Rejuvenation: Harpies, Hebrew and Helios at Huqoq

Hi everybody. Eve Harow Rejuvenation on the Land of Israel Network. It is very late now, January 5th, 2019, 29th day of ready though of Tevet 5779. And just came back from Tamar Fuld's engagement party. Tamar, of course, Ari Fuld who was killed a few months ago, his oldest daughter, who as I've said before on the show is you know, like really a part of our family. So, great joy at her engagement party, of course, for the whole family. Very exciting, but also that tug going to the house and seeing, you know, him everywhere in the house except actually in the house and actually there. And you know, we go like we talked about it and it happened and everybody shocked and then we all move the rest of us move along with our lives onto the next terror victim and right in a few weeks ago I interviewed Chaim Silverstein about his daughter and then but then you go back or if you know the people it's there and it never goes away like everything changed in 10 seconds. And so so happy for all of them and Tamar is just so thrilled. But you know, her dad is not going to be at her wedding or see her children or anything else and it's just it still hurts and so getting back to my infinitesimal efforts to keep my people a little bit safer. I was at Limmud UK as you guys know, I was in England week before last and that's where I did those great interviews. I hope you enjoyed them both with Bat El and with Jonathan Spyer and I've got a great one coming up in a few minutes that I taped there with Jodi with Dr. Jodi Magnus the archaeologist who's digging at Huqoq and so we'll get to that in just a couple minutes, but a couple of some of you written to me and asked me what it was like at Limmud UK. So, I figured I would just fill you in a little bit. Um, in some ways it was better than last year. Didn't have Breaking the Silence and some of the like the just those awful groups who just try and malign and hurt Israel in any way they can. Um, and I was actually on a panel with somebody whom last year I was a panel with but we were we're on opposite sides of the politics and as you can imagine a young British woman who's very much on the left, but it was an interesting panel that we were on together this year not focused on the issues. So, there wasn't like no arguing, but focused more on as women how it is in the advocacy world. And so, of course, there was common ground there cuz it's not always so simple as women to get out there and to do things. And so, we just spoke about that from our different perspectives and it was actually had a lot of people there and it was actually very interesting very interesting conversation and panel and then hope also that women can maybe easier have the conversation without the very high tones that sometimes you have these days or the complete lack of having the conversation at all cuz everybody just gets so entrenched in their views. So, it gave it was it was good for me also. It gave me a lot to think about and I hope for her as well. So, it was one panel that it was on. I presented two PowerPoints that I developed. One about the Jewish festival of love Tu B'Av, the 15th of Av and another one as a tribute to Dr. Adam Zertal, the archaeologist who examined he did the the survey on what was the area of the tribe of Manasseh and found these foot-shaped enclosures. I've talked about this on the show. Anyway, I finally did what I've been meaning to do for a while which is make up a PowerPoint in tribute to his work and so that was really well received. So, if I ever get out to wherever you guys are, if you invite me to your community, that's something we don't have to talk politics. That's something that we can do as well like some Bible, some archaeology, some of the theories that are going around. Actually enjoy that much more. Then I gave to a roomful of people which was really nice like 50-60 people a talk on alternatives to a two-state solution. I spoke at the very beginning cuz there were few people in there that I could see were not there to listen as they were so much to make some noise. So, at the very beginning of my talk I tried something different and I said that anybody who wanted to anybody who was in that mindset and was going to end up maybe disturbing some of the other people in the room who had come to listen and maybe to broaden their thoughts on what possible alternatives there would be to a solution that is going absolutely nowhere and would just lead to a lot of people being very unhappy. Anyhow, if anybody was just there to bother the their fellow the fellow audience members, they were welcome to have a cup of coffee on me out in the hall. And I think to some degree that kind of like quieted the room like you know, like come on guys, let's all be in this together. If you just here to disturb, do us all a favor and go out. And maybe there was a little bit of peer pressure then in the audience, I don't know, but I got a couple of snide comments or you know, people who have to mouth about of course how terrible Israel is whatever it was, but in the main the questions that I got were really questions after the presentation people who were saying now this is interesting. I never heard this before. Where would I find more information on it? And so, it was even if just one person says something like that, it's worth doing it and it was more than one and I found the audience was actually listening and pretty respectful like I said for the most part. So, that was gratifying. Then I was on two bigger panels. One was with Jonathan Neumann who some of you might remember I interviewed him a few months ago on his book about American liberalism and how it's not just destroying Judaism, but it's also isn't too good for Israel. So, he and I were on that panel together based on his book with two people who who counted themselves more on the left side of things. And I was in that was pretty big audience and that was pretty interesting. It was actually a debate. Turns out that it's the first time that Limmud's had a debate which I found odd. But so that was the main point that I was just trying to make there was that in all the talk about social justice