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Virtual Israel Experience
Timeline
Publications
News
Links
Glossary
Bookstore
Anti-Semitism
Biography
History
Holocaust
Israel
Israel Education
Myths & Facts
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Religion
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(Heb. To Cross Over). The Israelite nation and language.
(Greek for “gathering”) The central institution of Jewish communal worship and study since antiquity (see also bet midrash), and by extension, a term used for the place of gathering. The structure of such buildings has changed, though in all cases the ark containing the Torah scrolls faces the ancient Temple site in Jerusalem.
Ancient capital of the Kingdom of Israel and capital of the modern State of Israel. Jerusalem holds great importance to all three major monotheistic faiths as the home of the the Dome of the Rock, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, and the remnants of the Jewish Temple. Following the Israeli War of Independence in 1948, Jerusalem was divided between Israel and Jordan. It was later reunited after the Israeli victory in the 1967 Six Day War.
A term from ancient economic vocabulary concerning the freeing by purchasing (manumission) of slaves, applied to the religious concept (especially in Christianity) of salvation from slavery to sin (being “redeemed”).
The city of Gamla on the Golan derived its name from gamal ( Hebrew for camel), since it was situated on a hill shaped like a camel's hump. The Hasmonean ruler Alexander Yannaeus founded the city in the first century BCE and it continued to be inhabited by Jews, as attested to by Josephus Flavius ( Antiquities of the Jews 13:394). Josephus, a Jew, was Commander of Galilee during the Jewish Revolt against Rome and in 66 CE fortified Gamla as his main stronghold on the Golan. He gives a very detailed topographical description of the city and describes the Roman siege under the command of Vespasian, which led to its conquest in 67 CE. The Romans attempted to take the city by means of a siege ramp, but were turned back by the defenders; only on the second attempt did they succeed in penetrating the fortifications and conquering the city. Thousands of inhabitants were slaughtered, while others chose to jump to their deaths from the top of the cliff (Josephus, The Jewish War IV, 1-83). Gamla has not been rebuilt since.
Josephus' failure to provide a detailed geographical description of Gamla's location on the Golan made it difficult to locate. The identification was firmly established only in the course of archeological excavations during the 1970s.
The remains of the city are located on a rocky basalt ridge surrounded by deep gorges, with a shallow saddle separating it from the rest of the ridge, providing the city with outstanding defensive advantages. The top of the hill is narrow and pointed, creating a very steep slope in the north; the city was built on the more graduated southern slope.
The main approach road led to the eastern part of the city, where a massive fortification wall was constructed. This wall, built of squared basalt stones, is some 6 m. thick. Several square towers situated along the wall, and a circular tower at the crest of the hill, contributed to the city's defenses. In the low-lying southern part of the wall, two square towers guarded the narrow gateway into the city. In some sections of the wall, rooms of adjacent houses had been filled with stones in order to strengthen the wall. This led researchers to hypothesize that the wall had been hastily constructed, or strengthened, on the eve of the Roman siege.
A five meter-wide breach was found at the center of the eastern wall. Scattered around it were dozens of ballista stones and arrowheads; similar finds were also uncovered in destroyed buildings inside the wall - all material evidence of the breaching of the wall and the battle between the Roman attackers and the Jewish defenders of the city.
Inside the city, near the wall, an impressive public building was uncovered and identified as the synagogue of Gamla. It is rectangular in shape (25.5 x 17 m.) and oriented northeast to southwest - in the direction of Jerusalem . Along the walls are several rows of stone-built benches. Pillars around the center of the hall supported the roof. In the courtyard, wide steps led down to a mikve (Jewish ritual bath) which served those who came to pray in the synagogue.
The houses of the city were built on terraces with stepped alleys between them. Well-constructed residences with large rooms, obviously of the wealthy, were uncovered in the west of the city. The large number of oil presses suggests that olives and the production of oil were the basis of the city's economy.
Evidence of fire and destruction uncovered in the buildings are vivid testimony of the drama which unfolded when the Roman Legions captured the city. But the huge mounds of collapsed stones also helped preserve Gamla's remains.
Several unique coins minted in Gamla during the Jewish Revolt were found during the excavations. On the obverse of some coins appears the word lige'ulat (for the redemption of) and on the reverse, yerushalayim hakedosha (Holy Jerusalem).
The remains of Gamla have been preserved as a national park.
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Gamla, a large fortified city located on a high ridge above a crossing of two gorges, is one of the famous cities where Jewish rebels fought bravely against the Romans until their fatal end. Its story is well detailed in Josephus historical accounts.
