Antiquity Bayt Jann is thought to have been one of several locations called
Beth Dagon, and may be identified with the
Beth Dagon mentioned in
Tosefta Shevi'ith 7:13-71,29.
Crusaders and Caliphates In the
Crusader era it was known as
Beitegen. In 1249,
John Aleman transferred land, including the
casalia of Beitegen,
Sajur,
Majd al-Krum and
Nahf to the
Teutonic Knights. According to local legend, Druze families in the area lived in scattered colonies in the hills near sources of water until the 13th or 14th century. Two hunters looking for hyraxes stumbled upon a cave where they found an ancient cistern filled with water. Concluding that this was a good place for permanent settlement, several families settled on the site of what would become Bayt Jann.
Ottoman Empire In 1517, the village was incorporated into the
Ottoman Empire with the rest of the land of the Israelites, and in 1596,
Bayt Jinn appeared in Ottoman
tax registers as being in
nahiya (subdistrict) of
Akka under the ''
liwa' (district) of Safad. It had a population of 102 households and 5 bachelors, all Muslims. They paid taxes on silk spinning (dulab harir''), occasional revenues, goats and/or beehives, olive oil press and/or a press for grape syrup. In August 1754, the missionary Stephan Schulz visited the village. He noted that the inhabitants produced water-skins, and described the
grapes of the region as particularly large and fine. The American biblical scholar
Edward Robinson described Bayt Jann in 1852 as a "large well-built village", with houses made of
limestone and 260 male residents, all Druze. In 1881, the
Palestine Exploration Fund's
Survey of Western Palestine described Beit Jenn as a good village built of stone, with 300
Muslims and 100 Druze, with extensive gardens and vineyards.Old stones have been reused in village homes, and
cisterns and
tombs carved into rock have also been found. A population list from about 1887 showed Bayt Jann to have about 1,215 inhabitants; all Druze.
British Mandate In the
1922 census of Palestine conducted by the
British Mandate authorities,
Bait Jan had a population of 902: 6
Muslims, 1
Christian and 895 Druze; the only Christian was an
Anglican. At the time of the
1931 census, Bayt Jann had 229 occupied houses and a population of 1100 Druze and 1 Muslim. In the
1945 statistics the population of Bayt Jann together with
Ein al-Asad was 1,640, all classified as "others" (
i.e., Druze), who owned 43,550
dunams of land according to an official land and population survey. 2,530 dunams were plantations and irrigable land, 7,406 used for cereals, while 67 dunams were built-up (urban) land. "D" Company Headquarters in Bayt Jann. 1948
Israel In September 1991, the body of Samir Assad, an
Israel Defense Forces soldier from Bayt Jann, held since 1983 by the
DFLP, was returned in exchange for the return to Israel of exiled members of the DFLP. In July 2006, during the
Hezbollah–Israel war, Bayt Jann was hit by
Katyusha rockets fired by
Hezbollah. In the aftermath of the
2021 Meron crowd crush, the village offered help to the survivors and offered emergency services if ever needed. Mayor Radi Najm said that several families had sheltered survivors of the disaster.
Illegal logging in the vicinity of Bayt Jann has led to conflicts with park officials and rangers. In 2013, Bayt Jann high school was ranked first in the country for the number of students graduating with a
bagrut matriculation certificate. The village had no playground until 2020, when one was built with the help of
JNF UK. == Demographics ==