and how important that is and it certainly is, where's the Jewish element there? So, like is Limmud even going to happen in 25 or 30 years if it's all about social justice because there's nothing particularly Jewish about that. And so, I feel that it is my role and I've tried to fulfill it in making sure that my kids are Jews and my grandchildren will be Jewish and that they can fill the role of social justice warriors which is important, but it's not in replacement to Judaism. It's in addition to or as part of Judaism and that's where I find that a lot of people who are on the left are not going to have that. They're not bringing down the traditions and as a result the Jewish line is going to end with them and for me that is really like terrible tragedy. So, that was kind of the point that that I took and I guess kind of being the mother of seven. So, that was a a role or a line that I could fill. And then there was another panel where the person on the left it was all women and the woman on the left never showed up. I don't know why, but I found myself pleasantly finally meeting Leat Collins who's a journalist for the Jerusalem Post. I've been following her for years and she was really delightful. We even had supper together afterwards. And then Floor Hassan, I can't remember her last name, who's on the Jerusalem Council, British woman who I was disappointed with because I found that I was listening to a lot of political opportunism in addition to the fact that some of the things that she said were just flat out wrong like how the wall is what stopped a lot of terrorism in Jerusalem and that's not true because as we've seen in the north and in the south, you can dig under walls, you can shoot over walls. So, it's getting the intelligence back in our hands that has really cut down, thank God, on the terrorism and as I started off the show saying of course, there's still plenty of terrorism and anything is way too much, but certainly it's not on the levels that we've had in the past few years, not even close with buses bomb bombing, you know, blowing up and things like that. So, so I was unpleasantly surprised actually with her because some people that I know said oh, say hi to her for me and I thought oh, great, you know, and she ran on Ze'ev Elkin's list for the city council and he's like he lives in Gush Etzion where I live. He's staunch person, you know, like with you know, patriotic tendencies and I was not happy with the things that she said, but of course, I made sure to correct some of the things that she said that I didn't think were true. But she also related to someone else on the Jerusalem Council in a very disparaging way which I thought was just not appropriate. Anyhow, I did my thing, had the bad food, spent one day getting there, one day getting back, but it was a great experience all told the Limmud and I hope that I go to other Limmuds in other parts of the world. Finished with England for a while now. They really take a break there. And but what was really interesting was just what they you do just sit different meals. You just kind of sit down and you know, I tried to sit with people that I didn't know and just start talking and it was depressing to hear how many British Jews are afraid to talk about Israel or even being Jewish in England. College students who do not tell their professors that they're Jewish. Other women like this lovely little old lady who's talking to me about her knitting club that she has on Saturday and therefore it's you know with a lot of non-Jews, she cannot express anything pro-Israel to them whatsoever. And really like this sense of that they're intimidated to talk about Israel and that's why Limmud was so important for them which was gratifying to feel for them. Just really like a safe place where they could go and be with other Jews or be with other pro-Israel people and talk about Israel even if it's critical or not critical, just be able to have really a safe place to talk about that which apparently they don't have. And uh and they're worried and they know what's going on and they know about Corbyn and they know the other things that happening in England. But what I find with Brit the British perhaps more so than any other uh Jews that I meet like of different cultures is how deeply British they are and how it's hard for them to think about leaving England because they really like the British culture and you don't really find that anywhere else. I'm not just talking about putting milk in your tea, but just you know, the British culture which any of you familiar with it, you know. Every country has their culture and very often Jews who go all over the place cuz usually we've been forced to become the most loyal Americans and the most patriotic British and French. We really try and fit into the societies that we land in and very much become a part of it and try and be good citizens and and I remember reading something that my grandfather wrote when he left Russia. It's got to be over 100 years now and you know, it was a beautiful um piece, a beautiful essay even about Russia and the trees and the forests and the vast open spaces. You could really feel his love for the country and he had to leave, but um it's hard, but I I think of all the different obviously I haven't been all over the world, but I've been to plenty of places. I think the British maybe have the hardest time of thinking of of leaving England and had a very interesting meal with one young man who um you know, was talking about he wants to get married and he's dated non-Jewish women and he finds though that he has something nice in common with Jewish women, but anyhow, it was just it's almost like when you go and you sit on an airplane and you have like this little bubble space where you can talk about things even intimate things that you wouldn't necessarily to share with strangers. It's kind of like that at Limmud also. You're just sitting near someone at a meal and you end up sharing things and talking about things. It's really a nice aspect of it. And um just like having you know, even if you never see that person again, although sometimes we exchange emails or give out cards, there was just