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Gamla, a large fortified city located on a high ridge above a crossing of two gorges, is one of the famous cities where Jewish rebels fought bravely against the Romans until their fatal end.
Josephus (War 4, 1 1) : “Gamala … was situated upon a rough ridge of a high mountain”.
Its story of bravery is well detailed in Josephus Flavius historical accounts. The historian was actually the commander of the Galilee forces who also fortified the city. His story resembles the tragic accounts of Sepphoris and Masada , where the defenders fought the Roman legions until the tragic end.
After its total ruin in 67 AD, the location of Gamla was a mystery for 1900 years. Since its discovery in a survey of the Golan (1968), subsequent archaeological excavations have reconstructed several parts of the city. The findings closely match Josephus accurate accounts and shed light on one of the most tragic events in the history of the land.
Gamla is located on a camel-shaped ridge, bounded by the deep gorges of Gamla and Daliyot streams. An aerial map of the area is shown here, indicating the major points of interest. The site is accessed from the visitors’ center, then by trail down to the ruins.
A Biblical map of the area near Gamla is illustrated below; Gamla appears on its right side. During the Bronze and Iron age, the area was called “Geshur” and was not part of the Israelite Kingdom ( Joshua 13 11-13 : “Nevertheless the children of Israel expelled not the Geshurites, nor the Maachathites: but the Geshurites and the Maachathites dwell among the Israelites until this day”).
The land of Geshur was incorporated in the 9th century BC in the land of Aram, and controlled by its new capital city of Karnaim (Genesis 14 5: “Ashteroth Karnaim”), which means ‘horns’ (Amos 6 13: “Ye which rejoice in a thing of nought, which say, Have we not taken to us horns by our own strength?”) . During the 8th and 7th century BC this was an Assyrian province of Karnaim.
Remnants of a structure dated to the Early Bronze age (3,100BC – 2,500 BC) were reconstructed in Area B. Other findings in Gamla provided evidence of the older period of settlement. The large number of Dolmens on the northern cliff, used by the prehistoric men as tombs, indicate a substantial period of settlement in that early period.
Although the Mishna lists Gamla as one of the walled cities during Joshua, no evidence was found to support this.
After 2,000 years, Gamla was inhabited during the Persian Period (5th-4th century BC), following the return of the Judean exiles back to Zion. During the Persian period and Hellenistic periods the city increased in size and was fortified.
The Roman historian Josephus Flavius wrote that many years later (years 83-80 BC), that Gamla came under Jewish control: During Alexander Janneus’s campaign on the eastern territories, the Hasmonean king captured Gamla (Wars 1 4): “Alexander… took the strong fortress of Gamala”.
After 20 years, after the Romans annexed the land (63 BC), General Pompey implemented political reformations, which removed Gamla from the Hasmonean state. He reassigned the city to the Itureans, an Arab tribe who received parts of the Galilee and the Golan. The Itureans are referred in Luke 3,1: “Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judaea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of Ituraea “.
In 20 BC Augustus Caesar gave the northern Golan, including Gamla, to Herod the Great. During Herod’s control of the city a citizen of Gamala, Judas, rebelled against the Romans and inspired the zealots (Antiquities 18:1): “Yet was there one Judas, a Gaulonite, of a city whose name was Gamala, who, taking with him Sadduc, a Pharisee, became zealous to draw them to a revolt…”. According to Josephus, these zealots were one of the causes of the revolting attitude that swept the nation into their tragic end: “…the nation was infected with this doctrine to an incredible degree; one violent war came upon us after another”. Judas’s two sons were executed by the Romans, and another son was one of the rebel leaders in Masada.
In 66 AD Gamala joined the rebels against the Romans, feeling safe within their city (Wars 4 1 1): “Gamala …relied upon the difficulty of the place…and they had such a confidence in the situation of the place, that they thought the enemy could not be too many for them”. However, Josephus – then the general of the Galilean forces – fortified the city to prepare for the worst. He writes (War 4 1 2): “As this city was naturally hard to be taken, so had Josephus, by building a wall about it, made it still stronger, as also by ditches and mines under ground”.
King Agrippa II, who controlled the Golan under the Romans, besieged the rebellious city for seven months but failed (Wars 4 1 2): “…Agrippa sent to besiege it for seven months together”. The Romans called in three legions, under the command of Vespasian (Wars 4 1 2): “Vespasian … came to Gamala… he set men to watch it, and seized upon the mountain which was over it. And as the legions, according to their usual custom, were fortifying their camp upon that mountain, he began to cast up banks at the bottom, at the part towards the east, where the highest tower of the whole city was, and where the fifteenth legion pitched their camp; while the fifth legion did duty over against the midst of the city, and whilst the tenth legion filled up the ditches and the valleys”.
