Looking for His glorious appearing! Titus 2:13

Travel: Gamla, the Masada of the North
Aug 10th, 2009
Photo CommentaryArutz Sheva - Shalom Pollack
Categories: Commentary;The Nation Of Israel

 Many are familiar with the dramatic last stand of the Jewish rebels on Masada against the Roman Legions after the destruction of the Second Temple. But according to the same historian, Josephus Flavius (or Yosef ben Matityahu – his Hebrew name) who described Masada, a very similar drama took place at Gamla, another isolated mountain in the north of the country.





View of the top of Gamla
Wikimedia Commons

On the southern end of the Golan Heights stands Gamla, an isolated hump-backed mountain. The name Gamla means 'camel' as the mountain looks like an isolated camel’s hump surrounded by deep ravines on all sides. Gamla was a Jewish district town when the great revolt against Rome broke out in 66 CE.

 Over 1,400 years earlier, Moses conquered this land from Og the giant of Bashan. Two and a half tribes requested the lands to the east of the Jordan river for their inheritance and so a part of the tribe of Menashe settled on what is today the Golan, otherwise know as the Bashan.

 When Joshua divided up the Promised Land amongst the tribes, cities of refuge used by people guilty of manslaughter,were established on either side of the Jordan. Gamla may have been one of these Biblical cities of refuge.

Upon fast-forward to the time of the Great Revolt, we find Gamla as a very strategic point of struggle. It wasn’t just an isolated walled town that received rebels and refugees from the advancing Roman armies. It was a symbol and headquarters of the rebels defying their quest to put down the revolt. It was geographically on the northeast frontier closest to two possible threats to Rome.

Firstly, the Parthian empire was not far from this frontier. The Parthians would grab an opportunity to weaken Roman rule on the international frontier and aid the rebels.

Secondly, there was the possibility that the very large and influential Jewish communities to the east of the Roman boundaries would come to their brothers’ aid.

 For these reasons it was deemed necessary to make an example of Gamla from the very outset.

As expected, Gamla held well against the Romans. Roman assaults were repulsed as the Jews rained death down on the attackers. In a bold move, the Romans led by their commaner managed to tunnel under one of the watch towers and undermine it so that it crumbled down into the ravine.

The Romans then rushed into the gap with the Jewish fighters pulling their families on the slope on the roofs towards the top of the hump of a mountain. Josephus describes how the Romans pursued them on the roofs. Due to the extreme weight of the soldiers charging up, the roofs buckled and the soldiers fell into the buildings and down the slope. Panic broke out. In the thick of the night and clouds of dust, the stunned Romans hacked at each other as they beat a hasty retreat out the walls.

The Romans subsequently filled in the ravine and led the entire army to the walls in order to not repeat their earlier mistakes. What happened next was inevitable. The Romans slowly made their way up the slope, forcing the defenders to the summit as they formed a protective ring around their families at the very top. Josephus writes that rather than fall into the hands of the sadistic Romans, the Jews took their families by their hand and leaped to the depths of the ravine.

However, some archaeologists have disputed Josephus’s claim of mass suicide. Firstly, suicide is against Jewish law. Secondly, only one human remain, a jawbone, was found in the area.

Gamla was no more. Four years later, the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed and three years after that, the last stronghold, Masada was the scene of the famous last drama.



Buildings and Gamla's wall are clearly visible
Wikimedia Commons

For almost 2,000 years, Gamla lay in ruins. Her stones shared the story with no one. It was only after the miraculous Six Day War of 1967 that her sons returned. When Israel liberated the Golan from the Syrian attackers above, Israeli archaeologists were thrilled at the opportunity to explore and uncover. And uncover they did! The archaeologists discovered dozens of Jewish towns with synagogues, ritual baths, and Hebrew inscriptions mentioning the name of one of the authors of the Talmud, Rabbi Ekiezer Hakapar’s study hall.

In Gamla, archaeologists found one of the oldest synagogues in the world. The story of the first brave stand against the Roman Empire was revealed by Prof Shmarya Gutmann, who I had the honor of speaking with as he uncovered the site in 1980. Tears came to his eyes as he held a coin found in Gamla displaying the word “redemption” and a vessel from the Temple. He subsequently exclaimed, “Now I understand what all this sacrifice was for. It was not for Gamla alone, but it was rather for the “redemption” – the redemption of Jerusalem and the Jewish People. It was for this they gave their lives.”



Gamla' ancient synagogue
Ministry of Tourism

Today, Gamla and the Golan is back where it belongs. It is no longer forlorn as an orphan occupied by conquerers. Today there are dozens of modern Jewish towns in the Golan. Gamla is visited by throngs of visitors who pay their respect and learn the lessons from the stones that have been redeemed from the dust by her sons and daughters.

