Zgharta Zawie Online Magazine

Zawieh Caza - Zgharta

Zgharta - Zawie Online Magazine

Kfarsghab

Kfarsghab: The word means a rugged and rocky terrain.

A large community with a very high rate of emigration especially to Australia. The people of Kfarsghab spend their summertime in the mountain near the town of Ehden. In 1849, it counted 374 males and 80 houses. In the census of 1932 there were 194 houses in Kfarsghab. In 1998 the official records counted 3772 registered persons (3354 in 1988), 75% of them living abroad as emigrants. 708 of the registered had cut their relations with their motherland although their names are still in the records. (click here to view a list of these persons)

In the first half of the 20th century, Kfarsghab played a role on the political scene with the Estephane family. Youssef and Antoine Estephane were the last political figures that were elected from the Zawieh.

Administration: The first municipality was established in 1938. In 1966 the municipal council was formed of the following persons: President: Youssef Rizk, Members: Ibrahim Kassis, Mikhael Karam, Semaan Costantine, Youssef Mousa, Milad Azar, Romanos Lahoud, Ne'emtallah Khoury, Boutros Naaman.

Education: During the Ottoman era there was no school in Kfarsghab but some priests were teaching the children Arabic and Syriac in what they used to call “the school under the oak tree”. In 1936, teaching turned to be the duty of the civilians: Jamileh Shbat (from Mazraat El-Toufah) was the first teacher for girls while Antoine Khoury, Fares Khalifeh and Mr. Sfeir assured the education of young boys till the year 1950. Their salaries were paid by the students parents.

In that year the “Sisters of the Holy Family” opened a school that lasted till the year 1980. The public school was set in 1945 with Joseph Alyan, and in 1950 the school had a principal and several professors. Of the principals we mention: Youssef Mer’eb, Hanna Al-Khoury and Tannous Franjieh (from Zgharta).

More to come

The village of Kfarsghab, Lebanon overlooks the Wadi Qadisha (Holy Valley), the refuge of St. Maron and his followers, after they were driven from the Syrian wilderness by religious antagonists. The Summer village is located near Ehden and Jabail Mar Sarkis and is 1400 meters (4593 feet) above sea level.

     Kfarsghab's legendary first settler, whose name is lost to history, came to that beautiful land in the shadow of the cedars, about one thousand years ago. Like the other Maronites scattered here and there on the bare slopes of the Lebanese mountains, he was undoubtedly a man of unshakeable faith in God and in the teachings and practices of his great hermit Maron.

     Our forefather must have endured much physical hardship, but succeeding generations of Kfarsghabiyi can be grateful to him for persisting in his struggles to establish a family and a clan on that bare mountainside. The perseverence, bravery, and ingenuity of his descendants can be traced to this tough man of the mountain, and when the opportunity arose for Kfarsghabiyi to leave their crowded village some nine hundred years later, they must have carried with them the same limitless hope for the future that possessed that first settler.

     In 1745, the Sheikhdom of Morh Kfarsghab (Winter village), which is approximately 300 meters above sea level, and located at the foothills of the mountains of North Lebanon, was purchased by Abou Youssef Elias from Assad Hamadeh for 10 Turkish piastres, which would amount to $6.20 today. It is approximately 20 kilometers away from our summer village, but is considerably lower in altitude, allowing for milder winter conditions than the heavy snowfall that occurs in the winter months of the summer village.

     The first Kfarsghabiyi to emigrate were pioneers in more than one sense. True, they were going to places where the language and customs would be different and this alone would have been a difficult enough task. But they also took upon themselves the added burden of making the way easier for the emigrants that would surely follow them.

     Nearly all of the Kfarsghabiyi that emigrated in the 19th century went to Australia; a few went to New Zealand, and although Kfarsghabian emigration to the United States began in 1881 with the arrival of Karam Abou Arab in Philadelphia, it was not until 1900 that the first Kfarsghabian came to Easton, Pennsylvania.

The Kfarsghabiyi of Lebanon, are a peace loving, non-political Christian Maronite community, who number 20,000 worldwide. While 95% of our people live outside Lebanon, it is very rare to see any of our ancestral lands sold to outsiders. It is still 100% owned by the Kfarsghabiyi throughout the world.

courtesy of mountlebanon.org/kfarsghab