All in all, the defenders numbered 9,000 people (many of them gathered from other villages) who defended the city against the Legions (about 16,000 soldiers), with additional reinforcements of Agrippa’s army.
A month later, the Romans managed to breach the wall (Wars 4 1 4): “…the Romans bring battering rams to three several places, and made the wall shake [and fall]”. After rushing in, they fell into a trap and most of the Romans were killed inside the city due to the falling houses and the pressure of the defenders: “…By this means a vast number of the Romans perished”.
However, this victory was short-lived. On the second attempt, a few days later, the Romans managed to topple the round tower (Wars 4 1 9): “…three soldiers of the fifteenth legion, about the morning watch, got under a high tower that was near them, and undermined it…whereupon the tower fell down on a sudden, with a very great noise”.
The Roman troops breached the walls and overwhelmed the Jewish defenders, costing the lives of all the population. Most of the residents and refugees in the city took their own life by jumping over the cliffs – a tragic end to the mighty city.
After its destruction, the city was left in ruins for 1900 years, and its location was a mystery. In 1968 it was rediscovered by Yitzchaki Gal during a survey of the Golan, following the six-day-war when the Golan returned to the modern Jewish nation – Israel. The archaeological excavations, directed by Shmarya Guttman, restored parts of the city and confirmed the location of the lost city of Gamla/Gamala.
Today the excavated city, and the area around it, is part of a wonderful nature reserve. In addition to the sights of ancient Gamla, there are nature trails, the largest waterfall in Israel, vulture observation, Golan heights memorial, Deir Kuruch Byzantine Church, and more. This is one of the most interesting parks in the north of Israel – you should not miss it.
A map of the excavation areas and the trails in the site is illustrated in the following map. The areas are numbered by single letters (“A” thru “T”).
The ancient city ruins cover the south-west side of the hill, which is located between two canyons – the Daliyot stream on the left and the Gamla stream on the right. The hill is shaped like a camel, hence the name of the city. This shape is described by Josephus (War 4, 1 1): “Gamala … was situated upon a rough ridge of a high mountain, with a kind of neck in the middle: where it begins to ascend, it lengthens itself, and declines as much downward before as behind, insomuch that it is like a camel in figure, from whence it is so named, although the people of the country do not pronounce it accurately. Both on the side and the face there are abrupt parts divided from the rest, and ending in vast deep valleys; yet are the parts behind, where they are joined to the mountain, somewhat easier of ascent than the other; but then the people belonging to the place have cut an oblique ditch there, and made that hard to be ascended also”.
Click on the photos to view in higher resolution…
In the following photo is a closer view of the ruins.
Josephus continues to write: “On its acclivity, which is straight, houses are built, and those very thick and close to one another. The city also hangs so strangely, that it looks as if it would fall down upon itself, so sharp is it at the top. It is exposed to the south, and its southern mount, which reaches to an immense height, was in the nature of a citadel to the city; and above that was a precipice, not walled about, but extending itself to an immense depth. There was also a spring of water within the wall, at the utmost limits of the city”.
The order of the following sections is counter-clockwise – starting from the eastern section of the city, walking towards the summit, then to the western section, and finally back to the access trail.
The eastern wall extends all the way from the round tower on the top to the bottom of the hill near the riverbed of the Daliyot stream.
A road leads to the city, passing near a water cistern (located on the right of the sign).
The width of the wall varies, with the widest (5.8M) at the location of the synagogue. The wall is composed of different stones, since it was built in several stages. Josephus himself helped to strengthen the wall as a preparation to the war. He writes (War 4 1 2): “As this city was naturally hard to be taken, so had Josephus, by building a wall about it, made it still stronger, as also by ditches and mines under ground”.
A model of a Roman catapult is located on the external side of the wall. It was used to shoot arrows or bolts on human targets with great force and long range. Josephus (War 4 1 4): “those machines threw darts and stones at them”.
An evidence of the fierce war between the defenders and the Roman legions was found in this section of the wall, where a breach was found at the point the Romans managed to knock down the wall. Josephus (War 4 1 4): “…the Romans bring battering rams to three several places, and made the wall shake [and fall]. They then poured in over the parts of the wall that were thrown down, with a mighty sound of trumpets and noise of armor, and with a shout of the soldiers, and brake in by force upon those that were in
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