Special Edition

This post, like most of my posts in recent months, was supposed to be about my trip up north last week with Yad Ben Zvi to Second Temple era sites around the Kinneret (Sea of Galilee). But the events of this past weekend have put that on hold and those of you who enjoy my regular “virtual tours” will have to wait till next week. And I make no promises about that, either. My editorial plans have a habit of being overtaken by events. Things happen fast here in the Middle East.

Where shall I start? Maybe with the disappearance last Friday of 14-year-old Binyamin Ahimeir from Jerusalem, who used to go shepherding at the weekends at a farm near the outpost of Malachei Shalom. He left the farm in the early hours of Friday morning. When, hours later, the sheep returned without him, he was declared “missing”, triggering widespread searches by police, the army and volunteers, amid fears that he had been kidnapped by terrorists. It was not until the following day that his body was found, quite close to the farm. He had been brutally murdered, his head smashed in with rocks. His personal belongings were found scattered near the body, as well as a bloodstained rock and a knife. His murder is being treated as a terror attack – and with good reason.

I doubt you will have heard about this in the foreign Press, except maybe in passing, in an article castigating Israeli “settlers” who went on the rampage in nearby Arab villages after the child’s mutilated body was discovered.

********

In stark contrast, I expect you have all heard about the unprecedented direct attack by Iran on Israel, the night between Saturday and Sunday. We knew it was coming. Iran has been waging a shadow war by proxy against Israel for years – and Israel has responded by targeting Iranian “advisors” in countries such as Syria, which act as hosts for the terrorist movements funded and controlled by Iran. Since, a couple of weeks ago, Israel liquidated an Iranian general who was the key coordinator between Iran and Iran’s proxy in Lebanon, Hizbollah, in the Iranian Consulate in the heart of Damascus, we knew the Iranians would retaliate somehow, but nobody knew exactly what the Iranians were planning or on what scale. US Intelligence had warned Israeli Intelligence that an Iranian attack was imminent within the next 48 hours and the Israeli public was instructed accordingly. On Saturday evening, the IDF spokesman informed us that the Iranians had launched a swarm of drone planes against Israel, and shortly after that, we were told that a battery of missiles was also headed our way.


Well, we are used to missiles and the instructions to Israel’s citizens were the same as always – Secured Safe Rooms for those who had them (my stepsister does, for example), or shelters, if there was time to reach them. Those who live in apartment buildings with communal shelters which could be reached in time (in Jerusalem, the Code Red alert system connected to Iron Dome allows for 90 seconds between the sound of the alert and the arrival of the missile, in other places much less) should go down to the shelters. If you can’t make it to the shelter in time, go to the building’s stairwell, which is usually an inside stairwell with reinforced walls. If you live on the top floor, go down one or two stories, to put more layers of protection between you and a projectile which might pierce the roof. If none of these options are available (in my building, we only have an external stairwell, for example – and I live on the top floor), choose an inside room or corridor, without windows. Not a bathroom, which are usually typified by lots of breakable glass and ceramics. Most injuries are caused by flying fragments, rather than by direct hits.

We haven’t had many Code Red alerts in Jerusalem during the current war with Hamas and Hizbollah. On the basis of the few we did have, I came to the conclusion that I was unlikely to have time to make it down to the shelter (six floors down, on an open stairwell, in the dark). Besides which, if the air raid sirens woke me up in the middle of the night, I would have no idea how long they had already been going, or how many of my 90 seconds had already elapsed. We were told by Civil Defence that the drones would take several hours to arrive and could be expected at between 2 to 4 am. Plenty of time to organise.

In previous attacks, by Hamas from the south and Hizbollah from the north, I have been using an inside corridor as my “Safe Space” (though the fact that I am on the top floor, directly under the roof, is still a problem). I decided not to change what has worked in the past, but to put my faith in God and in the Iron Dome and in our allies who would attempt to intercept the drones and missiles before they reached Israel (in that order). Accordingly, I removed the pictures hanging on the walls in the corridor (they are covered with glass – danger of flying fragments if they fell, besides which, they might fall on my head!)
My brother, in England, suggested that I also take a pillow with me, in case I had to sit on the floor in the corridor for longer than expected. Sound advice – and I’m really glad I took it.

I decided to go to bed and get as much sleep as I could – not really expecting that the enemy attack would include Jerusalem, home to the Al Aqsa mosque whose safety the Iranians always claim to be so fearful for.

I couldn’t get to sleep. Every now and then, I heard military planes passing overhead. It turned out later that the IAF had scrambled nearly all their planes, as the safest place for aircraft during an attack is actually in the air, rather than on the ground. At about 1:40 am, I began hearing distant booms. I sat up in bed, uncertain as to what I had heard. Then there were several louder booms, a couple seemingly right overhead.
Then – and only then – came the sirens. The Civil Defence app in my phone did not sound any alert! I sprang out of bed like a maniac, my heart pounding, grabbed my mobile phone, my tablet, a pillow and a bottle of water and ran out into the corridor, where I lay down on the pillow, and began texting family and neighbours. It appears that only one family, from the ground floor – Christian Arabs as it happens – had fled to the shelter. I tried to get the radio on my tablet over the internet, but, despite the fact that the internet was operational, I had difficulty in getting the radio. It kept freezing up. There were several more loud booms, some seemingly nearer, others further. The sirens had fallen silent. I waited about 15 minutes and then dashed back into the bedroom (only a couple of metres away) and turned on the radio. That was when I heard that the booms I had had heard were caused by the interception and destruction of ballistic missiles, one of them over the Knesset, one of them over the Al Aqsa mosque!!! I also heard that, in addition, there were Iranian cruise missiles on their way. I waited another 15 minutes in the corridor, posting on Facebook, then went into the living room and turned on the television.

What I gathered from the TV news was that Iran had launched a combined drone and missile attack on Israel, with both ballistic and cruise missiles, and that there were reports of a couple of people injured – one in the Arab town of Umm el-Fahm, and one in one of the Bedouin settlements.

Another half an hour passed, and after consultations with the neighbours and with family, we reached the conclusion that it was safe to return to our beds. My Christian Arab neighbours invited me to come and spend the rest of the night in their apartment. I was touched – but preferred to remain in my own home.

The vast majority of the drones and missiles were either shot down by the Israel Air Force and the air forces of our allies – notably the USAF and the RAF, and, I believe, also the Jordanian Air Force – or intercepted by our highly efficient Iron Dome air defence system. As far as I know, there was only one casualty – a 7-year-old Beduin girl, who was seriously wounded.
Iran, which pretends that the safety of the holy places of Islam is so important to it, endangered the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest shrine for Muslims, and the Israel Defence Forces saved it!
And the only casualty was a little Arab Muslim girl!

Now Iran is threatening that if Israel makes even the slightest response, they will retaliate in force – and are even hinting that they might “review their nuclear doctrine“.

For years, Israel has been warning of the dangers of allowing Iran to achieve nuclear capability.
Can you imagine what might have happened on Saturday night, if Iran had already crossed the nuclear threshold?

********

Galilean Jaunt

Last month, I participated in another field trip with Yad Ben Zvi, as part of the series on the archaeology of the Land of Israel in the Second Temple Period. This trip would take us up north, to the Lower Galilee region. I have to admit, given the escalation in the north (which has led to the evacuation of thousands of Israeli families, who are now refugees in their own country), I was a little nervous, but all of Yad Ben Zvi’s field trips are coordinated with the IDF so – one hopes – if any danger were expected, the trip would have been postponed or re-routed.

Because of the distance from Jerusalem, we set out earlier than usual and I had to get up at 6 o’clock in the morning! On our itinerary today were two sites – Yodfat (Jotapata) and Migdal (Magdala). The weather forecast predicted rain later in the day, but when we arrived at our first port of call, it was bright and sunny. Still, I was glad of the several layers of clothing I was wearing, because the exposed hilltop was very windy and I had to hold on to my hat! I eventually gave up and stuffed it in my knapsack.

Yodfat (sometimes known as “Masada of the Galilee) was besieged by the Romans during the Great Revolt (66 – 74 CE). The Judaean commander of the Galilee and Golan regions was Yosef Ben Matityahu, then only in his late twenties, a member of one of the priestly families, and known to history as Josephus – author of Antiquities of the Jews and of The Wars of the Jews. His leadership was not universally accepted (to say the least). One of his rivals, for example, was Yochanan of Gush Halav (John of Gischala). Moreover, not all the Jewish inhabitants of the Galilee supported the revolt.

