second half of 1938, during the Great Arab Revolt, the situation changed. After significant damage to equipment, tensions peaked when some villagers, with help from residents of neighboring villages, attacked the electric company workers and Zionist inspectors in what became known as the Battle of the Masmiya Junction. Following the incident, the British authorities destroyed several houses in the village. During Operation An-Far, the settlements were captured in July 1948 by the Givati Brigade, and its inhabitants fled. In May 1950, Yemeni Jewish immigrants were organized as part of the Agudat Israel labor movement in the same village. This settlement evolved into Masmiya Passage, or officially, Masmiya Shalom Passage. Most of its Zionist inhabitants moved to live in Bnei Ayish at the beginning of 1958, but some families remained in the village afterward. The name of the original Arab settlement has been preserved unofficially as the name of the junction located there—Masmiya Junction. The official name of the junction is Ram Junction, named after Rabbi Abraham Mordechai Alshich, the Rabbi of Gur, after whom the neighboring settlement of Bnei Ram was also named. In the 1950s, the area was called Mishmi Shalom. The buildings of the Greater Masmiya boys’ and girls’ schools remain intact to this day.

Sources:

Due to the scarcity of Arabic sources, Hebrew sources were used, including:

• The official Hebrew website of the settlement

• The Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics

• The village of Little Masmiya from the Palestine Remembered website