Our first stop today was at Gamla, a nature reserve that until recently was only open to Israelis, but not open to the general public. This park was the site of a major battle in The Great Jewish Revolt, which took place around 66 CE. The battle was between the Jews and the Romans, and Gamla was named after the third letter of the Hebrew alphabet (Gimel), which in the paleo Hebrew looks like a camel. (I will have a Facebook photo of this site on my Resplendent Daughter page, but if you don’t go look at it, Gamla looks like a steep camel hump, hence its name. At the base of Gamla are two rivers, one on either side of the mountain. Both of them flow to the Kinneret (Sea of Galilee).
This location, in the Golan Heights, was one of the last Jewish strongholds in the Great Jewish Revolt, which began in Caesarea, where we were yesterday. It spread to Jerusalem and then on to the north. The man sent north to be the commander of the Jewish forces was a man whose name you might recognize: Flavius Josephus, or Josephus for short, the famous Jewish historian. During the battle, the Romans, who were dressed in heavy chain mail, began to fall and slide down the mountain. More of them died of dust asphyxiation than of actual battle wounds. The Romans eventually won a hard-fought victory. Many Jews leapt to their deaths rather than surrender. More than 9000 people died. This battle was a watershed moment in Jewish military history.
Also in the park/reserve, there is a vulture conservation program. The Griffin Vultures, native to the area, nearly went extinct. It would be this variety of vulture (or close cousin) that eats the bodies of the dead after the Battle of Armageddon. Remember that scripture passage? So, Israel began to try to re-populate the species, after the Syrians nearly decimated them. These vultures are humongous, about the size of the American Golden Eagle. And, these vultures themselves are not black and gray, like the ones we see in the Southeastern USA. They are instead golden or beige-colored. We did get to see one in a rehabilitation cage, but none were flying around in the wild when we were looking for them today.
There are basalt rocks all over this part of Israel, whereas in the Galilee or Jerusalem, limestone is more prominent.
A Christian church was located at Gamla between the fourth and fifth centuries CE. A monastery was built in the sixth century with a surrounding village, although the village was abandoned in the seventh century. In the wake of the Arab conquest this locality was inhabited again during the 13th and 14th centuries, and after a time gap, a Syrian village was established here during the 20th century. The place was abandoned after the Six-Day War in 1967.
I posted a Facebook photo of a cool lizard I saw at Gamla. Those suckers are more like bearded dragons and are BIG.
On way to the Golan Heights winery, our next stop, we heard the story of Eli Cohn, a super-spy for Israel, to the Syrians. His role was instrumental in the Six-Day War. Sadly, he was found out and executed by the lead commander of the Syrians, because Cohn had close contact with him, and the Syrian commander took Cohn’s duplicity as a personal betrayal. Let me share with you one aspect of Cohn’s service. He was a fascinating patriot. I recommend a book called, “Our Man in Damascus”.
At any rate, my story - - - well, in order to help the Israelis to locate the Syrian key bases
In Katzrin, the capitol city of the Golan Heights, Cohn convinced the Syrian commander to plant eucalyptus trees outside the base buildings for the Syrian soldiers to sit under during their free time. This would be places for them to sit in the shade at picnic tables, talk, play checkers, etc. At that time, there were not nearly as many trees in the area, especially not eucalyptus trees, as there are today. Eucalyptus trees are native to Australia. The Israeli military used their surveillance devices to locate these eucalyptus trees, then, and those sites were the ones that were bombed.
The Israelis ended up winning a decisive victory, in part because of the role of Eli Cohn and the eucalyptus trees.
After the Six Day war, Israel began to build its own tanks, the first air conditioned tanks, the first tanks that can roll over sand dunes without sinking.
Israel does not sell the technology of this tank to any country in the world.
