Marjayoun is above sea level, standing on the west side of the Jordan Rift Valley just across from the ancient regional capital, Caesarea Philippi, which was located at the foot of Mount Hermon on the east side of the Rift Valley. It is not to be confused with the Banias Springs at Caesarea Philippi. Marjeyoun stands on a hill facing Mt Hermon to the east, the Crusader castle of Beafort, set above the Litani River and overlooking Mount Amel, to the west, the Mount Lebanon range with the Rihan and Niha peaks the to the north, with the fertile Marjeyoun plains extending southward into the Galilee plains and the Golan Heights.
History
Crusader period
On June 10, 1179, during the Battle of Marj Ayyun, an Ayyubid army defeated a crusader army. The crusader king narrowly escaped being captured in the rout.
In the 1596 tax records, it was named as a village, Jadida, in the Ottoman nahiya of Tibnin under the liwa' of Safad, with a population of 28 households and 12 bachelors, all Muslim. The villagers paid a fixed tax-rate of 25% on agricultural products, such as wheat, barley, olive trees, vineyards, goats and beehives, in addition to "occasional revenues" and a press for olive oil or grape syrup; a total of 9,606 akçe. In 1875 Victor Guérin visited Marjayoun, and found it to have about 2,000 inhabitants, mostly "Schismatic Greek", but also some Greek Orthodox and Muslims. The Saint Peter's Cathedral was built in 1892 and restored in 1968 after a fire.
20th-21st centuries
During the Syria-Lebanon Campaign of World War II, British and Australian forces advancing from Palestine entered the town on 11 June 1941 against badly equipped defenders, but were forced to withdraw on 15 June following a Vichy French counterattack. The Allies recaptured the town on 24 June in the Battle of Merdjayoun. Marjayoun was the headquarters of the South Lebanon Army, the Israel-affiliated militia that controlled southern Lebanon during Israel's occupation of the region after the 1982 Lebanon War until Israel's withdrawal from the region in 2000. During the 2006 war between Israel and the Hezbollah organisation, after cease-fire negotiations stalled on August 10, Israeli forces took control of Marjayoun. The next day, a convoy of 3,000 people fled from the town. The convoy was attacked by the Israeli Air Force northeast of Hasbaya en route to Kefraya, in the south of the Bekaa valley. The bombing resulted in the deaths of at least seven people, and is known as the Marjayoun convoy incident.
Demography
The town of Marjayoun has an overwhelmingly Christian population of about 5,000 people. Greek Orthodox Christians compose the vast majority of the town's population, however there are also Maronite and Greek Catholic Christians living in Marjayoun. Outside the town, most villages in the surrounding valleys and mountains are predominantly Shia Muslim. The Melkite Saint Peter's Cathedral was built in 1892 and restored in 1968 after a fire. Marjayoun is the seat of the Melkite Archeparchy of Baniyas, which includes the southeastern part of Lebanon.
James Jabara - Lebanese-American U.S. Air Force Major, the first jet ace of the Korean war, flew missions in WW II and Vietnam; born in 1923 in Muskogee, Oklahoma, both his father, John Jabara, and mother being immigrants from Marjeyoun
Dr. Richard Jabara, born in Marjeyoun, philanthropist, founded several hospitals from Tripoli in Lebanon to Saudi Arabia
George Jordac - author and poet.
Alfred Naifeh, born 1915 in Covington, Tennessee, to a Lebanese immigrant family from Jdeidet Marjeyoun; U.S. naval destroyer USS Naifeh is named after him
Issam Mahfouz - writer, journalist
Anthony Shadid - journalist
Michael Shadid - physician, born in Marjeyoun
Families
Marjeyoun is the ancestral home to many families whose origin is well known among the Lebanese communities, many of whom still reside there. These include:
