Mas’ada and Majdal Shams

The Druze of these villages are separated from their Syrian brothers and sisters only I by the looming Mt. Hermon. Unlike those on Mt. Carmel, most of these Druze are 1 loyal to Syria. In 1982, they tore up their Israeli citizenship documents in a rebellion I backed by PLO-supplied weapons. The Israeli army quickly quashed the revolt, but j not the Syrian allegiance. Outwardly, however, the villages are tranquil.

Mas’ada and Majdal Shams are far less primed for tourists than their counterparts in Carmel, with the emphasis here more on tradition than on commercialism, J Women walk around swathed in black and men wear the traditional black shirvelas (low-hanging baggy pants), which date from Ottoman times. The Qur’an describes j Muhammad’s reemergence in the world as coming through the “bowels of a man"; devout Turkish Muslims are prepared.

Gamla

For years all that was known about the lost city of Gamla was its legend as told by the first-century historian Josephus. Somewhere in the Golan existed the remains of an ancient town whose defenders heroically resisted the Roman army during the Great Rebellion, then chose martyrdom (The Jewish War, Book IV, ch. 1). After the Six-Day War, archeologists had the opportunity to scour the area for a spot corresponding to ancient descriptions of the city.

Eventually, Shmaryahu Gutman, who claims to have worked with a copy of The Jewish War in hand, found the site: 15km southeast of modern Katzrin, on the high escarpments encircling a ridge crowned by the ruins of Gamla, lay a battlefield missing only the Roman legions. The only access to its walls is via a narrow strip of land connecting it with the higher surrounding ridges. The peak, when viewed from a certain angle, resembles a camel’s hump-hence gamla, a corruption of the Hebrew gamal (camel).

(more…)

Brekhat haMeshushim

A few km southeast of Katzrin, not served by public transportation, is the Ya’ar Yehudiya Nature Reserve and the source of the Zavitan River. From just off the road, you can hike down the river through some of Israel’s richest greenery. To reach the hiking path head about 2km southeast along the main highway from Katzrin. Watch for a small, weather-beaten orange sign in Hebrew on the right, marking the beginning of the trail. Starting here, you can follow the stream for about two hours through rocky pools wiggling with fish and freshwater crabs during the summer. The trail is clearly marked with red-and-white striped blazes. Before the stream joins the Meshushim stream to the west, the path leads up the steep side of the ravine, across the plateau, and down to Brekhat haMeshushim (Hexagon Ponds). The formation of hexagonal rock columns at the water’s edge inspired the name.

To leave this area, walk up to the parking lot and follow the 5km access road to the main highway. From here it’s 17km to Katzrin; there are no buses. The ponds can also be reached by climbing up river from the Bet Tzayda Valley (ask for Tzomet Bet Tzayda) along the Kinneret or by walking down the path from the deserted village of Jaraba, about 13km south of B’not Ya’;ikov Bridge off the left side of the road. The river basin is occasionally closed to traffic due to military maneuvers in the area. More often, temporary roadblocks are set up while mines are detonated a tew kilometers ahead.

Nimrod’s Fortress (Qal’at Nimrod) stands 1.5km northeast of the Banyas, on a ; knobby hill visible through the trees. According to the biblical table of Noah’s , descendants, Nimrod was “the first on earth to be a mighty man” (Genesis 10:8). ; Legend holds that, besides fashioning sandals and building the Tower of Babel, he erected tliis humongous fortress high enough to shoot arrows up to God, A plaque ‘ above one of the many gates reads in Arabic: “God gave him the power to build this castle with his own strength.” The strength of his slaves must have been phenomenal as well, judging from the size of the stones they schlepped up the steep cliffs.

Historians spoil all the fun and claim that the fortress was actually built by the Muslims, and originally named QaTat Suheiba. The view from the top of the fortress is unrivaled anywhere in the Upper Galilee or Golan. You can see Mt. Hermon to the north and the Hula Valley to the southeast. The approach to the castle, from which there is a clear view into the tiny Dmze village of Ein Qinya, is just off bus route #55 between Kiryat Shmona and Katzrin; the gate to the road leading to the casile is directly across from the bus stop. Bus #14 from Kiryat Shmona to Neve Ativ passes by; the site is a one-hour walk uphill. The castle is also accessible by a footpath from the Banyas, beginning directly above the springs. The shadeless walk takes about an hour and a half each way. (Tel 94 23 60; site open 8am-4pm. Admission NIS7.)

Banyas and Nimrod’s Fortress Tn»3 m?7pl D’33 The name Banyas comes from the Greek Paneas (Pan’s Place); the spring here was the site of an ancient sanctuary dedicated to Pan, god of nature and shepherds. Classical Arabic, with no P sound, renders “Paneas” banyas. These rocks gush with religious and strategic significance: the prophet Elijah (Al-Khadar to Muslims) had a shrine by the Banyas; Jesus chose his first disciple here; and, prior to 1967, Syria staged attacks into the Hula Valley from this spectacularly beautiful site.

