Umm al-Fahm (Arabic أم الفحم‎, Hebrew אֻם אל-פַחְם‏‎) is an Arab city (since 1984) in the Haifa District of Israel. The name Umm el-Fahm (lit. Mother of Coal) is also translated in the “List of Arabic and English Names” issued by the Palestine Exploration Committee in London in 1881 as Producer of Coal.

History
The first mention of Umm el-Fahm, according to the medieval Egyptian historian Makrizi, dates back to 1265, but long before that, people lived in the places where modern Umm el-Fahm is located. Archaeological excavations have revealed the remains of Iron Age settlements, as well as later deposits from the Hellenistic and Roman eras.
In the “Review of Western Palestine”, published in 1881, it is reported that Umm el-Fahm, at that time numbering about 500 inhabitants (of which about 80 Christians), is divided into four villages, each of which has its own sheikh. Cattle, goats and horses are bred in the village, next to it are plantations of olive trees and citrus crops.
By 1944, about two thousand people lived in Umm el-Fahm. After the Arab-Israeli war of 1947-1949, he, along with other Arab settlements of the so-called Small Triangle (which, in particular, included Tire, Taybe, Qalansua and Baqa al-Gharbiya), became part of the territory of Israel. The Israeli-Jordanian border ran along the southern border of Umm al-Fahm.
Since then, the population of Umm el-Fahm has grown rapidly. In 1960 it received the status of a local council, and in 1985 the status of a city.

Geography
Umm al-Fahm is located close to Highway 65, running from the Caesarea junction in the municipal boundaries of Hadera to the Megiddo junction, on the eponymous range of hills along the Wadi Ara. The highest point of the hills is 522 meters above sea level. Bus routes connect Umm el-Fahm with Hadera, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Afula, Binyamina, Nazareth and other Israeli cities

Population
According to the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics, the population for 2016 is 52,500.
The median age in 2009 was 20.1; residents aged 65 and over made up just three percent of the city’s population, while about forty percent of the population were children under the age of 14. Natural population growth between 2009 and 2010 was 2.8%. Of the 7.5 thousand families in the city, about 900 were large (5 or more children).
Almost the entire population of the city are Muslim Arabs. About 11,000 city residents were employees in 2010, about 7,700 received unemployment benefits, and another 1,700 received a pension. The average monthly income of private business owners in 2010 was 5688 shekels, employees – 4397 shekels. The overall level of economic development of the city was estimated at two points on a 10-point scale. The average age of 8.8 thousand private cars in the city was over 11 years.

Administration and politics
The city council of Umm el-Fahm has 16 deputies. Since 1989, members of the Islamic Movement of Israel have constituted the majority in the municipality. In 2010, the city budget revenues amounted to 204.343 million shekels (of which 126 million were allocated by the State of Israel), expenditures were 203.822 million, and the debts of the municipality totaled 22.2 million.
The leader of the Islamic Movement of Israel, Sheikh Raed Salah, who briefly headed the municipality of Umm al-Fahm, repeatedly made extremist statements to the faithful and in the media, including blood libel and claims that Jews have no rights to the Wailing Wall, as well as with calls for violence. Salah spent two years in prison for links to the terrorist organization Hamas.
In October 2010, National Unity Knesset member Michael Ben-Ari and right-wing activists Baruch Marzel and Itamar Ben-Gvir demonstrated in Umm al-Fahm calling for a ban on the Islamic Movement. The demonstration was extremely hostile to the local population, teenagers began to throw stones at its participants, and it took the intervention of large police forces to disperse the crowd. During the dispersal of the demonstration, Knesset member Khanin Zoabi was injured, according to whom the police deliberately opened fire on her with rubber bullets.
Despite political tensions, in a 2000 poll by the Israeli Arabic-language weekly Kul al-Arab, 83% of the city’s residents said they wanted to remain Israeli citizens.

Education and culture
In 2010, 13,749 children in Umm al-Fahm were enrolled in primary and secondary schools. The college system Atid, located in Umm el-Fahm, annually trains about 500 students from the Arab settlements of Israel, from Nazareth in the north to Kafr Qassem in the south. Students receive the professions of an auto mechanic, a heating and cooling system technician, a certified electrician, a computer technician, an accountant and a kindergarten teacher. The college also has a program of preparation for admission to university technical specialties.
Located in Umm al-Fahm, the art gallery was founded in 1996. At the beginning of the 21st century, the administration of the gallery took the initiative to open a Museum of Modern Art in the city.
There are several football clubs in Umm el-Fahm that play in the lower divisions of the Israeli championship. The city’s best club, Hapoel (Umm el-Fahm), plays in the All-Israel League, the third division of the Israeli championship.