Golan Gem

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Of the approximately one hundred ancient synagogues from, say, 150 B.C.E. to 850 C.E. found in the ancient Land of Israel, an astounding 25 percent are located in the central Golan. How do we explain this?

As it happens, one of the earliest synagogues is also in the Golan: the famous synagogue in Gamla, a Jewish town destroyed in 67 C.E. by the Romans at the beginning of the First Jewish Revolt. Gamla was never rebuilt.^a

Two other pre-Revolt synagogues known for a long time have been found in the series of palace/fortresses Herod the Great built on his eastern frontier in the Judean 046desert—at Masada and Herodium.^b More recently, a number of other pre-Revolt synagogues have been excavated in Judea—at Qiryat Sefer and Modi’in, and perhaps also at Jericho^c and Horvat ‘Ethri.¹

In Jerusalem, there was yet another pre-Revolt synagogue. Although we have archaeological evidence, we do not have the building itself. The well-known Theodotus inscription from an ancient Jerusalem synagogue refers to the donors, the archisynagogos and the facilities of the synagogue. The inscribed plaque was found in a cistern along with what may be architectural fragments from the synagogue.^d

These synagogues all existed while the Temple still stood on the Temple Mount. However, all the Golan synagogues (except Gamla) were built much later—in the Byzantine period (fourth–seventh centuries C.E.)—even though Jews had lived there earlier. That is one of the things I will try to explain later.

The Golan Heights can be divided, like Gaul, into three parts. The central Golan is an area about 10 miles wide and 15 miles long from north to south. To the north lay the Paneas, or Banias, district inhabited by the Iturians, a people of Arabic/Aramaic origin living in the Lebanon Valley, Mt. Hermon and the northern Golan during the Hellenistic and Roman period. To the south lay the Hippos/Sussita district.

The capital of the southern Golan in the Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine periods was Hippos/Sussita, one of the cities of the Roman Decapolis. A small Jewish community also lived in Sussita, but for the most part, it was pagan (and, in the Byzantine period, Christian). The southern Golan is mainly a fertile plateau, which supports the best agricultural production in the Golan.

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The central Golan is the least desirable part of the Golan, rugged and hilly, which may help explain why there are so many ancient synagogues there. When Josephus (the first-century Jewish historian) and rabbinic sources speak of the Golan, they mean only the central Golan. In the Bible, Golan is a name only of a town, not an area. (See, for example, Deuteronomy 4:43 and Joshua 20:8.) From medieval to modern times, Golan has referred to a much larger area—from the Hermon mountains in the north to the Yarmuk River in the south. But in the Hellenistic, Hasmonean, Herodian, Roman and Byzantine periods, Golan referred only to what we today recognize as the central Golan. It was this Golan, central Golan, that became part of the Jewish Hasmonean kingdom in the early first century B.C.E., when Alexander Jannaeus simply annexed it to his kingdom. But no synagogues from this period have been found in this area. The synagogues in central Golan date only from the Byzantine period.

Part of the reason for the later abundance of synagogues in the central Golan is Jewish law, which regards riding—even on a donkey—as work and hence forbids it on the Sabbath (the donkey is also entitled to a rest). Even walking more than about 1 kilometer is forbidden.

Hence, synagogues must be within walking distance of the homes of the congregants and thus, a synagogue was required in every small village.

I have been exploring the Golan since 1976, when I participated in the first season of excavations at Gamla. Later, I conducted archaeological surveys looking for olive oil production facilities (I found over a hundred of them), as well as diagnostic pottery sherds confirming occupation in the Roman and Byzantine periods at over 50 sites. And I also participated in the excavation of an ancient synagogue at Umm el-Kanatir.

In 1999, under the sponsorship of Bar-Ilan University and its affiliated Jordan Valley Academic College, I decided to excavate a synagogue site called Deir Aziz. When we began our excavation, we had no idea what this Arabic name Deir Aziz meant. An Arabic name seemed indeed puzzling for a synagogue.

The Deir Aziz synagogue is beautifully located on the western slopes of the Golan, overlooking the Sea of Galilee. The earliest record of a Westerner’s visit to the site is by Sir Laurence Oliphant, a British traveler and author who, together with his wife, established a colony of Jews in Palestine during the 19th century. Oliphant visited the site in December 1885 with his Bedouin guide:

My guide now offered to conduct me to another Khurbet (ruin) … The most interesting discovery was that of a synagogue. This stood a little way down the slope of the hill on the northern flank of the Wadi. The walls were still standing in places to a height of 9 feet, and the whole character was clearly defined. The dimensions were 60 feet by 37 feet, the lintel over the door, 6 feet by 18 inches; width of the door, 4 feet 6 inches. It was oriented, and the entrance was in the eastern wall. The whole architecture was of the plainest and simplest description, but the 048interior was so thickly strewn with masses of building stone that some of the more ornamental features may have been concealed.

The first thing we discovered when we examined the site was that the lintel that Oliphant mentioned was already missing. And the interior of the synagogue was filled with earth. After removing the dirt, we proceeded to check the accuracy of Oliphant’s measurements. They were correct to within a few inches.