The Banyas is in the Golan Heights, but lies only a few minutes down the road from Dan and Horshat Tal in the Upper Galilee. Although the Banyas is the most popular site in the Upper Galilee-Golan area, public transportation to the site is woefully inadequate. Bus #14 from Kiryat Shmona to Neveh Ativ passes by Banyas (NIS6.30), leaving at 10:30am and returning at approximately 4:30pm. Bus ^55 travels from Kiryat Shmona through the Golan by way of Banyas twice per day, but the last bus back to Kiryat Shmona is at noon. If you want to spend the afternoon at the park, you can walk 5km west to Kibbutz Dan; the last bus (#25, 26, or 36) leaves at 7:35pm from the kibbutz. (Tel. 95 14 10; park open Sat.-Thurs. 8am-6pm, Fri. 8am-5pm. Admission NIS11. Combination ticket to Banyas, Gamla, Dan, Ayun, and Hula Valley Reserves NIS27.)
(more…)

Sights The Golan Archeological Museum (tel. 96 13 50) is in the north end of town, at the opposite end of Daliyat St. from the field school. Despite its tiny size, the museum is one of the most informative of its kind in the country, with thorough explanations in Hebrew and English accompanying most exhibits. The Golan excavations, consisting largely of engraved artifacts of ancient synagogues and houses, testify to agricultural communities dating back to the New Stone Age. The museum also has an archeological exhibit and short film explaining the battle between the Jewish town of Gamla and the Romans during the Great Revolt of 67-70 AD. (Open Sun.-Thurs. 8am-4pm, Fri. 8am-lpm, Sat.

10am-4pm. Admission NIS8, students NIS5.) The ticket also includes admission to Ancient Katzrin Park, located just outside modern Katzrin (ask the museum for directions). Excavations have unearthed a richly ornamented synagogue dating from the 4th-8thcentury AD. when Katzrin was a flourishing Jewish settlement. Two reconstructed houses with furnishings based on finds from the excavations give a sense of daily iife in the Talmudic Village.
(more…)

Practical Information Bus #55 makes two trips per day from Kiryat Shmona, approaching Katzrin from the north and going past the towns at the base of Mt. Sermon (NIS13.5O). Alternatively, buses #841, 842, 845, 480, 500 and 969 leave Kiryat Shmona for Rosh Pina (NIS7), where you can catch bus #55, 56, or 57 and approach Katzrin from the opposite direction (N1S6.20).From Tiberias, buses #15, 16. and 19 travel to katzrin.

Ask the bus driver to let you off in front of the Golden Field School on daliyat St.(tel.961234) an invaluable source of information on the area; the school even gives lift in their tour buses when there’s room. Their accommodations are often full, but they run an exceUent campground (tel. 96 12 34) 500m east along the road in front of the school. Registration is ordinarily open 8am-7pm, but if no one is there you can find the manager in the field school. Pleasant bungalows for two cost NIS100, tent sites NISI 1 per person. Next door to the Archeological Museum there is a public pool (tel. 96 16 55; open daily 9am-5pm; admission NIS9), a supermar. ket, and the town’s few restaurants.

Katzrin
The town of Katzrin is the administrative and municipal center of the Golan and an ideal base from which to explore the area. Katzrin enjoys a high standard of living for a young settlement: the town is attractive, but almost numbly homogeneous with its rows of nearly identical apartment buildings.

Getting Around

It is possible to tour most of the Golan by Egged bus, but infrequent service along infrequently traveled roads makes careful planning a necessity. Double-check all schedules. Traveling by bus almost definitely writes off Gamla and Brekhat haMe-shushim; anticipate a fair amount of walking as well, which means you’ll need a hat and buckets of water in the hot summer (winter, on the other hand, is cold, darnp foggy, and often snowy). In general, buses to sites east of and near the Kinneret leave from Tiberias.

The Upper Galilee, Hula Valley, and northern Golan are served by buses from Kiryat Shmona and occasionally from Tzfat. The bus from Tzw1 crosses the B’not Ya’akov Bridge over the Jordan River some 10km from Katzrio-According to legend, this is where Jacob and his family were when his daughter predicted that the siblings would sell their brother into slavery in Egypt. The B’not Ya’akov (Daughters of Jacob), however, comes from a Crusader order of by the same name.

Golan Heights

The armies of many civilizations have battled over the strategic peaks above the fertile Jordan Valley; the tradition of military conflict here dates back to the Roman siege of Gamla. In more recent times, Israel fought a successful uphill battle in the 1967 Six-Day War to capture the Golan from entrenched Syrian troops. Syria’s surprise attack in the 1973 Yom Kippur War pushed Israel back, but the IDF recovered and launched a successful counter-attack, capturing even more territory1.

As part of the 1974 disengagement accord, Israel returned both this newly conquered territory and part of the land captured in 1967. In 1981, the Menahem Begin’s government officially annexed the Heights, arousing international protest and considerably upsetting the Golan’s sizeable Druze population, who were now required to carry Israeli identification cards. Israeli settlements are now scattered amid ruins, rusting tanks, and remote Druze villages. All that remains of the Syrian presence are stone trenches with a commanding view of Israeli communities in the Galilee, and small plastic anti-personnel mines. The eucalyptus trees shading the trenches were planted at the suggestion of Eli Cohen, an Israeli spy in the Damascus government, who in 1967 told Israeli pilots to aim for the distinctive vegetation in the otherwise barren Heights.