Who are the Circassians?

In March, I visited Kfar Kama in the Jezreel Valley. Its residents are a people group I'd never heard of before. Have you ever heard of the Circassians?

The Circassians are from the northwest Caucasus Region. This Muslim people group suffered a genocide at the hands of Russia in the early 19th century and were exiled to Turkey and the Middle East.

Today, there are 10 million Circassians in the world. Though they are far from their homeland, their culture and language remain. Since I am learning Hebrew, I was fascinated to learn about their language, which is pictorial, using onomatopoeia, words that look like they sound, like "Meow". Like Hebrew, each letter has a meaning. Their language doesn't have gender; there isn't even a word for "he" or "she". They won't say, "My husband" or "my wife", because no one belongs to anyone. Because there are not enough consonants to complete the language, words have multiple meanings. For this, and many other reasons, context is key.

While in Kfar Kama, I got to tour the ancient town, see artifacts, and watch a demonstration of the cultural dances. It was so cool!

Today you get to experience this with me!

Can you see the basalt in the building materials? What a beautiful town!

Kfar Kama known as one of the cleanest cities in the world. But they don't have cleaning crew, because everyone in the town cleans the town.

This symbol on the building is from the Circassian flag.

Peek-a-boo!

Traditional clothes and artifacts:

Now for the dancing! It was so beautiful. The girl looked like she was floating. My favorite dance was the one about the eagle. 

The story goes that there was a guy who couldn't dance well, so he intentionally made up funny dances imitating different animals that made everyone laugh. And then one day he and his wife did a dance like a pair of eagles, and no one laughed. It was so beautiful that they said, "We aren't going to call this one 'the eagle dance', we are going to name it after you."

So fun!

Where they tried to throw Jesus off a cliff

After I don't know how many trips to Nazareth in the past year, I finally got to go to Mount Precipice, which is where tradition says the people of Nazareth tried to throw Jesus off the cliff after He read from the Isaiah scroll in Luke 4. 

After watching this portrayed in last week's episode of The Chosen, I was even more excited to go!

What I didn't realize, until watching the aftershow and Rabbi Jason Sobel's breakdown of the story, is  how capital punishment was almost unheard of in ancient Israel, and so what happened here was extreme, almost unheard of because of the value and respect placed on life. Sobel pointed out that there was no recorded trial of Jesus for this punishment, which was a violation of Torah Law, which shows just how high those emotions ran at His "heretical" comments.

He also mentioned that is that Mount Precipice is 2.5 miles from the synagogue where Jesus read from the Isaiah scroll. That is a REALLY long way to be pushed/carried by an angry mob. Talk about really strong emotion and conviction! 

Although one of the names of the mountain is "The Mountain where the Lord Leapt", but the Biblical account doesn't say anything about Jesus jumping from the mountain. Instead, it says He turned and walked back through the crowd. 

Wow, can you imagine meeting His eyes as He walked past? 

If you are a Chosen fan, I highly recommend that episode, because it was amazing. 

And, going to Mount Precipice is definitely worth it, because LOOK AT THAT VIEW!!!

This is Mount Tabor

The Jezreel Valley is turning green from the winter rains! Afula is across and to the right...

Beautiful!

Was this where they tried to throw Jesus from the cliff? It's likely. This is the closest one to the ancient synagogue. Today, it's free and easy to visit. I 100% recommend it if you are ever spending a day in Nazareth!

Mount Gilboa: Where King Saul died

And now we've come to Mount Gilboa, where Saul, Israel's first king, and his sons died. 

Or rather, the view from this mountain. It's likely Saul and his sons were killed closer to the base of it. And then, of course, their headless bodies were carried back to Beit She'an and hung from the city gates (of the town on top of the tel).

Do you remember why this mountain is barren?

In 2 Samuel 1, David cursed it for being the place where Israel's first king died. More than 3 millennia later, except for a patch where the Jewish National Fund planted some trees, the mountain is still bare.

Now, it's a place for people to come and hang out, picnic, and even hang glide over the Jezreel Valley. There are kibbutzim at the base of it, and hiking trails up to the place called "Saul's Shoulder".

WOW! Definitely a surreal place to visit in the Jezreel Valley.