like this nice little feeling of friendship and of closeness that you don't really going to get in any other place. So I very much appreciate being invited and uh they paid for all my expenses and and like I said had me on quite a few panels and gave me opportunities to speak. I very much appreciate that and it was a great experience. Um I'm glad I did it. And uh and like I said, I hope that I there's Limmuds all around the world. I hope I get a chance to share in some other ones. But in the meantime, what is coming up? Got a couple trips. If any of you are in Israel last week of January, got a couple trips that I'm doing for One Israel Fund. You can check out their website on the 22nd and 23rd I think of the month uh One Israel Fund .org and uh there's still some room on the buses. Happy to see you. My new website is almost done. Don't go there yet. It's not up yet. Putting the finishing touches on hopefully this week. Have some meetings about that this week. Getting that going and then you'll see my schedule and where I'm going and and how to get in touch with me and that should be really nice. It definitely needed a um perk up, but I've got my tickets for early March. Early March looks like I'm going to be in Tampa, Fort Lauderdale and then the Passages series in Phoenix. That's on March 10th in Scottsdale. So I'm going to be there and I think I think Shabbat in Phoenix also. That's being worked on the Shabbat of March 9th and then just closed with Toronto for the end of March. End of March going to be at AIPAC including for the Shabbatone. Got a couple days where I'm not sure where I'm going to be yet, but then I'm rounding out that trip in Toronto. So um yeah, I'm going to try and do like shorter trips. I was gone last time almost 3 weeks. It was too much to be away from my family and from the land. I just start not feeling well. So if I can go for like 10 or 11 days, um then I think I'm going to do it that way and then of course going back in May. So lots happening in 2019. Very exciting. Loving it all. The guiding, the Israel. Um of course the election's coming up April 9th. I will so totally be in Israel for that. Interesting what's happening. I am Initially when I heard about when Naftali Bennett and Ayelet Shaked did I was like, "Wow, maybe that's just a play to get into the Likud." But now I think that they're and of course that they brought Caroline Glick who's a friend and I like love her. She's amazing. That they brought her into the party, brilliant move. So we'll see what happens. Is it going to break up the right? Is a lot a lot of votes going to be wasted? Are we going to have a stronger camp? April 9th is a long way away. 3 months, anything can happen in this country really. Um but it definitely isn't boring and I am totally supporting them. Um I've really liked Naftali Bennett for a long time and I think he and Ayelet have done some great things in their positions now as education minister and justice minister and I would like to see them get climbing higher on the Israeli Israeli political spectrum. I think they're both honest and decent people who have their hearts and minds uh in the right place. So wishing them success and we'll see what the next few months brings. Anyhow, on to the interview that I know you're waiting for. Dr. Jodi Magnus on basically on Huqoq, although I went to another lecture of hers which was on Masada. We didn't talk about that during the interview, but I can tell you she's got a new book coming out in May about Masada from Jewish revolt to modern myth and she's really really great. So I know you're going to enjoy the interview and then go and look at the pictures of the unbelievable mosaics that she has uncovered at Huqoq. Just last week though there was an incident in Huqoq at Huqoq which is in the Galilee where um some robbers which we have all over the place were trying to destroy some of the antiquities there. Didn't get anywhere close to where she's digging, although all her stuff has been taken out for safekeeping anyhow. But it just shows the challenges that we have in this country with the people who want to rob not just because they want to steal things and then sell them, but because the fact that it destroys the history of pretty much the world uh not only doesn't bother them, but is an added bonus. So with thanks to Ben and to Tabitha and everyone at the station, you can always write to me [email protected]. Love hearing from you guys. Enjoy the interview. Dr. Jodi Magnus coming right up. Hi everybody. Eve Harow Rejuvenation on the Land of Israel Network at Limmud uh December 24th, 2018 and it's my great honor to once again get Dr. Jodi Magnus, Professor Jodi Magnus PhD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill um who gave an unbelievable presentation today. So I was uh so happy that she agreed to sit with me for a few minutes this evening. We have very long days here at Limmud. Hey uh yes, hello. Nice to meet you all. Anyway, the Huqoq, the the site that you're digging in Israel. The the pictures of the mosaics that you showed us today. Tell me I mean it's it's a tease because they can't see them. This is just an interview. What can you tell us though about them? You're you're digging out since 2011 in the Galilee. Yes, so we've been digging there every summer since 2011. We dig for 1 month every summer, June. Uh we're bringing to light a monumental synagogue that is very similar to the synagogue at Capernaum or Kfar Nahum which is just a couple of miles away. Um the big difference being that unlike Kfar Nahum which is paved with with flagstone pavement, uh our uh floor is paved entirely with mosaics, mosaics that are divided into panels that contain figured scenes, mostly biblical scenes. We've published now all of the mosaics through 2017. So all except for the very last season 2018 and anybody who's interested can go online to our website huqoq.org h u q o q.org um with links and lists of all the publications and links to media coverage um including an article that we just published in Hebrew in the last issue of Katedra which is sort of a popular magazine um in Hebrew for the Israeli audience. So you you teach and you're a professor in