Our next stop was the Golan Heights Winery. In the 1970s California visitors came and said this would be a great place to grow grapes, that several factors made it a “perfect” location:
**Volcanic, well-draining soil
**Mediterranean climate - - hot summers, cold winters - - (The Golan Heights has the coldest winters in Israel)
**Elevations
At the lower elevations, they grow the sweet wine and, at the higher elevations, the drier wines with higher acidity.
They grow over 21 types of grapes at the GHW. It takes from three to seven years to harvest from new grapevines. The winery is owned by 8 villages in the area. It employs six winemakers, headed by the chief winemaker who has been with them over 30 years. There are a total of 110 workers, all Jewish.
The winery produces four different labels: Hermon (most basic - - we tasted the Moscato), Golan (red wines), Gamla (for legal reasons called Gilgal, in America) whose red wine are aged up to six months, Yarden (Jordan River wine- - we tasted Mullbeck 2020) whose red wines are aged for a year and a half.
They make sparkling wine, using the champagne method, but it can’t be called Champagne, because it does not come from the Champagne region of France.
There are over 300 computer-controlled, temp controlled tanks.
7 million bottles per year, exporting 25%, mostly in America.- - 45 to 60k in one DAY!
Only 1/3 are aged in oak barrels.
They only use their barrels for five years and then sell to a nearby whiskey company, and they only use French Oak barrels and over 12000 of them. We saw them in the barrel hall. (See Facebook for a photo of the barrel hall. They can get over 300 bottles from one barrel. The barrel hall is only for the red wines they make.
You can see the spillage on the outside of the barrel because they can allow no air inside the barrel - - topping off the barrel and corking each barrel by hand, using a large mallet, is a tricky task. The winery has a rabbi, Rabbi Shalom, who certifies all the wines as kosher.
Once we returned to the bus, one of our rabbis spoke about wine for holy purposes only, and not to excess or abuse. That is why Jews always say a blessing over the wine and stating its purpose, before imbibing.
After leaving the winery, we had a lunch opportunity in Katsrin, the town the winery is in.
From there, we went to Mount Bental, passing by Mount Avital, its twin peak. Both these mountains are peaks of an ancient volcano. The resulting ash made the land in the valley below the mountain peaks very fertile, and that area is now a large agricultural enterprise. Today, Mount Avital is a significant Israeli military base. For that reason, we did not go there for a visit. LOL
At Mount Bental, we hiked around the summit, from which there is a magnificent view. I made a couple of videos, which I will try to post on my Facebook page. (They may be too long.) But, we were able to see the Syrian border and into Syria. We were also able to get a great view of Mount Hermon and see into Lebanon. And, most importantly, we were able to see the Valley of Tears, where the great decisive battle of the Yom Kippur War was fought in 1973. The Valley of Tears was the location where the Barak Brigade was wiped out in the Yom Kippur War. This offensive took out most of the Israeli officers, leaving only the untried, young 18 and 19-year old boys to “get things done”. I highly recommend to you Abraham Rabinovitch’s book on the Yom Kippur war.
30,000 Jewish people live in the Golan Heights. 15k of those in Katsrin, the largest city. Plus, another 30k Druze live here. I blogged about them yesterday, and so won’t elaborate more on them today.
Mt Hermon:
When you look at my photo of this famous mountain you can see snow caps on some of the peaks. The snow-capped peaks are on the Syrian side, on the right in the photo. The peaks to the left, without snow, are in Israel. Mt. Hermon is the only significant mountain in the Golan Heights made of limestone; the predominant rock in the area is basalt.
The Banias Springs at the foot of Mt. Hermon are the start of the Jordan River. More about Banias in a moment…Now, Mount Hermon was where Jesus in Matthew 16:13-20 mentioned an “attraction” at the foot of the mountain. The city of Caesarea Philippi (Roman name) was at the base of Mount Hermon. The Jewish name for the town is Banias, and it is still called that today. At this location, a new pagan shrine had been built to the false god, Pan. Some of the people pronounced the name Panias, in honor of Pan. It was a beautiful Temple, carved into the base of the mountain, and the temple’s nickname was “The Gates of Hell”. One of the reasons for this name is that the pagan priests of Pan would sacrifice young girls to the demonic god by throwing them alive into the waters. If the water turned red, it was believed the “sacrifice” had been killed and the god appeased. If no blood was seen, another girl would be sacrificed. Horrible!
