Mt. Arbel        

Going hiking in Israel is always a walk through Jewish history. In March, one of my daughters and I hiked up the cliffs at Mt. Arbel, a giant crevice near the Kinneret (Sea of Galilee) in Israel’s north. The hike is relatively easy, but the footing is close to the cliff’s edge; and when we reached the top, we were rewarded with a breathtaking view. We could easily see the hills of the Golan Heights across the sea, and in the distance, snow-capped Mount Hermon, Israel’s highest peak; below we saw the multi-colored fields of kibbutzim and moshavim founded nearly a century ago, and small Arab villages of the Galilee. And, as in every spot in Israel, we discovered that Arbel’s cliffs conceal the story of Jews who lived (and died) here more than 2,000 years ago.

. First, we encountered the ruins of an ancient synagogue from the 3^rd century; carved into the stone is a round niche that points to Jerusalem in which the Torah scrolls were kept. Then, we learned that caves in the Arbel cliffs were places of refuge for the Jews who rebelled against the King Herod and his Roman soldiers around the year 39 BCE. Herod’s men could not force the Jews out of the caves until he devised a system to lower his soldiers down on platforms with pulleys from above and smoke out the Jews hiding in the caves. Later, in the great Jewish Revolt (66-70 CE), Jews again hid in these caves. Finally, shortly after the State of Israel was declared, a group of Jews originally from Romania reclaimed this location by founding a moshav (collective settlement) in 1949, and live there today thriving off of small industry, orchards, a dairy, and tourism.