Undeterred, Josephus set about strengthening the existing Hasmonean (1st century BCE) fortifications of the town of Yodfat, whose population had been swollen by the influx of refugees from other towns and villages of the Galilee, although it probably fell short of the 40,000 claimed by Josephus (the latter having a tendency, like many ancient historians, especially military historians, to exaggerate numbers).

The Romans, under Vespasian, later joined by his son, Titus, laid siege to the town, which, besides the man-made fortifications, also enjoyed topographical advantages, being positioned, as it was, on an isolated hill hidden between high peaks, and surrounded on three sides by steep ravines which left it accessible only from the north.

After an initial Roman assault on the town failed, Vespasian ordered the construction of a siege ramp, for the purpose of bringing a battering ram close enough to the walls to attempt to breach them. In the two millennia since the fall of Yodfat, Mother Nature has come into her own and now, as we ascended the ramp, we would never have known that we were not climbing a natural hill, were it not for the explanations of our guide, Eran, and the reproduction of Roman-style weapons along the path.

Sheep and cattle grazed peacefully among the trees.

Wildflowers covered what was once a battlefield, where the defenders of Yodfat carried out several successful sorties against the Roman legions.

Unlike Masada, Yodfat suffered from the lack of a nearby natural source of water and was dependent on an extensive system of cisterns, which were used to collect rainwater – not merely for drinking and cooking purposes, but also for ritual baths.

The lack of a reliable source of water was, of course, a problem during the siege. It was not, however, the direct cause of the town’s downfall – although it was part of it. On the 47th day of the siege, a deserter disclosed to the Romans in just what dire straits the defenders found themselves, as well as the fact that the few remaining defenders usually slept during the last watch of the night. Accordingly, the Romans attacked at dawn the following day, slaughtered the guards, and butchered the town’s inhabitants. Moreover, they prohibited the burial of the fallen for more than a year, before allowing Jews to return to bury the remains, which they did, in caves and cisterns. Two thousand years later, archaeologists in the reborn State of Israel found a mass grave containing the remains of men, women and children, some of them bearing the marks of swords.

The words above the grating are a quotation from Josephus:

On that day, the Romans slew those who were in the open; during the following days, they searched the hiding-places, slaughtering those whom they found in the tunnels and caves, killing old people and young, sparing only those women and babies whom they took as spoil.
(Josephus, The Wars of the Jews)

On a rock nearby, the authorities have added a quotation from the Kaddish, the Jewish prayer recited, amongst other things, at funerals and memorial services:

Magnified and sanctified be His great Name.

Just as at Masada, the Jewish State paid honour to the dead of Yodfat by affording them a military burial in 2003.

And what of Josephus, meanwhile? As he, himself, tells us, he hid with 40 other prominent citizens in one of the caves of which there are many at Yodfat.

He was in favour of surrendering to the Romans, but he was outvoted. Most of his comrades preferred suicide to falling into the hands of the Romans. Suicide is considered a sin in Jewish law, so they decided, at Josephus’ own suggestion, to draw lots to kill each other. Josephus and one other man were the last two left alive, “either by chance, or by the providence of God,” as he puts it. And now, his duplicity shows itself, because instead of drawing lots to see which should kill the other and then die by his own hand, he persuaded his companion to surrender to the Romans. Josephus, as the commander of the rebels, was brought before Vespasian and won his favour by prophesying that he would shortly become Emperor – which did, indeed, happen not long afterwards.

A similar story, by the way, is told of the great sage Rabban Yohanan ben Zakai, who escaped from besieged Jerusalem in a coffin, and had himself brought before Vespasian. Vespasian already knew that Rabban Yochanan had opposed the rebellion and when the rabbi now predicted that he, Vespasian, would become Caesar, he offered to grant the sage whatever he most desired. Rabban Yochanan asked for three things – the chief of which was that he be allowed to take his pupils to Yavneh and establish a yeshiva there. Thus, when Jerusalem fell, as he knew it would, and the Temple was destroyed, Jewish life did not come to an end.

At any rate, Vespasian did spare the life of Yosef Ben Matityahu and the latter became the new emperor’s slave. He was later freed, received Roman citizenship and adopted the name Flavius Josephus (in honour of his patron, Titus Flavius Vespasianus, founder of the Flavian dynasty).

From Yodfat, we travelled to Migdal on the shores of Lake Kinneret (the Sea of Galilee), where we had a very late lunch, and where one of the local feline population came up to say hallo:

Migdal, or Magdala, will no doubt be of interest to my Christian readers, as it was the home of Miriam aka Mary Magdalene. An ancient synagogue, dating back to the 1st century CE, was discovered not far from the shores of the lake in 2009, on land purchased by the Catholic organisation, the Legionaries of Christ, who had planned to build a hotel there.

The New Testament does not actually list Magdala among the places where Jesus preached, but it does say that he went all about the Sea of Galilee, preaching in the synagogues, so it is highly possible that he did, indeed, preach there. The Legionaries of Christ, at all events, are certain that he did and have built a Pilgrim Centre and guest-house on the site.

The ancient synagogue is one of the few synagogues found in Israel dating back to the Second Temple period and is possibly the oldest of them. It had stone benches, mosaic floors, frescoes and painted pillars and walls.

One of the most important discoveries made in the synagogue was a stone now dubbed “the Magdala Stone”, on which is carved a representation of the seven-branched Menorah that stood in the Temple in Jerusalem. This is the oldest such representation found in a Jewish context (pre-dating the one on the Arch of Titus in Rome) and was apparently made by someone who had actually seen the original.

The side panels show arcades of 4 arches.

The stone on display in the centre of the synagogue is a replica, as is the one housed in a glass case outside the synagogue. The original has been removed for safekeeping by the Israel Antiquities Authority.

Interpretations of the stone’s purpose, as well as the significance of the images, differ. Our guide, Eran, believes that it was not a reading desk, as many, pointing to its sloping angle, believe, but that a wooden reading desk would have been placed upon it.

Excavations at Migdal are still ongoing and, indeed, it is believed that only a small part of the ancient town has been uncovered so far – including a second synagogue, dating to the same period, on the other side of town. Yes, it does rather remind one of the old Jewish joke – every Jew has two synagogues, the one where he prays and the one he wouldn’t be caught dead in 😉 .

It was now getting quite late and, as we had not yet put the clocks forward, it was starting to get dark and therefore, time to head back for Jerusalem. On our way, we passed the Beit Netofa Valley, a long, narrow valley with clay soil which is relatively impermeable to rain, leading to flooding in years when the rains are plentiful – as they were this winter.

The heavy rains this year flooded the valley to the extent that a lake was formed on which sailing and kayaking were possible.

It was nearly 8 pm and completely dark by the time we reached Jerusalem. The weather, which had favoured us all day, now turned its back on us. Approaching the Capital, we could see that it had been raining and as we approached our first drop-off point at Mount Herzl, it began to drizzle again. By the time we reached our final destination, at the Teddy Sports Stadium, it was pouring in earnest. I was grateful I had had the foresight to pack an umbrella in my knapsack. I took shelter in a cafe and ordered a taxi, which brought me safely home.

Music Matters

Next week is Purim. Those of you familiar with the Biblical story will recall that this most joyful festival commemorates the salvation of the Jews from the machinations of the wicked Haman, who sought to annihilate the entire Jewish People. In Israel, it is celebrated with fancy-dress parties and, in many towns and cities, with an Adloyada – a carnival-type parade with floats and music and street performances. This year, however, many people are saying that such joyous festivities are out of place and not in keeping with the state of mourning which has engulfed the nation since October 7th last year, or with the fact that 134 Israeli hostages, men, women and children (the youngest, Kfir Bibas, just one year old) are still being held prisoner in Gaza, and that many families are now mourning the deaths of their sons and daughters killed in the fighting in Gaza or in the north of Israel.

