Inbal Jerusalem Magazine - Inbal Hotel Jerusalem

Tourismof Gush Etzion, the Arabs looted and destroyed thebuildings and uprooted the trees. Inexplicably, one oaktree survived, which became known as the ‘lone oak’.”What also survived was the will to return.“During the intervening years between the fall of theEtzion Bloc and the Six Day War in 1967, the survivorsand their children would hike to a vantage point on theIsraeli border, where at a distance, they could view thegiant oak tree. The Six DayWar brought their dreamto fruition and today thesettlement of Alon Shvut ishome to over 700 families.”As of 2011, Gush Etzionconsists of 22 communities,some much larger thanothers, with a totalpopulation of 70,000.The ‘lone tree’ is today nolonger alone.Right TrackBack on the road betweenHebron and Jerusalem, ourguide reminded us, “yestoday you see cars andtrucks but think back. Ifthis was the route Abrahamtook, it also would havebeen the path Davidtravelled when he and hishousehold left Hebron tomake Jerusalem the capitalof Israel. Later, pilgrimswould have headed thissame way en route to theFirst and Second Temples,and the Maccabees foughthere the Greeks, along thisvery road.”A few centuries later, the Romans widened it, erectingmilestones that noted the distances and the name of thereigning emperor.Another attraction here is a fine 2000 year-old mikve(ritual bath), similar to those described in the Mishnah.It has separate steps for descending into the water andreturning to the road.“For those of you familiar with ritual baths inJerusalem and elsewhere, in Israel, what strikes youas unusual about this mikve?” asked the tour guide.A tourist from the UK was quick off the mark:“It looks quite big and up-market for being located inthe middle of no-where; there is no evidence here of atown, so what it’s doing here?”Yotam yakobsonSpring-Summer 201342“Absolutely. You’re on the right track - literally!” replied thetour guide. “As this was the track to Jerusalem; travelers- especially on the busy holidays of Pesach, Shavuot andSuccoth – would stop here to immerse themselves toavoid the crowds at the Holy City’s ritual baths.”“Something like a pit-stop,” cracked another touristIt must have been a very busy road at times, as nearby,hidden by brush, was the remains of a second mikva.To Crownit AllTravelling a few kilometersbut more than 2000 yearsback in history, our tourstopped at Herodium. Thisis the palace-fortress builtby King Herod the Great,and offers breathtakingviews overlooking theJudean Desert and themountains of Moab to theeast, and the Judean Hillsto the west. The only sitenamed after King Herod,it was known by theCrusaders as the Mountainof the Franks, while theArabs call it Jabal al-Fourdis (Mountain ofParadise”)“Why build a palacehere?” asked a propertydeveloper from L.A.California. “Location iseverything, why here, sofar out of town?”It was a question oneveryone’s mind, andHistory can be Cool. Enjoying a wet hike through one of GushEtzion’s Roman aqueducts.when seeking answersto so many historicalquestions of the region, where better to seek the answerthan in the writings of the Roman-Jewish historian,Josephus. He writes following Herod’s victory over theParthians in 40 BCE, he “built a town on that spot incommemoration of his victory, and enhanced it withwonderful palaces... and he called it Herodion afterhimself." (The Wars of the Jews I, Chapter 13).”Of all the colorful characters, albeit controversial, whoover the millennia traipsed this neck of the woods,Herod - like his building projects - stands out as acolossus. As Barry Davis, in The Jerusalem Post recentlywrote, “Besides displaying nerves of steel, a tendencyto dispense with anyone who got too close for comfort– that includes killing off one of his wives and three