The residents of the Golan even chose to list the names of their sons who fell in the modern wars of Israel on a perch overlooking Gamla.



Gamla waterfall
Ministry of Tourism

Each village and town today has its name engraved in the stones overlooking Gamla. The stones are engraved with an inscription in bold letters, “Gamla shall never again fall.”

Fatah: PA Will Take All of Jerusalem – by Peace or by Force
Aug 10th, 2009
Daily NewsArutz Sheva - Tzvi Ben Gadalyahu
Categories: Today's Headlines;The Nation Of Israel;Anti-Israel

 
The Fatah party headed by Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, re-elected in the fractured party convention in Bethlehem Saturday night, concluded all of Jerusalem is a “red line” for the PA.

"Fatah will continue to sacrifice victims until Jerusalem will be returned, clean of settlements and settlers," according to a Fatah “all-or-nothing” policy paper, which did not distinguish between the part of the capital that was restored to Israel in the Six-Day War in 1967 and the section that was recognized by the United Nations as part of Israel in the 1949 Armistice Agreement.

Abbas, who previously has said he will not extend his term of office as head of the Palestinian Authority, which Fatah leads, was re-elected unanimously for another five-year term. He was the sole candidate who stood for the position. The de facto Hamas government in Gaza prevented Fatah delegates from leaving the region for Bethlehem, but several of them voted by telephone.

The convention, marked by scuffles and mud slinging, is being extended to Tuesday as it tries to rejuvenate itself following years of corruption, which opponents say remains rampant.

Abbas warned at the opening of the convention that Israel faces violence from the PA if it does not agree to its terms for a new Arab state on the land of Judea, Samaria and Gaza. He claimed that attacks on Israelis are valid under international law.

“Although we have chosen peace, we maintain the right to launch an armed resistance, which is legitimate as far as international law is concerned." he told approximately the 2,000 delegates.

At-Tayyib Abdul-Rahim, a member of Fatah Central Committee, said following Abbas's re-election, “Fatah is still a liberation movement, and since we have not achieved our goals, we have popular resistance.... If peace efforts are thwarted, there will be no security, nor stability in the region.”

Deputy FM Ayalon: British Interference in Jerusalem will Stop
Aug 10th, 2009
Daily NewsArutz Sheva - Gil Ronen and Nissan Ratzlav-Katz
Categories: Today's Headlines;The Nation Of Israel;Anti-Israel

 
Israel is awaiting clarifications from Britain regarding a British diplomat’s remarks that his country was funding Arab neighborhoods in eastern Jerusalem to “halt Israeli expansion,” Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon said Friday.

Speaking in an interview for Regional Radio, Ayalon said that the Foreign Ministry still does not know how accurate the British diplomat’s statement was, and that “the British Ambassador to Israel was summoned to the Foreign Ministry for clarifications on the matter, including sending messages to London, that we will not accept these things, of course – not the funding of various organizations or things that have to do with internal politics and Israel’s internal affairs.”

Meddling in Israel’s internal matters is unacceptable, Ayalon said. “I am sure the British would not want us to interfere in their [internal affair,” he added. “Israel sees this with great gravity and I assume that it will cease soon.”

Funding for 'halting settlement activities'

The inflammatory statements were made on July 22 by the diplomat Martin Day, who is based in Abu Dhabi, to Al-Arabiya television. According to a transcript of the interview, Day told the station, in Arabic, that the British government was "taking practical steps towards freezing settlement activities."

"For instance," Day said, "we finance projects aimed at halting settlement activities. One of these projects seeks to build new Palestinian neighborhoods in east Jerusalem and save Palestinian houses from demolition." In addition, Day said, "we also finance organizations that monitor settlement activities."

He added that "products from the settlements do not enjoy preferential custom duties that we offer to products coming from Israel. In light of this, we can say that we are taking effective and practical steps against settlement activities."

The 'height of chutzpah'

The Jerusalem Post reported July 30 that the Foreign Ministry's senior deputy director general, Rafi Barak, spoke with British Ambassador Tom Phillips twice to discuss the matter and voice Israel's displeasure. Phillips, according to Barak, told him he was looking into the matter.

Karen Kaufman, the British Embassy's spokesman in Tel Aviv, told the Post that the British government was "not involved in the actual construction of new Palestinian neighborhoods in East Jerusalem."



Jewish construction at Maaleh Zeitim in Jerusalem / Israel news photo: Flash90

"The UK is spending £450,000 over 4 years to support projects in east Jerusalem and the West Bank that help Palestinians better understand and effectively use the Israeli planning laws to gain permission both retrospectively for existing homes, and prospectively for new homes on their side of the Green Line," she said.

Foreign Ministry spokesmen called Day's comments "[t height of chutzpah," and said, "We can't recall any other case of a democratic country funding political activities inside another democratic country."