Others are saying that it is more important than ever to celebrate Purim this year, to maintain morale, to show the world (and our enemies, in particular) that the spirit of Israel cannot be crushed, and because this is exactly what we are fighting for – to live meaningful lives as Jews in the Jewish homeland.
Purim, they say, is THE festival par excellence which commemorates, above all others, the failure of an enemy to destroy Israel, and the victory of the Jewish People over those who hate us. Moreover, Haman was a descendant of Amalek. What more fitting a festival to celebrate now, when we are fighting a modern-day Amalek?

Seventy years ago, on March 17th 1954, the day before Purim, a bus carrying passengers from Eilat to Tel Aviv was ambushed by Arab terrorists from Jordan, near the Scorpions’ Ascent, a narrow road in the eastern Negev Desert, and 11 Israelis were murdered. The country was plunged into mourning and many people felt that the Purim celebrations should be cancelled. But the Prime Minister, Moshe Sharett, thought otherwise. He felt that something must be done to boost national moral. By chance, visiting a club frequented by members of Mapai (the ruling party), he espied the songwriting duo Yaakov Orland and Mordechai Zeira, led them off to a side room and demanded that they write “a happy song” to raise people’s spirits. Rumour has it that he left them with a bottle of brandy and locked them in.
A few hours later, they emerged with “A Happy Song”, (שיר שמח – Shir Sameach) exactly as the Prime Minister had ordered.

Translation:

Even if our heads are bowed,
And sorrow surrounds us,
Come – let us take fire
From the inherent joy which resides within us.

Hai, hai , Come and let us be filled with joy,
As far as the eye can see (or: as full as the spring)
Hai, hai, Sing! Rise!
Rise and let the wine burn.

Hai, hai, hai diddle hai…etc.

Arise and burn like fire,
And set us alight with strength.
Woe to the one who despairs.
Tonight, we must rejoice!

Hai, hai! Tonight, everyone who breathes (or: whose has a soul) will be redeemed!
Every person in Israel,
Shall have a spark of comfort!

Hai, hai, hai diddle hai etc.

********

This year, I am taking an Ascolot – Open University course on the history of popular Hebrew song. The format is such that each lecture deals with a particular songwriter or singer’s life and his or her influence on popular Israeli music as well as, inevitably, the influence of contemporary events on his or her music. I thought about this a few days ago, while listening to a farmer from the north of Israel being interviewed on one of the morning news programmes.
You don’t get to hear about this much (if at all) outside Israel, but hundreds of thousands of Israelis – refugees – have had to be evacuated from the border regions, both in the north and in the south, including many farmers, and those who have refused to leave, can’t get workers because of the danger of living and working on the border, where enemy rockets or artillery fire can strike without warning (a 15-second Red Alert is, to all intents and purposes, without warning – and the Iron Dome system only works against incoming missiles, not against artillery). As a result, Israeli agriculture has taken a severe blow.

How very little has changed, I mused, from the days when Yechiel Mohar and Moshe Wilenski wrote “Negev Lullaby” (שיר ערש נגבי – Shir Eres Negbi). It was 1955 and attacks by terrorists from the Egyptian-controlled Sinai peninsula and, especially, the Gaza Strip, were a frequent occurrence (and, indeed, were one of the causes of Israel’s Sinai Campaign the following year). The kibbutzim and moshavim in the western Negev (the area now known as the Gaza Envelope) were then, as now, prime targets. Constant vigilance was required.
In this song, performed by the incomparable Shoshana Damari, a mother sings her son to sleep, while explaining why his father cannot be with them. I listened to this song at last month’s lecture. The audience are cordially invited to join in. I did – but could not finish the song. It’s hard to sing when you are crying.

Translation:

A wind, a wind over our home
And a star conceals its light.
Daddy is there, ploughing our fields.
Sleep, sleep, son.

Why is he ploughing by night
Instead of putting me to bed?
Our land has no leisure, son.
Sleep, son. Sleep, son.

Darkness, darkness in our fields
And the candle’s light grows faint.
The darkness will not frighten us.
Sleep, sleep, son.

What is the sound I hear
And the frightening, tumultuous din?
It’s the tractor, swallowing up a furrow.
Sleep, son. Sleep, son.

Something is lurking out there in the silence
And the jackals are clicking their teeth.
Where is Daddy drawing a furrow?
Sleep, sleep, son.

If he’s ploughing the fields of our farm,
Why is he carrying a pistol and a Sten gun?
There can be no deep furrow without a weapon.
Sleep, son. Sleep, son.

Sleep, son.

********

All of this brings me to the Eurovision Song Contest. After the European Broadcasting Union had, at least, the guts to stand up to the demands to ban Israel from the contest this year (demands from the Scandinavian countries and Spain, in particular – where hatred of Israel runs particularly high, it seems) – they found a way (or so they thought) to prevent Israel’s participation without being too obviously antisemitic, by using the pretext that Israel’s entry, October Rain, broke competition rules by being “political” (ie. it referenced the October 7th atrocities and the national grief).

Writers of the history
Stand with me
Look into my eyes and see
People go away but never say goodbye

Someone stole the moon tonight
Took my light
Everything is black and white
Who’s the fool who told you
Boys don’t cry?

Hours and hours and flowers
Life is no game for the cowards
Why does time go wild?
Every day I’m losing my mind
Holding on in this mysterious ride

Dancing in the storm
We got nothing to hide
Take me home
And leave the world behind
And I promise you that never again
I’m still wet from this October rain
October Rain

Living in a fantasy
Ecstasy
Everything’s meant to be
We shall pass but love will never die

Hours and hours and flowers
Life is no game for the cowards
Why does time go wild?
Every day I’m losing my mind
Holding on in this mysterious ride

Dancing in the storm
We got nothing to hide
Take me home
And leave the world behind
And I promise you that never again
I’m still wet from this October rain
October Rain
October Rain

לא נשאר אוויר לנשום
אין מקום
אין אותי מיום ליום
כולם ילדים טובים אחד אחד

(There’s no air left to breath
There’s no space
I’m gone day by day
All of them are good kids, each one of them)

I ask you – is this any more political than Ukraine’s 2016 winning entry “1944”, which contained lyrics such as “When strangers are coming, They come to your house, They kill you all, And say We’re not guilty, not guilty,” and clearly referenced the Soviets’ mass deportation of Crimean Tatars in 1944? I would say rather LESS!

The EBU demanded the lyrics be changed or that another song be submitted. Israel had, in fact, submitted an alternative song – Dance Forever, but it, too, was rejected as being “political”.

Running, city lights fighting my mind
Hiding, I don’t know what’s right
Take me to the right road
There’s no more time and I can’t go wrong
Breathe in, I know that I’m strong
I break all the chains, I’m on the edge now
Watch me fly away
Oh dance like an angel
Oh you will remember that I will dance forever
I will dance again.
Oh dance like an angel
Drowning in the sunrise, my heart is so cold
But my soul is on fire
Someone is calling from paradise
Listen, the hope doesn’t stop, it just spreads its wings
It is like a million stars that suddenly light up in the sky
Heart on fire, I’m a fighter
Don’t stop the music, turn it up louder
I spread out my wings, flying through the sky
Hear violins, angels don’t cry, they only sing
Still feel the ground beneath my feet.
Oh dance like an angel
Oh you will remember that I will dance forever
I will dance again
Dance like an angel (we will dance forever).

The claim made by the EBU committee was that this song was clearly about the Israelis massacred at the Nova music festival. Controversy broke out in Israel too. Some people said we should refuse to be dictated to by the EBU, who were trying to silence any manifestation of our national grief. Others said that this year, more than ever, when attempts were being made to ban Israel from any and every international stage, it was important that we take part in the song contest, even if it meant making a few changes to the lyrics. Still others insisted that the song representing Israel should, in any case, be in Hebrew, not in English – pointing out the fact that recent winners have included songs in languages other than English – such as Portugal in 2017 or Italy in 2021.
I should add that spokespeople from the Israeli selection committee revealed that all but one of the songs submitted to them for consideration, had clearly been influenced by the national mood.

Another bone of contention here in Israel was the way the song had been selected – by a committee, rather than by the usual viewer voting method – as well as the fact that the Committee had allowed non-Israeli songwriters to submit songs for consideration.

