Yanuh-Jat (, ) is an Israeli Druze village and local council in the Northern District of Israel, northeast of Acre, consisting of the villages of Yanuh and Jat, which merged in 1990. In it had a population of , all members of the Druze community.
History
In Yanuh, old hewn stones have been found reused in village houses. Lintels, oil press, grape press, cisterns cut in rock and old graves have also been described.
Remains from the Bronze Ages, the Iron Age, the Hellenistic, Roman and the Byzantine periods were found when an area near the shrine of Shaykh Abu Arus in Jat was excavated. 4th and 5th century CE glass vases were found in Jat when a burial cave was excavated in 1966. Ceramics from the same period was also found, together with a bronze bell in an excavation in 1967 of a grave with a central chamber and loculi.
In the Crusader era, Jat was known under the name of Jesce, Jeth or Gez. It first belonged to the lord who had a seat at Mi'ilya, ("Castellum Regis"), later it belonged to the Teutonic Knights. In 1220 Joscelin III´s daughter Beatrix de Courtenay and her husband Otto von Botenlauben, Count of Henneberg, sold their land, including Gez, to the Teutonic Knights.
Earlier sources identified the Crusader place of Lanahie with Yanuh, however, newer researchers place Lanahie near Umm al-Faraj.
Ottoman era
In 1517, the area was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire with the rest of Palestine, and in 1596 Yanuh appeared in the Ottoman tax registers under the name of "Yanuh al-Ward" as being in the nahiya (subdistrict) of Akka under the Liwa of Safad, with a population of 16 households and 2 bachelors, all Muslim. It paid taxes on a number of crops, including wheat and barley, fruit trees, as well as on goats, beehives and "winter pastures". Jat might possibly be the village mentioned under the name of Kafr Yuda (Yura) in the same daftar, a village with a population of 28 households, also all Muslim.
French explorer Victor Guérin visited Yanuh in August 1875, and found Cisterns cut in the rock, and many cut stones scattered over the soil, surrounding platforms or employed as building material, show that we are here on the site of a small ancient city, the name of which is faithfully preserved in its modern name.' At the same time he noted about "Djett" that 'this is the site of an ancient township, of which there remain cisterns, a built reservoir, and fragments of cut stones disposed about platforms or built up in the walls of modern constructions. Its ancient name was probably Gath, Gith, or Gittah, given to many towns in Palestine, of which Jett is the modern form.'
In the 1881 PEF's Survey of Western Palestine (SWP), Yanuh was described as a village "built of stone, in two parts, having the tomb of a Neby in the southern portion; the village is partially in ruins, and contains about 170 Druzes; it is situated on the high ground on the western brow of a ridge, and is surrounded by olives and a little arable land, but mostly brushwood; there are two birkets and cisterns to supply water." SWP at the same time described "Jett" as "a village, built of stone, on the ridge of a hill; contains about 120 Druzes (according to Guerin, 150); surrounded by olives and figs; the water from cisterns and wells."
A population list from about 1887 showed that Yanuh had 245 inhabitants and Jett had about 105 inhabitants; all Druze.
British Mandate of Palestine
In the 1922 census of Palestine conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Yanuh had a population of 117 Druze and one Muslim, while Jat had a population of 137, all Druze. By the time of the 1931 census, Yanuh had a population of 306, all Druze, in 47 houses, while Jat had a population of 154 in 28 houses, of which eight were Muslims and the rest Druze.
In 1945 Yanuh had a population of 410, all classified as "others", i.e. Druze, with 12,836 dunams of land, according to an official land and population survey. Of this, 804 dunams were plantations and irrigable land, 1,625 used for cereals, while 40 dunams were built-up land. In the same 1945 survey Jat had a population of 200 Arabs; 10 Muslims and 190 "others", i.e. Druze, and 5,909 dunams of land. Of this, 554 dunams were plantations and irrigable land, 1,206 used for cereals, while 29 dunams were built-up land.