[2] Remains of a ruined watch-tower was found on the crest of the ridge, and a quarter of a mile south of those there were three perfect dolmens, not very large.

[8] While travelling though the region in the 12th century CE, Benjamin of Tudela noted that Alma contained fifty Jewish inhabitants and a "large cemetery of the Israelites", where several sages mentioned in the Mishnah and Talmud were buried.

[9] An anonymous Hebrew manuscript of the period mentions that the village's inhabitants were Jews and Muslims, and the lord apparently Frankish.

The narrative tells that on every Shabbat Eve, Jews and Muslims light candles on the tomb of Rabbi Eleazar ben Arach, a tanna and a local tzadik (righteous man), and mentions a nearby miracle-working tree.

[a][10] The dating corresponds with that of the Bar'am synagogues, and the unusual first-person usage, similar to Jerusalem epitaphs, acknowledges Levi as both a name and title.

The narrative tells that on every Shabbat Eve, Jews and Muslims light candles on the tomb of Rabbi Eleazar ben Arach, a tanna and a local tzadik (righteous man), and mentions a nearby miracle-working tree.

[12] In the Ottoman tax registers of 1596, the village is listed as forming part of the nahiya ("subdistrict") of Jira in the liwa' ("district") of Safad.

[16] Edward Robinson and Eli Smith, who travelled to the region in 1838, give the full name of the village as 'Alma el-Khait (Arabic: علماالخيط).

[17] James Finn, the British consul to Jerusalem who travelled around Palestine between 1853 and 1856, describes the village of Alma as being situated in an area in which volcanic basalt was abundant.

He notes that the small district in which the village is located is known by the locals as "the Khait" (Arabic for "string") and that they "boast of its extraordinary fertility in corn-produce.

[19] In The Survey of Western Palestine (1881), Alma is described as a village built of stone with about 250 "Algerine Mohammedan" residents, situated in the middle of a fertile plain with a few gardens.

Near the moshav's cemetery lie the remnants of what has been identified as a synagogue, perhaps dating to the 3rd century, though it has never been systematically excavated or properly researched.