JEWISH WORLD

JEWISH WORLD • APRIL 12-18, 2024 13 Windows To The Past Secrets of hiding places from the Bar Kochba revolt revealed the Jews out of Jerusalem and the center of Jewish culture moved to the Galilee. The newly excavated complex’s dating is based on pottery finds, By RUTH SCHUSTER I n the year 132 C.E., the Jews of Judea revolted against the Roman hegemon in a stunning display of hubris. Led by the Jewish rebel Si- mon Bar Kochba, it was the third and final Jewish war against Rome. Where did the rebellion take place? That’s a good question. His- toric sources describe the prelude, the Roman provocations and the Jewish reactions, at great length – in the Roman province of Judea. They don’t mention the Galilee. Yet last Monday, the Israel Antiq- uities Authority revealed yet anoth- er hiding complex in the Galilee, at the site of Huqoq, a relatively splendid one as subterranean hiding places go, which may reveal a piece of unwritten history. Actually, the complex had been discovered half a century ago by a member of Kibbutz Huqoq, con- fides Prof. Yinon Shivtiel of the Ze- fat Academic College, who has been investigating the ancient hid- ing places in Israel and the Galilee for years. But only now is the Huqoq complex being properly ex- cavated, and the archaeologists were in for a bit of a surprise. It was a lot bigger than they had expected. Archaeologists today can count hundreds of caves and caverns, some natural and some carved into the bedrock, some shelters in cliff faces, where Jews hid from the Ro- man legions. These were shelters for the community while the sol- diers battled outside, says phone while briefly surfacing from the bowels of subterranean Huqoq, which is near the Sea of Galilee. In some cases, the rebels would launch attacks on the Romans from concealed dens in Judea, he adds. The thing is that no fewer than 83 hiding complexes have been found in the Galilee, i.e., beyond Judea proper. Many, if not all, apparently date to the First Jewish-Roman war aka the Great Revolt that ended in ignominy for the Jews in the year 70 C.E., a de- termination based among other things on comparison with more se- curely dated hiding places in Judea. And 16 of the Galilean hiding complexes were apparently associ- ated with the Bar-Kochba rebellion, Shivtiel says. Of these, the Huqoq subterranean complex, with tunnels connecting eight chambers beneath the homes on the surface, is the jewel in the crown. continued on page 20 “I can definitely say it’s impres- sive,” he says. “It is the most exten- sive hiding complex discovered to date in the Galilee.” Huqoq was a Jewish town in the early Roman period. It would retain its status in the aftermath of the abortive rebellions, with the Jerusa- lem and Babylonian Talmuds citing the city’s sages Pinhas and Hezeki- ah in the third and fourth centuries C.E. – well after the Romans kicked A complex system of caverns and tunnels was built below the town of Huqoq, seven and a half miles north of Tiberias. Hiding complex offers evidence that Galileans as well as Judeans were involved in the revolt against Rome. ARCHAEOLOGY Deliveries to Westhampton And Surrounding Areas Every Friday In July & August