At any rate, if you read Matthew 16:13-20, the passage takes on a whole new twist if you know what the actual “Gates of Hell” were, in Jesus’ day.
It is said that the famous incident in the Old Testament, the Abrahamic Covenant, was “cut” on the summit of Mount Hermon. Interestingly, the Syrian government has the hightest summit restricted. We are not allowed to go up there.
On the way to biblical Banias we passed through a Druze village. And, we passed through it again on our way to Tel Dan.
As we took a rigorous walk into the Tel Dan park, oh, what beauty! The most beautiful water we have seen so far was the headwaters of the Dan River. I told one of our rabbis that the Dan is what I imagined the Jordan would look like, before I came to Israel. But, by the time the Dan flows into the Jordan, it has been significantly altered by silt and other factors, which results in the Jordan being a muddy, slow-flowing river.
Our guide showed us many, many small black snails in the waters. Why is this significant? These snails can only live in pure, potable drinking water. Their presence indicates that the water is “good”. Our guide mentioned that some American legacy has been good for Israel, but that the American tendency “to sue over everything” was not part of it. In years past, visitors to the park could just enjoy the beautiful waters, but lawsuits caused the government to prohibit visitors getting in the waters, except for one small, shallow pool. Today, many school children were frolicking in the waters. (See Facebook photo.). They were having a blast!
Farther on up the tel, we were met with the 3000 year-old walls of the ancient city of Dan.
The tribe of Dan did not get this land exclusively. Some of their land was here and some down in the Tel Aviv area. In part of the remaining wall (see photo) you could see wall construction that was 3000 years old and other sections that were merely 2000 years old.
It is a miracle these gates survived this long.
Idol worshippers were not allowed inside these city gates, and they were designed like other similar fortresses in Israel with gates that would turn at 90-degree angles, in order to slow down invaders and ultimately stop them with archers’ arrows or by pouring vats of boiling oil down upon them. Not kidding.
Joe was seated in the judges’ seat. The city’s elders would sit there just inside the gate and handle civil matters. For scripture references, see II Samuel 19:8 and Ruth 4:1-2.
Also, nearby were the ruins of the false temple of Jereboam. We didn’t go see them today, because it was getting late and the less-able members of our party would have felt it too rigorous for them at this point in the day.
But, you know, Jereboam practiced Replacement Theology in one of its earliest forms. As the ruler of the recently split-off Northern Kingdom, he did not want his people traveling down to Jerusalem for Yahweh’s required feast and festivals. So, what did he do? He built his own religion, temples (two of them), instituted his own feast days, established his own priesthood. It did not end well, as any student of biblical history knows.
Abraham’s Gate in the park of Tel Dan was our last stop for the day. It was one of the northern gates into the city of Dan. The gate was made out of the same material the Egyptian pyramids are made out (of mud and straw).
This is a 4000-year old gate!
It was discovered in the 1960s when the Jewish people who had recently settled in Dan petitioned the government to let them plant orchards of mango and avocado trees to sustain Kibbutz Dan, (the community.) In the excavation required for the tree planting, this ancient gate was discovered. It is believed that it was either this very gate, or one very close to it, that Abraham journeyed through when he came from Ur into the land of Canaan. Also, Abraham in the battle of the 5 kings against the 4 kings chased the enemy all the way to Dan. So, he could definitely have passed through this very gate. (See photo.) I think this is one of the greatest architectural treasures in Israel. In Psalm 102, we read: “My people love their stones.”
Why? Because the “stones” tell their story.
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