It looked as if Israel would not, after all, be taking part in the competition this year, until our President took a hand and persuaded KAN, the Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation, of the importance of taking part in the competition this year, of all years, and that making small changes to the lyrics of a song was a small price to pay in return. So KAN backtracked, asked the writers of October Rain to change the lyrics (not all that easy, in view of the fact that the EBU refused to say exactly which part of the lyrics they found to be “political”), and submitted the “new” song” to the EBU selection committee.
The result was Hurricane. (Watch it on Youtube for subtitles. Although the song is in English, there are a few lines in Hebrew at the end.)

On the face of it – there’s nothing political. In fact, it was presented at the song’s official unveiling as a song about a young woman emerging from a personal crisis. Well, maybe. But I guarantee you that every Israeli watching this video and listening to the lyrics, can identify with that same “personal crisis”. It began on October 7th 2023 – and most of us are still submerged. Who can look at the dancers and not think of the thousands of Nova Festival goers, desperately looking for shelter from the missiles flying overhead, or from the storm of Hamas terrorist bullets raging all around them?
Who can see them fall, at 1:03, and fail to realise that they represent the hundreds murdered by Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists and by “innocent, uninvolved Gazan civilians”?
And the dancers clinging together at 2:06, and again, at 2:16, only to be torn apart? Who can fail to see the reference to Noa Argamani, kidnapped from the Festival, documented being carried off on a motor-cycle, crying “Don’t kill me”, stretching out her hands to her boyfriend, Avinatan Or, who was also kidnapped?
Who can listen to the words “Baby promise me you’ll hold me again, I’m still broken from this hurricane” and not see, in one’s mind’s eye, one of the hostages who had the good fortune to be released, sending a message in her heart to her beloved, still in captivity – or maybe one of the young women still being held by the terrorists, praying that they may yet have the chance to embrace each other once again?

Europe – you didn’t want to hear about the October Rain?
So be it. Receive the Hurricane.

A Journey Back In Time – Maresha and Itri

Hard on the heels of my field trip to Masada two weeks ago in the framework of a Yad Ben Zvi course on the archaeological sites of the Second Temple period, this week, we visited two more sites – Maresha and Itri. About the first of these, I have written before. The city dates back to the time of Joshua. This time, however, we were concentrating on the town’s Hellenistic period.

The weather favoured us. All along the way, almond trees were in blossom and carpets of wild flowers dotted the landscape, which was lush and verdant after the winter rains.

Upon reaching our first port of call, I was disconcerted to discover that I had forgotten to bring a hat. I remembered taking it out of my knapsack before leaving home in the morning, in order to pack my sandwiches. Apparently, I had forgotten to put it back in. It was going to be hot. I had to have some kind of head-covering. I borrowed a scarf from our guide, Efrat and, with the expert assistance of one of the many religious ladies in our group, (Orthodox married Jewish women wear a head-covering at all times), managed to produce a look which, I thought, looked rather Biblical. I liked it, in fact.

The many remains found at Maresha indicate Jewish, Idumaean and Hellenistic influences. Maresha was, at this time, a cosmopolitan city and an important economic hub. Its inhabitants included Jews, Idumaeans – possibly, after the Hasmonean King John Hyrcanus gave them a choice between conversion, death, or exile, Idumaean converts to Judaism – and even a few Egyptians. In its heyday, before the forced conversion, there were also Sidonians and Greeks. John Hyrcanus laid waste to the city round about 112-113 BCE, after conquering Idumaea. It was resettled, but its glory days were over and it was completely destroyed in 40 BCE by the Parthians.

Much of the city was built underground, for several reasons. It was cooler. It was safer in times of trouble. It saved on building materials. Many houses were built partly above ground and partly below ground, with oil presses or bathrooms hewn into the rock.

Some of the caves contained more than one oil press – and there were different types of oil press. In the Oil Press Cave, there was an oil press with a lens-shaped crushing stone, rather than the more usual cylindrical stone.

It seems that the cultivation of olives and the production of olive oil, was a major source of Maresha’s wealth, as was the raising of pigeons – for food, for sacrifices, and also for guano. 22 underground oil presses have been discovered at the site so far, as well as about 85 caves which served as dovecotes or columbaria, one of them with over 2000 niches.

There were also burial caves, notably, the two so-called “Sidonian” Caves. One of these is the family tomb of Apollophanes son of Sesmaios, the leader of the Sidonian community in Maresha. We know this from an inscription found there. Burial was in niches, and the whole tomb was elaborately painted (though what you see today is a reconstruction, based on photographs taken of the original paintings, before Muslim fanatics from the nearby Arab village, offended by the existence of paintings of humans and animals, did their best to erase them).

Another one of the principle sights of Hellenistic Maresha, is a large residence covering some 150 square metres, built around a central courtyard. This “villa” had at least two floors above ground, and a cistern complex below ground.

The front of the villa had, at some time, been opened up onto the street in the manner of a shop, so possibly the building served a double purpose. Maybe a merchant lived here “above the shop” as it were. He was evidently quite a successful businessman, at any rate, for beneath the floor of one of the rooms, a treasure trove of 25 coins was discovered, the latest of them dating to the year 113 BCE (No! It did not have 113 BCE stamped on it!) – the year in which John Hyrcanus conquered Maresha. It seems likely, then, that it was about then that the villa was destroyed. Possibly the owner of the coins was an Idumaean who was killed in the fighting, or maybe fled rather than convert to Judaism – although he or she evidently intended to return, otherwise why bury the treasure?

Behind the villa rises the Acropolis of Maresha, affording spectacular views of the surrounding area.

Another site we visited is known as the Labyrinth Cave. This is a complex of dwellings with an underground system dating back to the Hellenistic period, although for most of that time, the walls of the underground rooms were intact and there was no passage between them. That came only towards the end of the Hellenistic period, when the inhabitants dug escape routes, bolt-holes and tunnels.

Did I mention Hamas?

The residences are not on display to the general public, because, after documenting their finds, the archaeologists who excavated the site covered them up with earth until such time as a way of preserving them which would enable their display without causing damage could be found. However, part of the underground water system and auxiliary chambers is open to the public. For example, in one of the houses, there is a reconstructed oil press. In another, there is a bath house, a columbarium and a large water cistern.

It was now time to leave Hellenistic Maresha and visit the nearby Jewish village of Itri, dating to approximately the same period, which met a violent end during the Bar Kochba Revolt. The Jewishness of the village is attested to by coins found there, minted during the Revolt, by the ritual baths (mikveh) and other finds, including a public building facing east towards Jerusalem, which probably served as a synagogue.

There were underground escape routes, safe spaces (there’s nothing new under the sun, is there?) – now blocked by rubble – and wine presses. Hellenistic Maresha did not have wine presses. They were evidently content to import wine (of the best quality) from Greece and other such places, but observant Jews have ritual purity requirements and produced their own wine.

And all around, of course, were the wild flowers and herbs – sage, irises, orchids, cyclamens and many others whose names I did not know and the air, fragrant with their scent.

But already the lengthening shadows were warning us that the day was waning.

A quick group photo – and then it was time to turn our backs on Itri and, as the sun sank to its rest, head for Jerusalem, and home.

Music, Masada and the Weight of History

I have so much to tell, I really don’t know where to begin. Should I write about the IDF’s daring and heroic rescue of two of the Israeli hostages held in Gaza, last month? The deadly terrorist shooting attack the Thursday before last at the entrance to Jerusalem from Ma’aleh Adumim? The even more deadly terrorist attack the previous Friday at the Re’em Junction in the south of Israel? Or the one that took place at the gas station near the town of Eli even as I was writing this post, which I began last week? The terrorist in that last attack, by the way, turned out to be a Palestinian Authority police officer!!!

Or should I confine myself to happier news, such as my choir’s successful concert the week before last? My field trip to Masada last week? The municipal and local authority elections the following day, held in the shadow of the war? The last is perhaps not such a happy topic, after all, as one is forced to remember those who cannot vote because they have been refugees from their homes in both the south and the north of Israel since October last year. And one remembers also those who would have been candidates themselves, had they not been murdered on October 7th. People like Ofir Libstein, head of the Sha’ar Hanegev Regional Council, who died in defence of Kibbutz Kfar Azza, together with his 19-year-old son, Nitzan, his 81-year-old mother-in-law Bilha and his wife’s nephew, 22-year-old Netta.