The walls of the prayer hall are lined with three-stepped stone benches. The benches are interrupted on the wall facing Jerusalem (the south wall) with an unusual apse or niche for the ark containing the Torah, the scroll of the Five Books of Moses. One oddity relates to the positioning of the niche on this wall: It is not in the center, but rather toward the western end of the south wall, and consists of a semi-circular apse 12 feet across that extends outside the perimeter of the building.

The floor of the prayer hall was paved with carefully laid rectangular basalt slabs. A probe below the floor yielded more than 500 bronze coins dating between the fourth century C.E. and the first half of the sixth century C.E. In the southern wall, we found a small ceramic juglet containing 14 gold coins from the reign of the emperor Justinian I (527–565 C.E.), so the synagogue was in use during the sixth century C.E. and probably earlier.

The first clue that an earlier synagogue had occupied the site came from architectural features of the synagogue we were excavating that were in secondary use; that is, these architectural elements had previously been used in another building and were then incorporated into this synagogue. We surmised that these architectural elements came from an earlier synagogue on the same site. For example, a stone incorporated into the inside eastern façade was decorated in relief with polygons enclosed in a circle. Parts of a decorated lintel were used as stairs leading up to the second story of the synagogue. In addition, a small column with a hexagonal base and parts of a decorated arch with a Greek inscription were found together “buried” inside the western part of the southern synagogue wall. We speculated that these items had been buried, like a genizah for worn-out holy documents, because they were of special significance in the earlier building.

With these clues, we decided to dig under five floor slabs (a sealed locus) of the prayer hall. The finds were meager: one small bronze coin too degraded to be identified, pottery sherds, some colored plaster, and fragments of roof tiles. But this was enough to tell us that before our synagogue was built, another public structure stood here, probably also a synagogue.

What was the date of this earlier structure? The pottery sherds dated from the early Roman period (50 B.C.E.–350 C.E.) to the Byzantine period (350–500 C.E.).

Another find, however, enabled us to date the earlier building more precisely, to confirm that it was a synagogue and to explain the curious name of the site, Deir Aziz.

A 20th-century wall had been built in the main prayer hall, so naturally we wanted to remove it. When we did so, we discovered an ornamental arch underneath, apparently from an earlier building. When we looked at it more carefully, we saw 049an inscription—“Azizo”—in Greek letters. This was our first clue as to why the ruins of the synagogue were known as Deir Aziz.

In a later season we found more of the arch—and the inscription became longer. We assigned the decipherment of the inscription to the leading Greek paleographer in Israel, Dr. Leah Di Segni of The Hebrew University. It was still incomplete, but what we have reads: “Long live Ioudanes and also Azizo the stone-dresser.” Dr. Di Segni identified it as part of an inscription asking blessings on the man who had donated either the building or a part of it. His name was “Ioudanes,” a clearly Jewish name, which confirmed our supposition that the earlier building was also a synagogue.

But what about Azizo? He was the stonecutter! So the site may have been named for the stonecutter of the earlier synagogue, perhaps on the basis of this inscription, and then passed on from generation to generation.

The inscription also contained two Greek letters that Dr. Di Segni identified as a number—290—comprising a date. (Even today, Hebrew letters are used for numbers.) After the Roman destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E., some Jews started counting years beginning with year 1 again, as we know from an Aramaic inscription from the ancient synagogue of Nabratein² and also from Jewish tombstones from the Byzantine period found at Zoar, southeast of the Dead Sea. Applying this system of counting to the number 290, we learn that the earlier synagogue (as we may now call it) was dedicated in about 360 C.E.

Thus, both synagogues come from the Byzantine period. Apparently the residents of this little Jewish village built a synagogue in the mid-fourth century; then, a hundred years later, they decided to demolish it and build a new one, using some of the architectural elements from the earlier synagogue in the later one.

But where did the Jews of Deir Aziz pray before the earlier synagogue? Were there Jews here in the Roman period? If so, where was their synagogue?

It was clear from the pottery sherds found under the synagogue that someone lived here in the Roman period. And this was confirmed by sherds recovered in a surface survey of the site. But was this a Jewish community? Almost certainly it was. According to Josephus, in the late Second Temple period, the entire Golan district (using his definition of the Golan) was Jewish. During the Byzantine period, archaeology (especially of synagogues) confirms that the area was Jewish. So it seems reasonable that the site was also Jewish in the period in between.

So why haven’t we found a pre-Byzantine synagogue at the site? The answer is suggested by a broader survey of the Golan that I conducted as part of my doctoral studies. I surveyed 45 sites in the central Golan, carefully looking for surface evidence of pottery and other ancient artifacts and installations as I walked the area meter by meter.

The pottery fell into two main groups: Roman and Byzantine. Our knowledge of the pottery of these periods is now so refined that we are able to subdivide each of the two groups into three subdivisions of time.

Nearly two-thirds of the sites existed sometime in the Roman period and for some time in the Byzantine period (such as Deir Aziz). The rest existed in some phase of the Roman period but not for any significant time in the Byzantine period.³ For some unclear reason, they were abandoned.

