Jubb Yusuf

The village was situated in a flat, volcanic area that had reddish soil, northwest of Lake Tiberias. A highway that led to Safad and Tiberias passed a short distance to the east of it. It may have acquired its name from a nearby well, Jubb Yusuf ('Joseph's well'). The site was also known as khan  Jubb Yusuf; this implies that it had been a stopping place for travelers, and in fact was mentioned as such by a number of Arab and Western travelers. The Arab geographer al-Maqdisi wrote in A.D. 985 that it was a resting place along the road to Damascus. Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi (Saladin) also stopped there on his way to fight the Crusaders in the battle of Hittin (1187). In 1355, Ibn Battuta described the well as being large, deep, and placed in the courtyard of a small mosque. In 1596, Jubb Yusuf was a village in the nahiya of Jira (liwa' of Safad) with a population of seventy-two. It paid taxes on a number of crops, including wheat, barley, and fruit, as well as on goats and beehives. Al-Nablusi (d. ca. 1730) noted the pleasant dome over the well and a handsome mosque close to it. He also mentioned a well-built khan. The Swiss traveler Burckhardt noted in 1822 that the khan was falling into ruin.

The modern village was small, with closely-packed houses made of mud, basalt stones, and limestone. It had a mosque that was surmounted by a dome. A large number of wells and springs provided water for both domestic use and irrigation. The springs attracted the Bedouin of the 'Arab al-Suyyad tribe, who settled the village, worked the land, and made up the majority of its (entirely Muslim) population. Their main crops were grain, vegetables, fruits, and olives. In 1944/45 they planted 2,477 dunums in cereals. A tomb for a local religious teacher, Shaykh 'Abdallah, was located in the village, and several khirbas lay to the east.