North Carolina. How did you come to be digging in the Galilee in Israel? Well, I started working in archaeology in Israel long before I came to North Carolina. So I've been at North Carolina since 2002, but I wanted to be an archaeologist since I was 12 years old. Uh I had a uh seventh grade teacher um who taught us ancient history and I fell in love with ancient world and particularly ancient Greece. Uh so I was interested in that ever since then. Um and I Oops, there's I uh I actually ended up moving to Israel when I was 16 years old and finished high school there and then did my undergraduate degree there. So I've basically been working in Israel ever since I was a teenager. Wow. So you're really connected. When you come in June, do you bring your students? Do you use Israelis that are there or do you bring students from North Carolina? Right. I I run the Huqoq dig as a field school for students from North America. Um most of the students do come from North Carolina, but I also have a consortium of schools uh from around North America that um join us and send students as well. And so in fact it is not open to the public because it is run as a field school. It's offered for academic credit through the University of North Carolina. So how did you find this particular site? Um well, it wasn't that I was so smart. It was more a matter of luck, but basically I had wanted to excavate a an ancient Jewish village in Galilee with a synagogue similar to the synagogue at Capernaum that had never been excavated before. Um you know, Israel is probably the most intensively explored country on Earth from an archaeological point of view. So, all I had to do was to take publications of other archaeologists who had wondered around and visited various sites and noticed remains lying on the surface of the ground, what we call survey. Uh and after visiting a number of these sites, I I saw that Huqoq looked like the most promising one that had never been excavated, started there in 2011, and very fortunately and somewhat serendipitously came down on the remains of the synagogue building, which we've been exploring ever since. What kind of permission do you have to get from Israel to to pick a site? That can't be so simple. I'm familiar with the bureaucracy in my country. Right, right, you know the bureaucracy. Well, it's not so much the problem of picking the site, it's the matter of getting the permit to excavate the site, right? So, we started out with a with a survey permit, which was simply non-intrusive survey on the surface, and then um that was in the summer of 2010, and then progressed to 2011 to the excavation itself. So, it actually consists of getting a permit from the Israel Antiquities Authority, which is the government authority that oversees all archaeology that's done in Israel. You have to fulfill a number of criteria professionally, you have to show that you have money, you have to have the proper psych and servitor and staff lined up. You know, I've been working in Israel all my life. I did my undergraduate degree there. Everybody knows me, you know, um I've published plenty of other archaeological sites. In fact, I'm I think it's probably fair to say that I'm maybe one of the few archaeologists working in Israel right now that doesn't have any past excavations to her credit that are still unpublished. So, basically I I don't have any other excavations aside from the one that I'm currently doing that I still owe as a backlog. So, you know, I have a good record. They know that I, you know, tend to publish what I what I dig. Um and so, I was able to, you know, fortunately get the permit to excavate at Huqoq. So, what is the goal of the dig? I mean, you're discovering what you're discovering. Is the goal eventually to make it into a national park? We have Tzippori, we've got all these other parks around the country and Getty where we've got these beautiful old synagogues from pretty much the same time period. Is that what the goal is at Huqoq? Uh that that's not my goal. So, it's not up to me as the archaeologist to decide on the development of the site for tourism. Um as an archaeologist, I'm responsible for excavating the site, publishing what we find, conserving what we find. I am not responsible for the future development of the site for tourism. That is up to the Israeli government authorities. They will have to figure that out. There is a lot of excitement in Israel, obviously, about the importance of the mosaics. Um but it will be up to the Israeli authorities ultimately to decide if they can raise the money and if they can collaborate in order to develop the site for tourism. So, one of the things that you mentioned today and you showed us is that the mosaics, they're in Hebrew, and the inscriptions that you're finding are in Hebrew. Now, I know from, let's say, in Susya where they have Greek and they have Hebrew, and one of the explanations that's given for how much Hebrew there is, it's because it's during the Byzantine period, it's during a time period where the Christians are ruling the land, but you have Jewish villages dotted around, and kind of as maybe a you know, we're Jewish, we're not Christian, there is more Hebrew there than you would find in other places. Do you think that that's what's happening in Huqoq? Is that an area where there were, you know, in that surrounding area, you mentioned Capernaum, there are other Jewish villages that had synagogues where they're also at that period of time, were there also Byzantine Christian villages who had that you're finding churches, or those are in a different part of the Galilee where there's was there some kind of separation between the populations? Um actually, it's really interesting question. I I I I don't I don't know about the Hebrew at Susya, even though way way long ago, very early in my career, I actually excavated at Susya for for a brief period of time, not the synagogue, but in in part of the village. Um but but in fact, it's it's a really interesting phenomenon in the late Roman and Byzantine periods, um the population of the country was in fact segregated, not in urban centers, but outside of urban centers. By urban centers, I mean