Perhaps it would be best if I just begin with the concert and see where time and my own inclination takes me. It will no doubt be a spur of the moment decision…

On Tuesday, February 2oth, the Jerusalem Oratorio Chamber Choir, under the direction of our new conductor, Assaf Benraf, gave a concert at the Becker Auditorium in the Center for Brain Sciences at the Givat Ram Campus of the Hebrew University. The theme was Exile and Longing – a programme chosen in the summer, long before the events of October 7th which made it all the more poignant. It was a varied programme, the music – ranging from Verdi classics such as the Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves from the opera Nabucco (how could it not?) and the Chorus of Scottish Refugees from Macbeth, through Salomone Rossi’s early Baroque setting of Psalm 137 (“By the rivers of Babylon”), the over-the-top German Romanticism of Schumann’s “Am Bodensee“, an early Hebrew classic “Tzion Tamati” by Dolizki, Part 1 of Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s song cycle based on Garcia Lorca’s Romancero Gitano, Eisler’s setting of Brecht’s Letter to a German Soldier at Stalingrad, to popular standards such as “Mayn Shtetele Belz” and “Douce France” – punctuated by poetry readings in many languages, including Arabic, and by a rendition of Tarrega’s “Recuerdos d’Alhambra by guitarist Itay Bainer. I have no recordings of the more classical pieces, but here are some of the lighter, more popular pieces from the second half of the concert.

Here, for starters, is the piece by Castelnuovo-Tedesco:

The guitarist, Itay Bainer, accompanied us also in this Neapolitan stalwart, cherished in the hearts of so many Italian immigrants to the New World:

In the late 19th – early 20th century, in the absence of a state of our own (a tragedy now, thankfully, rectified with the establishment of the State of Israel), Jews fleeing the pogroms, discrimination and poverty of eastern Europe, sought refuge in the United States, where they continued to long for the family and friends left behind in “the Old Country”. One of the most popular Yiddish songs, reflecting this longing, was “Mayn Shtetele Belz”, written for Alexander Olshanetski’s play The Song of the Ghetto. It is said that in the Vilna Ghetto, the Nazis used to force the Jews to sing for them, echoing the lament of the exiles in Babylon:

“For there they that led us captive asked of us words of song, and our tormentors asked of us mirth:
‘Sing us one of the songs of Zion.’”

One of the Jews’ favourite songs was this one:

In 1943, in German-occupied France, Charles Trenet and his pianist, Léo Chauliac, created the song Douce France, a love song to the France of Trenet’s childhood.

We finished with the African-American spiritual Deep River, which expresses a universal longing for an idealised land beyond the River Jordan, symbolising Heaven – that final Home to which we all hope to go, one day:

The concert was a great success and will receive a second airing in April.

********

In my previous post, I described a field trip to Caesarea, under the auspices of Yad Ben Zvi, in the framework of a course on the archaeology of the Second Temple period. Last week, I participated in another field trip in the same framework, this time to Masada.

Masada, where 960 Jews under the command of Elazar Ben Yair committed suicide rather than submit to the Romans, holds an iconic place in Jewish and Israeli history. For many years, inductees to the IDF’s Armoured Corps were sworn in at Masada. Every Israeli schoolboy and girl would visit there at least once on a school trip. It was on the itinerary of every youth movement’s annual trip, of every tourist, every VIP visitor to Israel. I myself have visited there several times – although it has been many years now since I was last there.

The weather favoured us. Monday dawned bright and sunny as we left Jerusalem and headed east, towards the Dead Sea. We stopped for breakfast at Ein Gedi and then headed south. We had started early, at 8:15 am, but it was past 11 am by the time we reached Masada. The plan was to ascend the plateau by cable car, tour the site for about 5 hours and then make our descent via the Snake Path, which, said our guide, Efrat, would take about an hour and was not compulsory. Anyone who wished to could return by cable car.

The cable car station is on the eastern side of the plateau, more or less facing the Dead Sea. From the cable car, one gets a clear and awe-inspiring view of the surrounding desert, including at least two of the sites of the Roman camps with which Flavius Silva, the commander of the besieging Roman troups, surrounded the rebels’ stronghold.

There are at least two Herodian palaces on top of the plateau of Masada. Most of the building on Masada can be attributed to Herod, the great builder, although Josephus tells us that the first person to fortify Masada was the Hasmonean High Priest, Jonathan (Yonatan). Most experts assume this meant Alexander Yannai, the Hasmonean king and high priest (103 – 76 BCE) , whose coins have been found at the site. There are a few, however, who believe the reference is to Jonathan the High Priest, brother of Judah the Maccabee. At all events, no irrefutably Hasmonean remains have been discovered at Masada, except for the coins – and coins, of course, can remain in circulation for many years after they were minted.

We first visited the Western Palace. As Efrat is always reminding us, visiting an archaeological site always requires a great deal of imagination. One sees two or three courses of stones, partially plastered and painted, and one has to imagine, from comparison with more fully-preserved sites, and from the descriptions of historians, such as Josephus, the height of the walls, the decorated frescoes, who would have used the room and for what purpose.

This, then, was apparently the entrance hall of the Western Palace:

Of course, we must recall that the stuccoed walls would have been painted, either to resemble marble – which was exceedingly expensive – or with brightly-coloured designs.

Nearby is a staircase leading to the second floor, where there is a bathing complex – almost a spa – with mosaic floors, stuccoed walls, baths and bathing pools as well as what may have been a guest suite.
Herod might not have spent much time here, but his Roman patrons might have chosen any time to pay a call, and everything had to be ready for high-ranking visitors!

There is also a public bath house complex, built like a typical Roman bath house. As we know – and as I have mentioned in previous posts – the public bath house was an important part of civic life for the Romans, and Herod brought the idea to Judaea. The bath house was a meeting place, a place for exercising, and conducting business. The public bath house complex at Masada is entered via a mosaic-covered courtyard, or palaestra, which would be used for exercising. There was then a service room, where one could leave one’s clothes before entering.

Bath house patrons could enjoy a variety of facilities. There would be a hot room (caldarium), heated by a hypocaust, a cooler room or tepidarium and finally, one could take a bracing plunge in the cold water pool of the frigidarium.

The hypocaust at Masada has been partially reconstructed so as to allow visitors to see how it worked.

The caldarium would have a double floor. The upper floor would be separated from the lower by small pillars (seen above). In a side room, a furnace would be stoked, from which hot air would be circulated by pipes under the floor and through the walls. The pipes would not, of course, be visible to the bath house patrons, as they would be hidden, as you can see in the picture below, between the inner and outer walls of the caldarium. Patrons would have worn wooden shoes or sandals to protect their feet from the hot floor.

Herod, as I have already mentioned, had more than one palace at Masada. The Western Palace is the largest in area, but the most famous is the three story Northern Palace. This is the one visitors first espy from afar when approaching Masada. Architecturally, it is one of Herod’s most ambitious and daring projects, built, as it is, on three levels of rock at the very edge of the abyss, and making considerable use of awe-inspiring support walls. This palace was where Herod would retire to enjoy solitude, as well as an unparalleled view over the desert to the Dead Sea from the semi-circular terrace.

It is believed that the king and his family resided in the Upper Story, while the two lower floors were where he received guests. From the top floor, the king had a birds’ eye view, not only of the magnificent panorama, but also of the lower terraces – and, since the palace faced north, he would also be able to enjoy the shade and the cooling afternoon breezes that tempered the desert heat.

To reach the lower terraces, the king would have descended a winding staircase, possibly hewn in the rock. On the Middle Terrace there was a circular reception hall, of which all that remains today are the foundations, partly rock-hewn and partly built. There was also what appears to have been a library.

It is the Lower Terrace which is the best preserved. Here, a large reception room/banqueting hall was excavated. Surrounded by colonnades, some of the stucco-coated pillars survived to their full height, with their Corinthian-style capitals almost intact. As you can see, the columns were partly freestanding and partly carved into the rock. Two gilded capitals were unearthed. The walls and pillars, with their elaborately decorative capitals, were originally painted. In some cases, the painting was intended to deceive the eye into believing the walls were covered with marble.

Of course, you must be wondering how Masada, situated in the middle of the desert, was supplied with water. Herod had an impressive water supply system constructed, including dams which diverted floodwater from the flash floods which occasionally occur in the wilderness to man-made canals. These canals filled 12 huge water cisterns quarried on two levels of the plateau.