Monumental synagogues like the one at Deir Aziz have been found at all but three of the sites that existed in the Roman period and substantially into the Byzantine period (and all three of the exceptions yielded Christian remains such as crosses, so they are not relevant to the question we are exploring here). In short, all the monumental synagogues in the Golan come from sites that existed in the Byzantine period. By contrast, no synagogue was found in any of the sites whose existence ended in the Roman period or very shortly thereafter (except Gamla). Moreover, the Roman-period sites without known synagogues are scattered all over the area, so the sample is representative.

These Roman-period sites were clearly occupied by Jews, although the settlements’ synagogues have not been found. This suggests that the many monumental synagogues found on the Golan were a feature of the Byzantine period but not of the Roman period. This does not mean that Jewish settlements of the Roman period did not have synagogues. It 050suggests only that they were not monumental structures evidenced in the archaeological record. The Jews who lived at these sites probably prayed in structures indistinguishable from houses—a phenomenon parallel to the Christian house-church, or domus ecclesiae. In the Roman period, Jews, as well as Christians, worshiped in private houses. In Capernaum in the Galilee, Christians first worshiped in a private house, later converted into an octagonal church, and known even now as St. Peter’s House. Further afield, an elaborate mid-third-century synagogue with elaborate Biblical paintings at Dura Europos in Syria has been shown to have begun as a private residence.

This data can help solve another puzzle related to ancient synagogues in the Galilee. When the famous synagogue at Capernaum on the Sea of Galilee was excavated in the 1920s by the Franciscan father Gaudentius Orfali, he dated it to the time of Jesus. This, he said, was the very synagogue that Jesus had prayed in while staying here in Peter’s house (Matthew 8:14; Mark 1:29; Luke 4:38). Israeli scholars, on the other hand, led by the eminent Michael Avi-Yonah, dated the Capernaum synagogue to the second or third century C.E., that is, later in the Roman period. In 1968, the Franciscans resumed excavations at the site and discovered coins from the fourth and fifth centuries C.E. sealed beneath the floor! Scholarly arguments ensued about the dating of the Capernaum synagogue, with Israeli scholars urging an earlier date and the Franciscans a later date, based on the coins. As the argument developed, the Franciscans prevailed in the minds of almost all scholars, including Israeli scholars. The monumental synagogue at Capernaum dates to the Byzantine period (the fourth century C.E. or later).

With this evidence, a reconsideration of the date of other Galilean synagogues has left the area with no securely dated synagogues from the second or third century C.E. The Golan evidence suggests an answer to this puzzle. Monumental synagogues that would survive the ravages of time were not built until the Byzantine period. Early Jewish communities prayed in nondescript buildings or residences that have not been preserved—or at least have not yet been identified as synagogues—in the archaeological record.

This analysis also explains why at such an important Galilean site as Bethsaida, a Jewish site in 051the Roman period that has been extensively excavated, no synagogue has been found.^e Bethsaida was abandoned at the beginning of the Byzantine period. Monumental synagogues were not built in the Roman period.

Another puzzle may also have been solved: The ancient names of the Galilean sites have been preserved in their modern site names, but in the Golan the ancient names have not been preserved into modern times. The reason: In the Galilee, the sites were continuously occupied. In contrast, almost all the sites occupied during the Byzantine period in the central and northern Golan (both Jewish and Christian) were abandoned in the early Islamic period and were not reoccupied until the 19th century. When the sites were reoccupied at that time, they of course acquired Arabic names, and the ancient names were lost. In the Galilee, where the sites continued to be occupied, the situation is different. Thus we know that modern Tiberias, Sepphoris, Meiron and Arbel can be identified with ancient Tiberias, Sepphoris, Meiron and Arbel. But we have no idea, for example, what the ancient name of the Umm el-Kanatir synagogue in the Golan was. The Arabic name means “the mother of the Arch” and was given by the Bedouin to the adjacent spring with an arch built above it. Confirming this analysis, Galilean sites that were abandoned after the Roman period, such as Bethsaida, have proven very difficult for modern scholars to locate. Only recently has Bethsaida been identified, and even now a few scholars question whether the site has been correctly identified. The same is true of Gamla in the Golan Heights. It was abandoned after the Roman destruction of 67 C.E. We know much about the site from Josephus, but until excavations in the latter half of the 20th century, scholars were not able to identify it with any certainty.

In the Golan there may be one exception, where an ancient connection has been preserved: our own site of Deir Aziz, in which the name of the stonecutter Azizo, who shaped the stones of the earlier synagogue, has survived in an inscription.

All uncredited photos courtesy of the author.

Of the approximately one hundred ancient synagogues from, say, 150 B.C.E. to 850 C.E. found in the ancient Land of Israel, an astounding 25 percent are located in the central Golan. How do we explain this? As it happens, one of the earliest synagogues is also in the Golan: the famous synagogue in Gamla, a Jewish town destroyed in 67 C.E. by the Romans at the beginning of the First Jewish Revolt. Gamla was never rebuilt.a Two other pre-Revolt synagogues known for a long time have been found in the series of palace/fortresses Herod the Great built on his […]