Deiran

Khirbat Deiran was inhabited during the Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine periods, with a major expansion to about 60 dunams during the early centuries of Islamic rule. Archaeologist Buchenino reported possible evidence of Jewish or Samaritan occupation on site during the Roman and Byzantine periods. Klein identified Khirbet Deiran as Kerem Doron ("vineyard of Doron"), a place mentioned in Talmud Yerushalmi (Peah 7:4), but Fischer believes that there is "no special reason" for this identification, During the Ottoman period the area was inhabited by the Sawtariyya Arabs, who used to inhabit the site in tents with their flocks. == Jewish settlement ==

Rehovot was founded as a moshava on Deiran's lands in 1890 by Polish Jewish immigrants who had come with the First Aliyah, seeking to establish a township which would not be under the influence of the Baron Edmond James de Rothschild, on land which was purchased from a Christian Arab by the Menuha Venahala society, an organization in Warsaw that raised funds for Jewish settlement in Eretz Israel. The once "abandoned or sparsely populated" estate, now lied in the center of the built-up area of the Rehovot. According to Marom, Deiran offered "a convenient launching pad for early land purchase initiatives which shaped the pattern of Jewish settlement until the beginning of the British Mandate". In March 1892, a dispute over pasture rights erupted between the residents of Rehovot and the neighboring village of Zarnuqa, which took two years to resolve. Another dispute broke out with the Suteriya Bedouin tribe, which had been cultivating some of the land as tenant farmers. According to Moshe Smilansky, one of the early settlers of Rehovot, the Bedouins had received compensation for the land, but refused to vacate it. In 1893, they attacked the moshava. Through the intervention of a respected Arab sheikh, a compromise was reached, with the Sautariyya Bedouins receiving an additional sum of money, which they used to dig a well. == References ==