cities, so Tiberias, Sepphoris, Caesarea had mixed populations of Jews and non-Jews. But when you get into the urban uh the uh sorry, when you get into the rural settlements, into the villages, they are always segregated. So, they're either Jewish or they're Christian, but they're not both. Um which means that in any given village, you either have a church or you have a synagogue, but you don't have both. There's only one exception, by the way, to this rule, and that is Capernaum, which is a is a little bit of a different story, but otherwise, you either have one or the other. And it's not just that the villages were segregated, but the country was segregated. So, for example, Eastern Galilee was Jewish and Western Galilee was Christian, and the same thing with the Golan. Part of the Golan was Christian, part of the Golan was Jewish. Same thing with Judea. Judea was mostly by, you know, the time after the Bar Kokhba revolt, was mostly non-Jewish, except that Southern Judea, the Darom, of course, was Jewish. So, so in fact, it's not just that you have Jewish village, Christian village, Jewish Christian village, something like that, but you actually have whole areas, and we are in an area, Huqoq is in an area, Lower Eastern Galilee, that was actually Jewish. So, your theory doesn't exactly work for that. And you mentioned, for example, the synagogue at Sepphoris, or I know if you go to, you know, some of the other local synagogues, you will see that um the majority of the inscriptions from at Tiberias, for example, the majority of the inscriptions tend to be in either Greek and or Aramaic. Um there is use of Hebrew, but the Hebrew tends to be relatively limited compared to the use of uh Hebrew of Greek and Aramaic. And so, our synagogue is a little different in that so far, all of the inscriptions that we have found, and it's not like we have so many inscriptions, but all of the inscriptions that we have found so far appear to be in Hebrew. So, this is one of the many things that distinguishes the Huqoq synagogue from some of the other synagogues. Mhm. I think the Talmud, which more or less corresponds to this period, also not the exact dates, even says that if you find some food, depending on where you find it in the Galilee, on the western side or the eastern side, it you you would know if it was kosher just based on where it was found. Because these populations were that divided. Yes, and it makes you think of, of course, the inscription in the Rehov synagogue, which is the longest ancient synagogue inscription that we have, which of course contains halakhic laws exactly like that. Um I want to mention just two more things. So, first of all, uh with regard to the Talmud. So, of course, the the Jerusalem or Palestinian Talmud um ended, it was never completed, but it ended in about 350 CE. Um the Babylonian Talmud was completed around 500 CE. Our synagogue dates to a little bit after 400 CE. So, in fact, our synagogue dates to a little after the time of the Palestinian Talmud, but would be roughly contemporary with, let's say, the Babylonian Talmud. So, that's one thing. The other thing that I want to mention is well, before everybody gets really excited about our mosaics and rushes off to see them, is that there's nothing to see at Huqoq because we remove the mosaics from the field for the purposes of conservation at the end of every season, and then we backfill all of the excavated areas. So, if you actually go to Huqoq and you look for mosaics, you won't see anything there, you'll just see backfilled areas that are somewhat overgrown with weeds, surrounded by a fence. So, please do not rush off to look for mosaics at Huqoq. Okay, but you can see them online. So, tell us a little bit about the mosaics that that they you've uncovered, which I mean, just from the the slides that you just showed us today, are breathtaking in their artistry. Yes, they are, actually. They are. They're really um most of the mosaics that we have consist of uh various depictions of biblical stories, more on that in just a minute. In addition, we have two uh mosaic panels that are not biblical stories. In the center of the nave, we have a helio-zodiac cycle, which is a motif that actually appears in um altogether 10 ancient synagogues in Israel. Now, if you include the En Gedi synagogue inscription, which mentions the helios, well, the zodiac cycle and the months. Um and uh we also have a panel that is apparently a non-biblical story, which includes battle elephants and a figure that might be Alexander the Great or one of his successors. So, there's that panel. But otherwise, all of the panels that we have are biblical panels um or stories uh depicted in in in panels. Um and they include two scenes of Samson, Samson and the Gate of Gaza and Samson and the Foxes. Um they include Noah's Ark, the uh parting of the Red Sea, or actually Pharaoh's soldiers being swallowed by the Red Sea. Um it's the story of Jonah, uh Jonah being swallowed by a large fish, in this case actually three successive large fishes, which by the way, is the very first depiction of Jonah in uh ancient Jewish art, and it's very interesting. Uh uh Jonah was popular a popular story in early Christian art, um but it had never been found, at least not definitely, in in any ancient synagogue until now, and people always wondered, why was Jonah so popular with Christians, but he wasn't popular with the Jews? And now, well, actually, we have it also in a synagogue. And we have a depiction of the building of the stor- of uh the Tower of Babel. So, we have a series of these biblical stories um that decorate our uh floors of the synagogue. Do you have any of what has been found, let's say, in Beit Alpha or some of the other synagogues, depictions of the Temple? Right. So, um we we don't so far have any depictions of the Temple. That's kind of interesting, but our our our mosaics are arranged a little bit differently than, let's say, Beit Alpha or Hamat Tiberias or Sepphoris or actually most any other synagogue with mosaic floors. When you have synagogues decorated with mosaic floors, and when those mosaic floors are decorated with figured scenes, figures of animals or people or