And, of course, there were huge store-rooms – which were left with all their contents by the Zealots defending Masada, so that the Romans could see that it was not a lack of supplies which had led them to take their own lives, rather than surrender.

Masada was one of Herod’s many palaces, but the site is best known as the last stand of the Zealots, Jewish rebels against the Roman invaders, in 73 CE. We visited the site of the synagogue – originally constructed in the time of Herod (who died in 4 BCE) as a stable.

During the Revolt (66 – 73CE), it was converted by the Jewish rebels who had taken refuge at Masada, into a synagogue. They added benches around the hall and erected a small corner room, with two small holes in the floor, perhaps for use as a Genizah. At all events, scroll fragments were discovered there, including the chapter of Ezekiel containing the Vision of the Dried Bones. Can you imagine the feelings of the archaeologists upon unearthing such a find, in such a place? Because there were bones unearthed at Masada – which were later given a military burial by the Chief Rabbi of the Israel Defence Forces. There have been some dissenting voices in the archaeological community relating to the identity of these remains – but in 1963, in the young Jewish state, the majority had no doubt of the appropriateness of the interment of those who were possibly the last defenders of Jewish independence for two thousand years, with full military honours, by the Chief Rabbi of the defence forces of the newly-reborn State of Israel.

The heroes of Masada were buried at the foot of the Roman siege ramp, opposite the very place where the wall was breached.

The mound with the winding white path, about one third of the way down the photo, marks the place of their burial.

This, as I said, was the place where the defence wall was breached by Silva’s legionaries. The defenders shored it up with a wooden wall. The Romans shot flaming arrows into the wood, but the wind blew the flames back onto the Romans. Of course, the defenders saw this as a sign of divine intervention – but then the wind changed and began to devour the wall. The Romans did not fight at night and, knowing there was no way for the defenders to escape, returned to camp until the next morning. But the rebels preferred death to slavery. Josephus tells us that after each man had killed his wife and family, they drew lots to decide who would kill his remaining comrades and who would be the last man standing, who would have to fall on his own sword. Of course, Josephus was not present himself and claimed to have received his information from two women survivors, who had hidden, together with five children, in a water conduit and thus survived the mass suicide. Be that as it may, when the Romans entered the site the following morning, they met no resistance. There were only dead bodies.

There is much, much more to see on Masada – and we did see more, but not nearly the whole. We had planned to descend via the Snake Path, but at about 2:30 pm, the site’s Public Address System warned us that the Snake Path would be closed at 3 pm, and we still hadn’t seen many of the things we had planned to see, so we decided to forgo the long walk down the winding footpath and return as we had come, by cable car. I have to admit – I was not all that disappointed 😉

So we were able to see a few more things, but not all that much, since in winter, the last cable car descends at 4pm and the site closes. In fact, Efrat, our guide, had not been warned in advance that the Snake Path would close an hour earlier. A lot of things have changed (not always with advance notice) “because of the War”. It isn’t surprising, really. Many of our archaeological sites (and certainly our national parks) do not have “Safe Spaces” and nobody wants to be exposed on the side of a mountain in the case of a missile attack – so many places still remain closed, or their opening hours are severely curtailed. Indeed, at least twice while we were on top of the plateau, jet fighters roared overhead – a reminder, as if one was needed, that our country is at war.

In the years following the excavation of Masada, the slogan “Masada will not fall again” was coined. Since October 7th, many of us feel our very existence as a state is threatened, and that slogan is more than ever apposite.

I had a lot more that I wanted to write, but I think this post is too long already. If you are still with me, I thank you for your forbearance. Next week, I have another field trip, in which we shall meet Josephus again, and possibly understand more of what was going through his head when he described the heroism of the defenders of Masada, in the light of his own personal history. If you have enjoyed this virtual tour, I hope you will join me again soon for more of the wonders of Israel’s history and landscape.

A Little Fresh Air

I can hardly believe it has been almost two months since I last posted! At the time, I wrote that music is my only refuge from the insanity all around me – but that isn’t quite true. I find it’s important to seize hold of every possibility to raise my spirits – whether it’s a rehearsal or a concert by my choir, a lecture (such as the fascinating Ascolot – Open University series which has just ended, on the philosophical and religious revolution wrought by the Bible), or a field trip with Yad Ben Zvi.

I took part in one such field trip last week, to Caesarea. I have visited Caesarea with Yad Ben Zvi before – notably, in January 2020. In fact, I think that was one of the last field trips before the COVID-19 lockdown shut down or severely limited activities for months on end. This year’s archaeology and history courses, which were supposed to start at the end of October, have, of course, been severely impacted by the War. We didn’t start till the beginning of January, in fact and, now that we have started, the security situation throughout the country has made changes inevitable. There are regions, such as the Golan Heights, Hebron etc. which were on the syllabus but, of course, it would be foolhardy to visit Hebron when such tension exists between Israel and the Palestinian Authority and impossible to visit areas near to the border in the North, where Hizbollah continues to target the area with Iranian and Syrian-supplied rockets and artillery. Moreover, some of the tour-guides who were supposed to lead the field-trips (being experts in particular areas) are still mobilised under emergency regulations. The trip to Caesarea was scheduled to take place last month, but was postponed to March, because of heavy rains and severe flooding. The trip which was supposed to take place last week (having already been postponed from November (if I’m not mistaken, which is highly possible) could not take place as the tour guide is still serving in the military reserves and so the trip to Caesarea was brought forward again.

This time, the weather was on our side. Not only did it not rain, we actually had a few days of unseasonably warm weather. Still, I had mixed feelings that morning. I had gone to bed much later than intended the previous evening, due to an extended rehearsal of the choir in which I failed to receive the solo for which I had been hoping, and I had risen shortly after 6 a.m. having slept for only about five and a half hours. I switched on the news. It was good news for a change. Two of the Israeli hostages in Gaza had been rescued in a daring and heroic raid by Israeli security forces, with no losses on our side. My heart leapt – only to sink again when the first item on the 7 o’clock news was the announcement that two Israeli soldiers had been killed in the fighting in another part of Gaza.

But the sun was shining, and I was about to set out on my first field trip of the year (I had missed the official start of the course, as it clashed with the lecture series I mentioned above). Besides, the whole point of me taking part in these trips (apart from acquiring knowledge, of course) was to forget, if only for a few short hours, that we are at war.

We reached Caesarea shortly after 11 a.m. Our first stop was the famous Roman theatre, originally built by Herod the Great, and erroneously known, in common parlance at least, as the Amphitheatre – or, more often, the “Amphi”. It is the oldest of the ancient theatres unearthed in Israel.

Built, as I said, by King Herod in the 1st century BCE, the theatre was in use for several hundred years, until the Byzantine period (4th to mid 7th centuries CE). It seated about 4000 spectators. It had two galleries and the floor of the orchestra, or stage, was made of plaster, cunningly painted to resemble marble.

It has been partially renovated in our own time and is now a popular venue for pop and rock concerts, by both Israeli and visiting artists. At one time, there were even operas performed there, but that was discontinued, because of the noise from planes flying overhead to land at Ben Gurion Airport.

In the area around the theatre is a display of finds from the site, consisting mostly of sarcophagi and decorative heads of pillars:

Below the Theatre and slightly to the north, are the remains of Herod’s Palace, known variously as the Reef Palace or the Promontory Palace. This was built on a promontory jutting into the sea and contains a large, rectangular pool which some researchers believe actually served as the municipal fish market.

The Palace had beautiful mosaic floors and a heating system or hypocaust. To think that 2000 years ago, they had central heating!

On the way to the Palace is a dedicatory inscription which, I know, will be of particular interest to my Christian readers.

This is a fragment of a dedicatory inscription from Pontius Pilate, then Governor of the Roman province of Judaea, to the emperor Tiberius. We can make out the names Tiberius, and Pontius Pilatus, and the title “Prefect of Judaea”, although we do not know exactly what building it was that Pilate dedicated to the emperor. This is actually a replica of the limestone fragment found during the excavations of the Theatre in 1961.. The original inscription is housed at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem and is important as the only contemporary archaeological evidence of Pilate’s existence.