King Saul's last battle: the view from Ahab and Jezebel's back porch

I’m actually not sure if there is anything cooler that looking out over the Jezreel Valley while your guide reads from the Bible and says, “So, Saul’s men were camped there at the trees” (bottom right of the below photo)

“and the Philistines were near there” (the town on the left edge) “and then Saul went to the witch of Ein Dor over there” (not pictured) “who foretold his defeat and death.

When Saul and his sons retreated in battle to Mount Gilboa” (the barren mountain below),

they died (Saul fell on his sword)… and then their headless bodies were taken back to Beit She’an, which you visited before lunch!”

😂

Oh, and all of this was told to me while we were sitting from the back porch of Ahab and Jezebel's winter palace in the Jezreel Valley. 😱

I don't really have pictures of the ruins, because they are all covered up and dangerous to wade through. They were behind me, but because of the rise of the mountain, I couldn't really see anything. Apparently, there's nothing there to really see, as it was never built back up into a park.

Just this amazing view, and the ability to see exactly the last battle of Israel's first king.

Oh, and do you remember why Mount Gilboa is barren? 

The first (recorded) battle and where armies will gather for the last (Armageddon!)

The first time I went to Megiddo, it was rainy, cold, and rainbows soared over the green Jezreel Valley. I was alone with my friend and my trusty brochure.

This time, even though it was May and the rainy season was over, storm clouds were rolling in—and I was with a tour guide. Both times were pretty epic. 

This time I also went down to the water system!

Because Megiddo sits at a strategic place on the ancient Via Maris, Megiddo has been a place for people to live dating as far back as the Neolithic period (7th and 6th centuries BC). That's a really long time! 

And, it is actually the place for the 1st recorded battle in history. In the 15th century BC, Egyptian Pharaoh Thutmose III fought at the foot of Megiddo, which at that point was part of an alliance of Canaanite cities that rebelled against Egypt.

Fast forward several centuries, and it is mentioned in Joshua 12:21 in a list of kings defeated by Joshua, however Manasseh was unable to take it over in Joshua 17:11-13 and Judges 1:27). It's also mentioned in 1 Kings 9:15  as a place built up by Solomon, alongside Hazor and Gezer.

Last time, I also didn't get to go out to the main overlook, so I missed something very important:

the raised platform where the idols were worshiped and sacrifices were made.

Also, on this trip I went down into the water system. It was so cool! Literally—the temperature lowered drastically, haha. And it was amazing to see how they protected their water and made it accessible for the residents. It will be interesting to compare this to the system at Tel Hazor when I got back, and also to Hezekiah's Tunnel one day. 

That's it for Megiddo visit #2! I'm sure it will not be the last! What an amazing place!

Mount Tabor: Deborah's battle and the Church of the Transfiguration

Mount Tabor is a beautiful, iconic mountain in the Jezreel Valley, best known biblically as the location for 'Deborah's battle'. 

In Judges 4, Deborah, a judge of Israel, told Barak to take 10,000 men to fight the armies of Hazor. (Remember Hazor from 2 weeks ago)?

Like Hazor, Mount Tabor also sits on the ancient Via Maris, just farther south. It stood on the most important ancient trade route through the Land. 

So, Deborah told Barak to go fight the armies of Hazor, and he didn't want to unless she went with him. She agreed, but said that because he was too afraid to lead alone, God would give the victory over to a woman. That woman was Yael, who drove a tent spike through the temple of Sisera, the general, when he entered her tent for a drink and a nap. The Bible says the spike went all the way into the ground! WOW!

Christian tradition also places Jesus, Peter, James, and John on this mountain in Matthew 17. They went up to pray and spend the evening, and Jesus was transfigured there—and Moses and Elijah appeared with him. This obviously isn't proven, since the mountain is unnamed in Scripture. Still, we know this really happened, and why not on Mount Tabor? After all, look at the view!

I spent Purim hiking around Mount Tabor in the Jezreel Valley, and am so excited to share about this incredible place today!

As with all locations where Catholic tradition places Jesus, there is a church at the top. Actually, there's two, a Catholic church and a Greek Orthodox one. When we were there, there was a tour group from Fiji who sang instead. I could hear it from the garden outside, and it was so beautiful!

There are 2 ways to get up to the church, drive up a switchback road with incredible views, or hike up 5k from the village below—almost straight up. We chose to drive and then walk the 2.5K trail around the summit. Because it was almost spring, there were flowers everywhere. We also saw caves along the trail—not to mention the stunning views!

Such a fun day! I definitely want to go back! Best of all, entrance is free!