whatever, um almost always the figured scenes are restricted only to the nave, that is, the central part of the hall, whereas the aisles are decorated with geometrical or floral designs. In our case, the entire synagogue is decorated with figured scenes, figured panels, including the aisles. So, first of all, it's a little bit of a different arrangement for from what you have, let's say, in a Hamat Tiberias, Sepphoris, or Beit Alpha. Um the other thing is that in our north aisle, which we uncovered last summer, which we have not yet published, um we do have a we had a series of panels that depicted uh again, motifs from the Hebrew Bible, from biblical stories, including uh um the the two spies sent by Moses returning with a pole between them and the cluster of grapes hanging between the pole. Um we also have a panel that depicts the showbread table from the Jerusalem Temple. The problem is that the mosaics in the north aisle were quite heavily damaged, and so a lot of the panels were not preserved. And so it is possible that among the panels that were not preserved, we had some other panels that depicted elements from the Jerusalem Temple since we do have the showbread table. But of course we'll never know that because they weren't preserved. Right. Have you found the ark that which would have been on the south side, right facing Jerusalem? Right. So we have we have not found the the Bema or the ark yet. We do have set on top of the Tower of Babel panel two carved stones that form steps going up in one direction, going up towards the east. Um but then they were cut by a later construction. Uh and we had to leave those stones in place because pulling them up would have damaged the mosaic underneath. It's clear though that they belong to the period of the synagogue and because of their location I think that they might actually be part of a Bema. And the reason is that if you look at Wadi Hamam, which is a synagogue that's located not too far from the south of ours, and that is very similar in layout and decoration. It also is decorated with mosaic floor panels like ours. It too had a Bema that was added on top of the mosaic floor in a similar location. So I think that actually we might have part of the Bema, but since all we have are those blocks of stone, we'll never know that for sure either. So any guesses that you have about the kind of people that lived in the village? I mean it's a beautiful ornate village for a little synagogue for a little village, a little rural village. It's not in the middle of a city. Um or any idea maybe from the botanical archaeology, from some of the things that you're pulling up, what they grew, what they lived off of? Any theories? Right. Well Well, we First of all, it is it's true that Huqoq was a village. So it's important for me to emphasize it was a village, it was not an urban center. But it is not accurate I think to describe it as a little village. It it apparently was bigger than we thought. In fact, now surveys done by the Israel Antiquities Authority have indicated that it was even larger than we originally thought. And certainly it was more prosperous than we thought. The problem is is that until we started our excavations, pretty much all we knew about Huqoq came from scattered references in in rabbinic literature. And from those scattered references you would have never guessed that Huqoq was anything special. Um the the main reference in terms of economy to Huqoq in rabbinic literature is a passage in the Jerusalem Talmud which refers to a rabbi who sees the locals gathering the mustard plant, which was used for the production of a kind of oil. So that reflects the economic base of the village. And paleo-botanical analyses have indicated the presence of mustard plant in our village. But we also have things like olive seeds, you know, pits and other kinds of plants. So again, it's just what you would expect in a village context. It was an agricultural area, and that was probably the main economic base. Mhm. So I mean, are there theories maybe there were Kohanim since there's all the Hebrew there? Was it, you know, on the other hand though, some of the pictures that you showed us are like pagan I mean there's no you know, nymphs and satyrs. How did What's your explanation of what that those are doing in a synagogue? Um my explanation is probably not the same as some of my colleagues would be, but I tend to think that Judaism was never homogeneous, never monolithic. You know the old saying, where you have two Jews, you have three opinions. So you know You have to find the other synagogue because the one that they wouldn't pray in. the island, right? With the guy who has two synagogues. What's one you know, what are the two synagogues for? Well, that's the one I go to and that's the one that I don't go to, right? So it's something like that. So Judaism has always been diverse, and we tend to lose sight of that diversity in the centuries after 70. And the reason is before 70 we have lots of sources that tell us about Jewish diversity, about Pharisees and Sadducees, Essenes, and and Jesus' movement, and all different other kinds of groups in Judaism. After 70 we lose that picture, and we lose that picture because after 70 we lose pretty much all of our different kinds of sources except for rabbinic literature. So the good thing about rabbinic literature is that we have lots of it. And and also the rabbis themselves were not monolithic, of course. They disagreed with each other, and often they recorded their disagreements. So they were not a monolithic group. Nevertheless, there were parameters to their disagreements, and nevertheless all we have is what the rabbis wrote, meaning all we have is from their viewpoint. And there is no doubt that after 70 there were other groups in Judaism, but they did not leave us records. So I think that archaeology helps us fill in the blanks of what we're missing when we try to learn about Judaism in the centuries after 70. It shows that Judaism continued to be dynamic, it continued to be diverse, and I am not at all surprised that we find in fact these kinds of images in Jewish art because it doesn't mean that Jews were pagans. It means that