s from the Early Bronze, Middle Bronze, Iron Age I, IA II, Hellenistic and the Roman era have been found here. It has been suggested that Jurish was the birthplace of the rebel leader Simeon Bar-Giora, and that the place was later destroyed by the Roman generalVespasian. Conder and Kitchener remarked that to the north-east of Jurish was "a sacred place," adding that the site "appears to be the ancient Capharetæa, a Samaritan town, mentioned by Justin Martyr. The two sites are, in fact, one, and the ruin apparently preserves the old name." Sherds from the Umayyad/Abbasid and Mamluk eras have also been found here.
In 1517, the village was included in the Ottoman empire with the rest of Palestine, and in the 1596 tax-records it appeared as Juris, located in the Nahiya of Jabal Qubal, part of Nablus Sanjak. The population was 16 households, all Muslim. They paid a fixed tax rate of 33,3% on agricultural products, such as wheat, barley, summer crops, olive trees, goats and beehives, in addition to occasional revenues and a fixed tax for people of Nablus area; a total of 2,000 akçe. In the same tax-records, nearby Kafr 'Atiyya had a population of 40 Muslim households, and paid 9,000 akçe in revenue. Sherds from the early Ottoman era have also been found here. In 1852, Edward Robinson, passing among "so much good land; so many fine and arable, though not large plains," noted Jurish on a southern hill. In the same year, van de Velde described land near Jurish as "exceedingly beautiful and fertile. I had here a ride of an hour through valleys of such rare beauty and natural richness, that I feel myself quite unable to give you an adequate conception of it." The village itself provided excellent accommodation and hospitality for visitors. In 1870 Victor Guérin came from the north, noted first the ruins of Kefr A'athia, where corn was planted among the ruins. He then came to the spring Ain Jurish, where water was collected in a rectangular basin. He then continued to the top of the hill, where the village Jurish was situated. It had once been much larger, but was now reduced to about 20 inhabited houses. A shrine was consecrated to a SheikhHatem. In 1882, the Palestine Exploration Fund's "Survey of Western Palestine" described Jurish as: "A small village on a hill-top, with olives to the east."
In the 1922 census of Palestine conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Jurish had a population of 195 Muslims, increasing in the 1931 census when Jurish, together with Kafr 'Atiya had to 236 Muslim inhabitants, in 59 houses. In the 1945 statistics the population of Jurish was 340 Muslims, while the total land area was 8,207 dunams, according to an official land and population survey. Of this, 1,358 dunams were allocated for plantations and irrigable land, 4,249 for cereals, while 14 dunams were classified as built-up areas.
