The village was on a hill 1.5 kilometres northeast of
Safad. It is believed to have been built on the site of the Roman village of
Beral or
Bin, which was later also a Jewish town.
Ottoman era In the 1596
tax record, Biriyya was a village in the
nahiya of Jira (
Liwa' of Safad) with a
Muslim population of 38 families and 3 bachelors, and a
Jewish population of 16 families and 1 bachelor; a total estimated population of 319 persons. The villagers paid taxes on crops such as
wheat,
barley, and
olives and other types of produce and owned beehives, vineyards, and a press that was used for processing olives. Total taxes paid was 3,145
akçe. A map from
Napoleon's invasion of 1799 by
Pierre Jacotin showed the place, named as "Beria", while in 1838
Biria was noted as a village in the Safad region. In 1875
Victor Guérin found Biriyya to have about 150 Muslim inhabitants. In 1881, the
PEF's
Survey of Western Palestine (SWP) described Biriyya as having "good stone houses, containing about 100 Muslims, surrounded by arable cultivation, and several good springs near the village". A population list from about 1887 showed
Biria to have about 355 Muslim inhabitants.
British Mandate era In the
1922 census of Palestine conducted by the
British Mandate authorities,
Biria had a population of 128, all Muslims, increasing in the
1931 census to 170, still all Muslims, in a total of 38 houses. In the
1945 statistics it had a population of 240 Muslims while 25 dunums were built-up (urban) land. The villagers sold their products at the market in nearby Safad. The occupation of Safad and eastern Galilee was completed in May 1948 during
Operation Yiftach. In 1992 the village site was described: "About fifteen houses remain and are inhabited by the residents of the settlement of
Biriyya, the settlement has been expanded to include the village site. In addition to the inhabited houses, four are semi-deserted or used for storage. Stones from destroyed houses can be found in some of the walls around the settlement. Many old almond, olive, fig, and eucalyptus trees are scattered throughout the site, mingled with trees that have been planted more recently." ==See also==