they expressed themselves in the same visual vocabulary as everybody else. So for example, in my opinion when we see the Helios depicted in the Helios zodiac cycle, Jews talk about the Helios as if he's the Greco-Roman sun god. And he is in fact depicted like the Greco-Roman sun god. He's a man with rays coming out of his head, and he's in a chariot that's driven by horses across the sky every night every day. But that doesn't mean that he was in fact the sun god when he was depicted in a synagogue. It means that he was the sun because whether you were Jewish or not Jewish, in antiquity you conceived of the sun as a man in a chariot pulled by horses across the sky every day. If you were a Greek or a Roman, you worshipped that figure as a god. If you were a Jew, you didn't worship him as him as a god, but you conceived of the sun as looking like that. And so for example, in our Jonah scene, we have a group of three harpies, which are hybrid creatures that are half bird and half women. They're very strange looking. In Greek mythology yes, they're very strange. In Greek mythology harpies are personifications of the storm winds. So when the artist wanted to depict that the story of Jonah started with the storm that God sent at sea, and that's what caused the sailors to pitch Jonah overboard, what did he do? He put harpies into the sky above the ship to show that there was a storm at sea. That's what it means. It doesn't mean that the Jews were worshipping these figures necessarily as gods. Right? So if you were a Greek, you might have worshipped them as gods as they were part of your pantheon. Certainly they were part of your mythology. But if you lived in that world, that's how you conceived of these things. So it would be anachronistic to view that in any other way. Wow. Now you also mentioned today that there's some midrashic elements in the in the mosaics. Yeah, so we have a lot of midrash, and um I'm going to leave that for my experts to figure out. I have a very large staff at Huqoq um that includes specialists who are working on the mosaics and who have already published a large part of the mosaics. Um Dr. Karen Britt of Western Carolina University, who's a specialist in mosaics and Byzantine art, and Dr. Ron Nan Bustana Princeton University is a specialist in Jewish history and rabbinics. And so they're the ones who are responsible for publishing the mosaics, and I'm sure they'll be talking a lot about the midrashic elements. But a lot of the midrashic elements are clear to anybody I think who looks at the mosaics. For example, when you look at the story of Jonah, I mentioned that Jonah is being swallowed in our panel not by one fish, but by three successive fish one inside the other, and that's clearly a midrash. And we know of this midrash because it's preserved in a later in later Jewish manuscripts. It's also preserved apparently in Islamic Islamic sources which talk about three successive fish swallowing Jonah. So now we know that this midrash goes back at least to the 5th century in Galilee. Similarly, we see it in the depiction of the story of the Tower of Babel where the artist went to great pains to differentiate between the different peoples who participated in the building of the Tower of Babel by showing different skin colors, different hairstyles, different colored clothing and also by fights that broke out between the workmen during the course of the Tower of Babel, and that's of course what torpedoed the whole project and caused them not to complete it. So yes, there is in fact a lot of midrash also in our mosaics. Any thoughts on who the artist was? Have other mosaics been found in different synagogues that show that it was the same artist or group of artists or school of art that was doing a lot of the same work? Yeah, um I think that that the answer to that can be answered in the affirmative now. And I've already mentioned here about Wadi Hamam, which was excavated by my Israeli colleague Dr. Uzi Leibner at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem within, let's say, the last 10 years or so. He just published the final report on that excavation, and one of the mosaics from that synagogue is now on permanent display in the Israel Museum. It's a scene of Samson smiting the Philistines with the jawbone of an ass. Um and our synagogues, which are not just proximate to each other, that is they're only a few miles from each other, are also very similar to each other in layout and in decoration. Ours is a little bit bigger than theirs. I think our mosaics are a little bit nicer than theirs. Of course you do. Um I And also this is not this is not a value judgment. Our mosaics are much better preserved than theirs. And so their mosaics are preserved in relatively small patches. We have a lot more of our mosaics preserved. Nevertheless, it is clear that there are a lot of similarities between their mosaics and our mosaics. Um the scene They have a scene of the parting of the Red Sea or Pharaoh's soldiers being swallowed in the Red Sea that is virtually identical to ours. You can put them side by side and they look virtually identical. They also have a scene of the building of the Tower of Babel, very interesting um because it's fragmentary. When they discussed and published their scene, which was a few years ago, they considered the possibility that it was the building of the Tower of Babel, but they ultimately decided in favor of the building of the Jerusalem Temple. And now we know of course that it's the building of the Tower of Babel, and they have since corrected that. And they are the only other synagogue in the land of Israel with a scene of Samson, even though their particular scene is different from the scenes that we have found. So there are many similarities both in content and in style, in layout, and in decoration. And so there's there's I can I think that there's no doubt that there must have been a workshop active in our area during this period. The one exception to the rule, and this again you'd have to ask my mosaic specialist cuz I'm not an art historian, but um the one exception to the rule is our so-called elephant panel, the one that I think maybe depicts Alexander the