Zgharta Zawie Online Magazine

Zawieh Caza - Zgharta

Zgharta - Zawie Online Magazine

Seb'el

Seb’el. In his dictionary Dr. Anis Freiha says that Seb’el could be a Phoenician word of two parts meaning the Fire of Baal (Baal was the Phoenician god of the land). Others suggest that Seb’el means the generosity of El (El was the young Phoenician male god).

Seb’el is situated at the foot of the Zawieh hill at an altitude of 650 m, 14 Km from Zgharta. It is a town whose archeological remains reveal its antiquity. To the west of it there are the remains of a large house built with massive stones, and in its center there lies a sarcophagus finely carved out in a rock in the middle of a field.

Seb’el has been renowned for its good wine, which was mentioned by the French traveler Laurent D’Avrieux, who visited Seb’el in 1660.

In 1519 Seb’el counted 23 adult Christian males who became 32 in 1571. In 1849 Seb'el counted 166 males living in 35 houses and Ain Seb'el counted 14 males living in 3 houses. In 1932 it counted 100 houses. Seb'el became the second largest community in the district in the 20th century. Although the official records showed 4007 registered persons in 1998, the community is suffering from a very high emigration rate among its citizens. More than 65% of the Seb'el community live and work abroad.

A majority went toward South Africa and broke their relations with their homeland. 1336 registered persons did not report since more than five decades and they represent one third of the registered. Click to view a list of these emigrants and their official record numbers. We welcome any news about them.

Education: The school was founded after the WWI war and it consisted of two rooms near the church. Father Boutros Lahoud was the Arabic ana Syriac languages teacher, Gerges Kaytouli was the French language teacher and the third teacher was Hani Al-Matriti. The school closed in 1936. In that year the “Sisters of the Holy Family” inaugurated a school that lasted till the year 1974. In 1943, a public elementary and complementary education school was inaugurated and in 1988 a secondary public school was opened.

Administration: The first municipality was implemented in 1910. It is relatively an old one and may be it was so because of the influence of the Torbey family then. In 1961 the municipal council was formed as follows: President:Toufic Al-Sham Members: Mershed Moussa, Yaacoub Bakhos, Shaiban Al-Haj, Boutros Benda, Fouad Abou-Arraj, Boutros Al-Hayek.

In May 1998, the first municipal elections took place with more than 30candidates running up in two lists and some independent runners. The elected municipal council of 15 members was finally formed of: Willy Breis (President), Johnny Lahoud (Vice President), Badawi Haykal, Juan Jabbour, Salma Bakhos, Saiid Hayek, Saiid Hanna, Pierre Arida, Youssef Al-Hajj, Joeph Madfar, Romana Banda, Charbel Bakhos, Toufic Sham, Miche Bakhos.

The elected Mukhtars were: Boutros Sham and Tony S. Lahoud.

The municipal council became ineffective after two years because of political differencies influencing the members. Many resigned and new elections for vacant seats took place and the situation of the council is still confused.