Also of interest, a couple of inscriptions found near one of the Palace entrances suggest that there was a prison attached. It has been suggested that the Apostle Paul may have been imprisoned, and possibly wrote some of his Epistles here, as well as Rabbi Akiva and other captives, in the wake of the Bar Kokhba Rebellion (132 CE).

Next to the Palace is what Efrat, our guide, called “the Hippo-stadium”, as it was a combined hippodrome and stadium, which was built in the time of Herod and hosted sporting competitions, chariot races and other spectacles. The original structure could seat up to 10,000 spectators. It is mentioned by Josephus in both Antiquities and The Jewish War.

Above the Hippo-stadium was the public bath-house. The lavish decoration, with pillars and mosaic floors, has led some to suggest that this was part of a private house, despite its size.

Of course, in Roman times, the public bath house served for so much more than personal hygiene. Patrons could also exercise in the palaestra, enjoy a massage – and, above all, conduct business (in this, it might be said to resemble the modern golf course).

Adjacent to the bath house is what is believed to have been the governor’s mansion, where there are elaborate mosaics from the Byzantine era, including this one, known as the Ibex mosaic:

It was time to break for lunch. I ate my sandwiches on one of the wooden benches overlooking the Nymphaeum – the site of the Roman city’s public water fountain. The Nymphaeum stood at the centre of the city and would have been one of the ancient city’s popular meeting places.

After lunch, we visited the site of what would have been the city’s main temple (dedicated to Augustus and Roma) in Herodian times (Herod knew how to flatter his patrons). Centuries later, in Byzantine times, it was replaced by a church. When the city fell to the Muslims, the church became a mosque and later, with the capture of the city by the Crusaders, a smaller church was built on the site.

More evidence of the Crusader presence can be found in the fortifications which we passed through, but since the subject of this series of field-trips is the Second Temple period, I will leave that for another time.

The city of Caesarea owes its existence to Herod’s ambition to build a deep-water harbour there. In the absence of any natural harbour along Judaea’s Mediterranean coast, Herod hired the most expert engineers and architects, had breakwaters constructed, and, in short, did what Herod loved to do – build. The history of the harbour and its construction can be studied in the Museum, where you can also see a short film explaining Herod’s vision and the way the town sprang up around the harbour.

The Inner Harbour is now dry land, and covered with grass, and the Outer Harbour lies several metres under water. Artefacts recovered from beneath the brine can be viewed in the Museum.

Jutting into the sea is now a stone pier used by fishermen, scuba divers – and cats, who always seem to find me (or I, them):

By now, it was getting late and the sun was sinking ever lower in the sky. Huge flocks of some kind of bird (seagulls? wild geese?) wheeled overhead.

The days are short in February, and we had yet to visit the Roman Aqueduct for which Caesarea is justly famous.

First built by Herod, it brought water from the Spring of Shuni. It was later expanded by the Romans, under Hadrian. A second channel was built parallel to the first and brought water from additional sources. The Aqueduct continued to serve the city for several centuries, but over the course of time, inevitably, it was damaged. When it could no longer be repaired, it was replaced by a third aqueduct, built by the Crusaders.

There is, of course, much more to see and to tell about Caesarea and its fascinating history, but we were running out of time. As the sun sank ever lower on the horizon, all that was left to do was to photograph the magnificent sunset, before heading for Jerusalem – and home.

Music in the Desert

Bombarded as I am – as we all are – by news reports from all sides, I am often so angry, I burn to write and share my feelings with readers of this blog. For example, I promised to write about the criminal negligence of the Red Cross, who have made no effort to visit the kidnapped Israelis in Gaza and even refused to accept medications intended for some of them, going so far as to reprimand the families of the Israeli hostages for thinking about the wellbeing of their relatives, rather than that of the Palestinians!

And then there is the inexplicable silence for the first two months of the war, by international women’s groups, regarding the acts of mass rape and sexual violence against Israeli women and girls perpetrated by the Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists who attacked Israel on October 7th. Some even deny it happened. What happened to “Believe Women”? This refusal to address atrocities which were gleefully documented by the Hamas terrorist vermin themselves, while going so far as to attack the victims and accuse them of lying, can only stem from one thing – blatant antisemitism.

Sometimes the rage I feel threatens to overwhelm me. I have only one refuge – music. During the first few weeks of the war, I felt guilty about my choir continuing with “normal” activities – nor was I the only one. But gradually, we understood that one of the things we are fighting for is the right to live a normal life in this country, and that if we just put everything on hold, we are letting the terrorist vermin and their Iranian puppet-masters win. So we resumed rehearsals and I soon realised how necessary for my emotional and psychological wellbeing it was to be able to escape, for a few hours twice a week or so, the nightmare that threatens to engulf us.

Earlier this month, my choir took part in the annual Sounds of Music in the Desert Festival, at Kibbutz Sde Boker in the Negev. I mentioned this in one of my previous posts. At the time, I wondered who would come to a concert in the middle of the Negev Desert, with a war raging only about 70 kilometres away. But it seems that I am not the only person to understand the healing power of music. There was quite a sizeable audience, which included a considerable number of evacuees from towns and villages in the Gaza Envelope (the populated area within 7 kilometres of the Gaza border on the Israeli side), and the composer, Michael Wolpe, who is the founder and director of the Festival.

As I mentioned in my earlier post, we presented the first performance of a new work based on the poems of Rachel Bluwstein-Sela or, as she is known in Israel, simply Rachel the Poetess. Rachel wrote mainly short, intensely personal poems, but even when she is doing no more than sketch the landscape in a few brief lines, her love of the Land of Israel shines through and can bring the reader to tears. That was certainly the effect on many in the audience.

The concert was filmed and recorded, but I have no idea when the recording will be available. I made an audio recording of the finale at the first orchestra rehearsal (well, to be honest, the only orchestra rehearsal) the previous day, which I have, with much blood, sweat and tears, managed to turn into a video, whilst simultaneously attempting to learn the new Microsoft video editing software. For this reason, you can hear the soprano section much more strongly than the rest of the choir. I have also made my own, more literal translation of the words, as I was not completely satisfied by the translation I gave in my earlier post.

Enjoy!

To My Country

I did not sing for you, my country,
Nor did I praise your name
With heroic tales
Or with the spoils of battle.
One tree I planted with my own hands
By the Jordan’s quiet waters.
One narrow path to my feet yields,
Which runs across the fields.

Humble indeed –
I know it well, Mother –
Humble indeed
Is your daughter’s offering.
A cry of joy one glorious day,
When shines the sun in splendour;
And, shed for you, a secret tear
To see the poverty you bear.

We Have No Unknown Soldiers

“The IDF has authorised the publication…”
How I have come to dread those words, which open the first news broadcast of the morning, and often the last bulletin of the evening, almost every day now. They presage the announcement of the names of the soldiers who fell during the previous 24 hours, with their age, rank, home town and the name of the military unit to which they belonged – always followed with the words: “The family has been notified”. Without this qualification, who knows how many families with sons, daughters, husbands, wives, brothers and sisters fighting in Gaza, or along the northern border, who may not have heard from “their” soldier for days, might almost go into cardiac arrest with worry on hearing the news, for fear that the day’s statistics might include their own family member? As it is, tens of thousands of families are living from day to day with the fear of hearing that knock on the door.

I have no immediate family members at the front, but, as I have said before – everybody knows somebody who does…

And then there are the soldiers I did not know personally, but feel I have come to know from seeing them on television, singing before going into battle, or when they are allowed a few hours leave to come home to attend the brit mila (circumcision ceremony) of their newborn son, or to get married. When I hear, a few days later, that they, too, are among the fallen, it is like a personal loss.

Such, for example, was the case with Lt. Col. Tomer Greenberg, commander of Battalion 13 of the Golani Brigade. Golani has suffered heavy losses during this war – 41 on October 7th alone. Tomer touched many hearts with his inspirational speech to his soldiers in the early days of the war. Referring to the dead of October 7th he said: “Battalion 13 are heroes…In 10 years time, there will be a commander of Battalion 13, with heroic fighters, some of you will already be parents…he will tell the battalion about you, and will show them photos of our fallen soldiers. So it seems you are not so pampered, you are no less heroic, you aren’t the iPhone Generation.. I am proud of every one of you standing here“.

