Roman period Under the
Judaea Province, a Jewish town was situated at this spot. Ceramics from the
Byzantine era have been found here. Alma had several nearby
khirbas, and fragments of inscriptions from an ancient
synagogue were found at the site of the village in the 20th century.
Crusader period The name Alma is first mentioned in the
Crusader period, from a personal name. The Jewish community existed until the 17th century. The
Crusaders called the village "Alme"; it remained under their rule until 1187. While travelling though the region in the 12th century CE,
Benjamin of Tudela noted that Alma contained fifty
Jewish inhabitants and a "large cemetery of the
Israelites", where several sages mentioned in the
Mishnah and
Talmud were buried. An anonymous Hebrew manuscript of the period mentions that the village's inhabitants were Jews and Muslims, and the lord apparently Frankish. The narrative tells that on every
Shabbat Eve, Jews and Muslims light candles on the tomb of Rabbi
Eleazar ben Arach, a
tanna and a local
tzadik (righteous man), and mentions a nearby miracle-working tree. One inscription was discovered on a
lintel fragment featuring a bilingual
Hebrew and
Aramaic inscription, with its right half
repurposed. It conveys a blessing of peace for the location and the
people of Israel, along with a dedication by the artisan. though no Jews are listed in the early Ottoman
tax registers.
Rhode hypothesize that Basola have counted some Jews who went back and forth between Alma and
Safad, and were listed/taxed there. In the Ottoman tax registers of 1596, the village is listed as forming part of the
nahiya ("subdistrict") of Jira in the ''
liwa''' ("district") of
Safad. Total tax revenue amounted to a substantial 51,100
akce. Alma's prosperity was attributed to its close proximity to Safad.
Edward Robinson and
Eli Smith, who travelled to the region in 1838, give the full name of the village as '
Alma el-Khait ().
James Finn, the British consul to Jerusalem who travelled around Palestine between 1853 and 1856, describes the village of Alma as being situated in an area in which volcanic basalt was abundant. Around the village, women and children were gathering olives from the trees by beating them with poles and then collecting the fallen fruit. He notes that the small district in which the village is located is known by the locals as "the
Khait" (Arabic for "string") and that they "boast of its extraordinary fertility in corn-produce."
Victor Guérin visited in 1875, and noted that 200 Muslim inhabitants lived there. In
The Survey of Western Palestine (1881), Alma is described as a village built of stone with about 250 "
Algerine Mohammedan" residents, situated in the middle of a fertile plain with a few gardens. A population list from about 1887 showed
Alma to have about 1,105 Muslim inhabitants.
British Mandate period Alma was in the
Safad Subdistrict, Mandatory Palestine. The population of Alma in the
1922 census consisted of 309 Muslims, increasing to 712 Muslims in 148 occupied houses by
1931. In the
1945 statistics, the population had reached 950, still all Muslim. The villagers were heavily involved in agriculture, including raising livestock and growing crops. The village comprised a total area of 19,498
dunums of which 17,240 dunums was run by Arabs and the rest public. The population of the village was entirely Arab in ethnicity and Muslim in religion. The land ownership of the village before occupation in dunums: Alma was repopulated on 1 September 1949 by immigrants to Israel from
Libya. In 1953, a group of
converts to Judaism, known as the
Jews of San Nicandro, arrived from Italy. They later abandoned Alma to live in other nearby
moshavim. After the Italians left,
Cochin Jews arrived from
India. By 1968, Alma's inhabitants were mostly from Libya and
Tunisia. The economy is based on hillculture (vineyards, deciduous fruit, olives, vegetables) and cattle. In its early years of development, Alma was associated with
Hapoel HaMizrachi. ==Archaeology==