Beer Ajam

Beer Ajam (Arabic: بئر عجم‎, also spelled Bir Ajam) is a Syrian Circassian city in the Quneitra Governorate in the Syrian controlled portion of the Golan Heights. It has been inhabited for about 150 years. Its first houses were built in 1872. Nearby localities include Quneitra to the north, Naba al-Sakhr to the northeast, al-Harra to the east, Namer to the southeast and Bariqa to the south. According to the Syria Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), Beer Ajam had a population of 353 in the 2004 census. Its inhabitants are Circassians from the Abadzekh and Kebertei tribes.

History

In the late 19th-century Beer Ajam was described as a large and prosperous Circassian village with 80 hut-like houses and a total population of 340. It was built in separate parts, with springs to the north and next to a pond to the south.

Displacement and reconstruction

The village was abandoned for almost 10 years after the occupation of the Golan Heights by Israel during the 1967 Six-Day War. The part of the Golan in which the village is located was retaken by Syria after the Yom Kippur War in 1973, although its inhabitants did not actually return until the late 1970s.