In another speech, he eulogised the 41 Golani fighters who fell on October 7th: “They are still with us. I feel as if the 41 fallen of Battalion 13 are protecting us from above. In Gaza, we need a lot of cover. A company that’s advancing needs another company on one side to give them covering fire, another on the other side – as much cover as possible. I truly feel in my heart, that we have 41 more fighters, heroes, giving us cover from above…I truly feel they are with us. And when the war is over, whenever that may be, with a huge victory for us, and defeat for the enemy, we will go to the cemeteries and to the families of the fallen, whom we will embrace… and explain to them that this victory is thanks to their sons and what they sacrificed. ..We will stand and raise the flag, salute and sing Hatikva…in memory of the fallen heroes who are protecting us, even now.“

Tomer fell leading his men into battle last week in Shuja’iyya, a heavily-armed and fortified terrorist stronghold in northern Gaza. He was 35 years old and left a widow and an almost 4-year-old daughter. Without ever having met him, I feel as if I have lost a son. He was a hero. I am sure he is, even now, leading that heavenly battalion of which he spoke.

We have no “unknown soldiers”.

Here in Israel, the death of every soldier is reported on the national news. When a “lone soldier” (usually someone who made aliyah to Israel without their family) is killed, you can be sure that even without family, hundreds who never met them, alerted by social media, will honour their memory by attending the funeral and when the family arrives in Israel, will make sure they are not left alone and friendless during the 7 days of mourning, the shiva. If they were “only” wounded, thousands will pray and recite psalms for their recovery, dozens will visit them in hospital.

I could tell you the names and stories of many more, but it’s hard to type when one can hardly see the keyboard for tears, when I find myself choking up at each new name.

We have no “unknown soldiers”.

********

Looking for a Light in the Darkness

This evening is the first night of Hanukkah, the 8-day Jewish festival which celebrates the victory of the Maccabees over the occupying Greco-Syrian army and the Miracle of the Oil which, though sufficient for one day only, burned for 8 days until fresh oil could be prepared for the Holy Temple.

Hanukkah is traditionally known as The Festival of Lights – and Heaven knows we all feel we could do with some extra light in our lives, after the catastrophe of October 7th. The rest of the world has been quick to move on from the genocidal atrocities committed by Hamas two months ago, against defenceless civilians, men, women, children and babies, but when everyone in Israel knows someone who was murdered, or wounded, or taken hostage that day, or who was witness to the horrors and miraculously was physically saved, yet psychologically scarred for ever, or who has been killed in the fighting since then, one cannot so easily put it behind one. Last week, I rejoiced with a friend who used to sing with my choir, at the release of three of her relatives, a mother and two children who had been kidnapped from their home in Kibbutz Nir Oz, from captivity in Gaza, whilst holding our breaths with anxiety because the husband and father was still being held by Hamas. A couple of days later, the heartbreaking news came that he was no longer alive. That’s in addition to the cousin of my nephew’s wife, a young woman who was one of the many young women and girls murdered at the Super Nova music festival on the morning of October 7th – and I can only pray that she was not one of those who were tortured and raped there before being murdered.

And yet, unlike Hamas, which sanctifies Death, we are a people who sanctify Life. We embrace it, we celebrate it – which is one of the reasons why, after some initial hesitation, my choir decided to resume rehearsals, and why the Sounds of Music in the Desert Festival will be taking place next week at Kibbutz Sde Boker as planned – with the participation of the Jerusalem Oratorio Choir. We will be opening the festival with a world premiere, a cantata based on poems by Rachel Bluwstein – Rachel the Poetess as she is known here in Israel – originally set to music by Mordechai Zeira, who composed them with the great Israeli songstress Shoshana Damari in mind. Zeira’s project never came to fruition, but now, it has been revived and orchestrated by Prof. Michael Wolpe, himself a member of Kibbutz Sde Boker. The cantata revolves around Rachel’s life, from her arrival in Eretz Yisrael, then part of the Ottoman Empire, in 1909, through her unhappy love affairs, her childlessness, her hopes and her despairs, until her death from tuberculosis in 1931.

The mixture of hope and despair seems particularly apt in these troubled days. I know that more than once, I felt a lump in my throat at the rehearsal the day before yesterday with Michael Wolpe and the soloist, Yonit Shaked Golan – especially during the final song:

To My Land

I cannot offer you, my land,
In praise, heroic deeds;
One tree I planted on the way
Which to the Jordan leads.
One narrow path to my feet yields,
Which runs across the fields.

I know how humble are the gifts
The child offers her mother:
A cry of joy one glorious day,
When shines the sun in splendor;
And, shed for you, a secret tear
To see the shabby clothes you wear.

From Selected Poems of Rachel, Tel Aviv: Eked, 1974. Translated from the Hebrew by Elias Pater.

I have often mentioned on this blog how necessary music is to my emotional and psychological wellbeing, and how my activities with the choir, in particular, have the power to lift my spirits in times of darkness. We have been given to understand that Sde Boker is full of evacuees from the towns and villages of the Gaza Envelope. Refugees from the constant stream of Hamas rockets, some of them no longer have homes to go back to. I hope the healing power of music will help, in some small measure, to lift their spirits too.

Evil All Around Us

I was going to write today about the war in Gaza, but the news this morning opened with a terrorist shooting attack right here in Jerusalem, for which Hamas has claimed responsibility. The vermin who perpetrated the attack are two brothers from the Tzur Bahr neighbourhood in southern Jerusalem, a stone’s throw from my home. Both of them previously served prison terms for terror-related activities.
The attack, at a bus stop at the exit to Jerusalem, left three Israelis dead and six more wounded, in serious to critical condition. The vermin who carried out the attack were shot dead on the spot by bystanders.

As I said, Hamas has claimed responsibility. I see that as yet another violation of the ceasefire agreement which they have been violating consistently, since it officially came into effect last Friday morning. During the first hour of the ceasefire, they continued to fire rockets into Israel. They have not yet allowed the Red Cross to visit the Israeli hostages, although that was part of the agreement. (The Red Cross itself has been grossly negligent in its obligations to the Israeli hostages, since the war started, as I shall make clear in a later post.) Consequently, we have no idea of their physical condition, other than what we can glean from those hostages who have been released. They agreed that families would not be split up yet they released children without their mother, on the spurious claim that they couldn’t locate the mother as she was being held separately from her children. However, 13-year-old Hila Rotem, who was released, made it clear that until two days before her release (after the terms had already been agreed), she and her mother had been held together. Her mother, Raya Rotem, was finally released yesterday, after Hamas managed to “find” her.

Today, we are being told to expect the release of only 8 hostages, despite the fact that under the terms of the agreement, every extra day of ceasefire after the original four is predicated on the release of ten more hostages. Hamas is claiming that they are unable to locate many of the hostages, because they handed some over to splinter groups (in fact, they are known to have distributed hostages among “civilian” families, including organised crime families).

All this brings me to the fate of the Bibas family. Shiri Bibas and her husband, Yarden, were kidnapped from Kibbutz Nir Oz on October 7th, together with their children, 4-year-old toddler Ariel and 10-month old baby Kfir. Yarden was separated from the rest of his family, whom Hamas transferred, like spoils of war, to another terror group in Khan Yunis. Shiri and the two children, who have become the face of the Israeli hostages, due to the children’s striking red hair and the fact that baby Kfir is the youngest of the hostages, were filmed being dragged from their home, a clearly terrified mother clutching her babies and being brutally dragged off to heaven knows what fate.

Due to the age of the children, it was widely expected that they would be among the first hostages to be released. But the days went by with no sign of them. Now Hamas has announced that Shiri and her babies were killed in an Israeli airstrike.

We do not know if this is true, or merely part of the cruel game of psychological warfare in which Hamas is so adept. It would not be the first time. They had previously announced the death in similar circumstances of 77-year-old hostage Hannah Katzir, who was, in fact, alive and was released on the first day of the ceasefire, last Friday.

Now all we can do is wait and hope. And pray – for Yarden, whose whereabouts is completely unknown, for Shiri, for little Ariel – and for the baby, Kfir.

If they are alive – may God protect them.
If not – may God avenge them, sevenfold.

********

Update: Tonight it was announced that a fourth victim of this morning’s terror attack, has died. May God avenge his blood and that of all the victims.