Al-Ram (Arabic: الرّام), also transcribed as Al-Ramm, El-Ram, Er-Ram, and A-Ram, is a Palestinian town which lies northeast of Jerusalem, just outside the city's municipal border. The village is part of the built-up urban area of Jerusalem, the Atarot industrial zone and Beit Hanina lie to the west, and Neve Yaakov borders it on the south, with a built-up area of 3,289 dunums. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, a-Ram had a population of 15,814 in 2017. The head of A-Ram's village council estimates that 58,000 people live there, more than half of them holding Israeli identity cards.
Al-Ram is commonly thought to be the site of the biblical city of Ramah in Benjamin. Archeological evidence shows that the town was heavily populated during the Iron Age II, declined during the Persian period, and later revived during the Hellenistic period.
Ossuaries dated to the first century BC and CE were discovered at Al-Ram bearing Hebrew inscriptions with names such as Miriam, Yehohanan, and Shimon ben Zekhariya.
In Crusader sources, Al-Ram was named Aram, Haram, Rama, Ramatha, Ramitta, or Ramathes. Al-Ram was one of 21 villages given by Godfrey of Bouillon (r. 1099–1100) as a fief to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. All the inhabitants of the village who were mentioned in Crusader sources between 1152 and 1160 had names which imply they were Christian. The village was mentioned around 1161, when a dispute about a land boundary was settled.
In 1517, the village became part of the Ottoman Empire along with the rest of Palestine. In the 1596 tax records, it appeared as Rama, located in the Nahiya of Jabal Quds of the Liwa of Al-Quds. The population was 28 households, all Muslim. They paid a fixed tax-rate of 33,3% on agricultural products, including wheat, barley, olive trees and vineyards, in addition to occasional revenues, goats and beehives; a total of 4700 akçe.
In 1838, Edward Robinson found the village to be very poor and small, but large stones and scattered columns indicated that it had previously been an important place. In 1870 the French explorer Victor Guérin found the village to have 200 inhabitants, while an Ottoman village list of about the same year showed that Er-Ram had 32 houses and a population of 120, though the population count included men only.
RAMAH of BENJAMIN, er-Râm —Descending the N.W. side of Tuleil el-Fûl, we observe at its base, near the road, some old foundations and heaps of ruins called Khirbat el-Kut’a, probably remains of Gibeah. A few min. farther the camel-road to Yâfa by el-Jîb and Wady Suleimân strikes off to the l.; and in 20 min. more is a ruined khan with arches and reservoirs, from which a path leads up the stony hill on the rt. to er-Râm. This.is a small poor village, with some fragments of columns and large bevelled stones built up in the modern houses and scattered among the dirty lanes. The situation is high, but the view eastward is not equal to that from Tuleil el-Fûl, This is Ramah of Benjamin, which lay between Gibeon and Beeroth (Josh. xviii. 25); and which we learn from the poor Levite’s sad story was not far distant from Gibeah. (Jud, xix. 13.) Eusebius places it 6 Rom. m. N. of Jerusalem. It was inhabited by the Jews after the captivity (Ezra ii. 26), and has probably continued ever since much as we see it now. It is about 10 min. off the road, and is scarcely worth a visit.
Murray, page 326
Bædeker (1898) Route 22 page 248