The Roman destruction of Jerusalem’s Second Temple in 70 CE scattered the Jewish people out into the empire, from the Greek islands to as far as modern-day Spain and Portugal. Following this cataclysmic event, Jerusalem’s great assembly of the Sanhedrin, a sort of Supreme Court of the Jewish nation, migrated north to the Galilean city of Bet She’arim.
There’s not much left of the city itself in what is now Beit She’arim National Park. At its peak in the 2nd century, however, the city was a thriving center of rabbinical Judaism. Rabbi Judah the Prince, compiler of the Mishna (a written compilation of Jewish oral tradition), made his home in Beit She’arim, assisted by a land grant from his childhood friend, the philosopher emperor Marcus Aurelius. But rather than the scattered remains of the city, what most fascinates visitors to the park is the sprawling, rock-hewn necropolis in which Rabbi Judah is buried.
Nearby
Name | Since | Distance | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Soldier’s House (Beit Hachyal) | 1963 | 18.4km | site_brutalism | ||
Faculty of Mechanical Engineering (today Danciger Laboratories), Technion | 12.5km | site_brutalism | |||
Leo Baeck School | 20.1km | site_brutalism | |||
Immigrants Hostel (today The Alfred & Irma Morgenthau Absorption Center) | 17.5km | site_brutalism | |||
Necropolis of Bet She’arim: A Landmark of Jewish Renewal | 2015 | 0.3km | site_whs | ||
Bahá’i Holy Places in Haifa and the Western Galilee | 2008 | 20.4km | site_whs | ||
Biblical Tels – Megiddo, Hazor, Beer Sheba | 2005 | 12.8km | site_whs | ||
Sites of Human Evolution at Mount Carmel: The Nahal Me’arot / Wadi el-Mughara Caves | 2012 | 15.9km | site_whs |
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