Prague Journal

Wednesday, April 20, 2005.

Ronnie took us on a long excursion around the Judean hills through the Bet Guvrim forest with students Mihaela (from Romania) and Uli (from Berlin, but studying in Freiburg). We first went to Lakhish, which reveals traces of habitation dating back 5,000 years. Lakhish guarded the route from the lowlands to Hebron and Jerusalem and was a natural look-out post that had to be fortified. Solomon’s son, Rehoboam, included it in a string of surrounding cities that he built in defense of Judah. In 701 BCE the Assyrian King Sennacherib rolled through Judah, laying siege to Lakhish. In 1935 the famous “Lakhish letters’” were discovered, throwing much light on the subsequent capture and destruction of Lakhish by the Babylonian Nebuchadnezzar, who later went on to destroy Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem. Lakhish rose again under the Persians in the 5th century BCE and was captured by Alexander the Great in 332 BCE. The site was abandoned shortly after the 2nd century BCE. We walked along the remnant of the double walls, a gate, the residence of the Persian governor, leftovers of a Sun Temple and several rooms.
South of Lakhish, past Tel Erani, are the Caves of Hazan. These are man-made caves and tunnels that were used as hiding-places by Jews at the time of Bar Kochba’s rebellion. This site had earlier been used for producing olive oil (there is a subterranean oil-press that was found in one of the caves), but with the preparation for the Revolt, it was turned into a secret hideout from the Romans. Most interesting to us were the caves that were used for breeding pigeons, whose manure was a valuable trading commodity. There are still a few pigeons roosting in the indentations in the cave walls.
From Lakhish, we drove to Bet Guvrin-Maresha. Maresha is mentioned in the Torah as one of the cities fortified by Rehoboam against the incursion of Babylon into his kingdom. At the beginning of the 9th century BCE, Zerah the Ethiopian attacked Judea and engaged King Asa in the Maresha area. During the Persian period, after the destruction of the First Temple, Maresha and all of southern Judea was settled by Edomites, who came from the southeast. At the end of that period, in the 4th century BCE, Sidonians and Greeks came to Maresha, bringing the Hellenistic culture with them. A few Egyptians and Jews also lived there, refugees from the fall of the Temple and emigrants from the Coastal Plain, and this area became an important economic center. A lower city was built and caves were hewn. From historical sources and local excavations, it became evident that in 113-112 BCE, John Hyrcanus I, the Hasmonean, conquered Maresha and converted the residents of the city and its surroundings to Judasism. The upper and lower city became desolate ruins, but Maresha recovered and was repopulated until it was demolished by the Parthian Army in 40 BCE. Bet-Guvrin replaced Marsesha as the most important settlement in the area, mentioned by Josephus Flavius in 68 CE as one of the towns conquered by the Roman general Vespasian. Following the destruction of the Second Temple, it continued to exist as a rather crowded Jewish settlement until the Bar-Kochva Revolt in 132-135 CE. In 200, Emperor Septimus Severus changed Bet-Guvrin’s name to Eleutheropolis (“City of the Free”) and granted it municipal status. Two aqueducts and five highways were built, as well as an amphitheater and public buildings. The Jewish settlement was rehabilitated, and Bet-Guvrin was mentioned in the Talmud and Midrashim (commentaries) in the 3rd-4th centuries by Rabbi Yonatan and Rabbi Yehuda Ben-Yaakov. From the Roman and Byzantine periods, a large Jewish cemetery and architectural remains were discovered, as was a synagogue inscription. During the Byzantine period, Bet-Guvrin was an important center of Christianity with a number of churches. Most of the bell caves were dug during the early Muslim period, and finds from the Crusader period indicate that it was a small fortified city, surrounded by Crusader villages. An Arab village occupied the site until Israel’s War of Independence in 1948. Kibbutz Bet-Guvrin was established here in May 1949.
We stopped for coffee at the Nes Harim café, about 20 km from Jerusalem, overlooking acres of fruit trees and vineyards. We then headed back through En Kerem, the birthplace of John the Baptist, back to Ronnie and Yaffa’s house. We’ll have dinner with Mihaela and Uli tomorrow.

posted by JWinn @ 10:26 PM