Great or at least one of Alexander's successors. It's an exceptional panel from every point of view, from its content and also from its style. It's an exceptional panel. It was certainly made by a master and whether that panel was made by somebody who was brought in um and not a member of this local workshop or not, we don't know, but it certainly is exceptional in every way. Wow. How about the stones themselves? I mean, when we talk about the mosaics, it's a lot of little square stones with many different colors. Now, are the stones themselves color Are they colored with paint or the stones themselves are colored? No, the stone The stones are natural. So, the stones are natural and they're local, meaning that they're from Galilee, they're from the region and they were selected for their colors. Um we only have a handful of stones that are not of tesserae, which are little mosaic cubes, which are not stones, but which are actually little cubes of cut glass, but only in a couple of places do we have those. Everywhere else, they're simply cut stones that are natural stones. Wow. So, we haven't found the quarry though, huh? Anywhere where these stones are from? to my knowledge, although we do have at the site we do have debitage, which is the waste from cutting mosaics, so we can say that at least some of the mosaic mosaic cubes were actually cut on site. So, what's your anticipation for next season? I know I said I mean, I had said to you before the interview. I can tell you what part I can tell you what parts of the site we'll be working in, but what we're going to discover I There's no way that I could guess. I mean, I could never have guessed what we would have until now. So, there's no way on earth that you would ever get me to guess what we're going to have as we go forward. Right. What's your favorite mosaic? Um my favorite I know I know you're not supposed to have my favorites, but my favorite until now is Jonah. Um just because it is such a unique mosaic and it's got a lot of humor in it. Um you see uh uh Jonah's legs dangling out of the mouth of the third fish and then you see the harpies in the sky and I just think it's a kind of a funny humorous panel. So, that's got to be my favorite until now. Right. Um Is Are there signs of like why the synagogue how it might have been destroyed? Are there signs of fire, of an earthquake? Uh you think it was just abandoned? Yeah, we don't We don't have any evidence. Uh we we can date the construction of the synagogue, I think, pretty well. We have pottery and coins from the foundation trench of the east wall that were in a sealed foundation trench. Um and we have radiocarbon dating of charcoal samples from the bedding of the mosaics and all of them are giving us consistently a date in the early 5th century, so a little bit after 400 CE, but we do not have evidence of how long the synagogue was in use and when it went out of use or why it went out of use. There are no signs of a violent destruction, so no signs of a fire or anything like that. What it looks like is like at some point the synagogue was abandoned. It appears to have been in use for not all that long. And the reason I say that is because there are only a couple of small areas where we see repairs to the mosaics. If the building had been in use for a long time, you would expect some of the pieces of mosaic to come loose and to be repaired and you see those signs of repairs. We only have a couple of very small patches of that. So, it doesn't look like the synagogue was in use for a very long time. It went out of use at some point. It appears to have been abandoned. It appears to have been cleared out. And then at some point it seems to have collapsed. The building simply collapsed and the superstructure fell on top of the mosaics and damaged some of them. That's how the damage occurred. So, it wasn't like a deliberate fire or destruction. Whether the building was brought down by an earthquake or not, we do not know. One of the specialists on my staff is a geoarchaeologist who is doing different kinds of scientific tests, which hopefully will help us to determine approximately when and under what what circumstances the synagogue went out of use. Wow. It's such an interdisciplinary science now, archaeology. It's It's really amazing. Just from the people that you've mentioned over here. It's very, very exciting. Wow. I mean, I wish my listeners could see how excited you are and how animated you are about this. That's so great. Anything else you want to add? No. No, um I just would encourage you to visit our website again, who coke.org, um to keep up with us, to read media coverage, to read our reports. Um take a look at the last Cat Moniot if you if you can get a hold of it. Um and you can keep up with our uh discoveries as we go forward through our website. Okay, but nobody can volunteer for the dig, right? You said because it's just your students. So, here are the parameters for volunteering for the dig. So, if you go to the website, you will see a link that says how to get involved. I make it very difficult for people who are not students and especially not students from North America to get involved in the dig. Um it means that you have to pay us a lot of money. You have to commit to coming for the entire month, so you can't just like pop in and pop out. You have to stay with us. Um and so and you have to pay a substantial amount of money to be able to do it. If you want to do all of that, um that helps support the dig, then yes, I'll be willing to take you and we'll find you many ways to put you to good use. Um but the best way that you can support the dig is by giving us donations, which you can give through the University of North Carolina and there is a link on the website for that as well. Well, how does that work? I mean, since you already brought that up. Does the Is the university funded? Do you have to go out and get private donations? it's very funny, actually, that you mentioned that. So, let me just clarify that I do not get funding for the excavation from anyone from any uh from the I should say from the Israel Antiquities Authority, even though my assistant director works for the Israel Antiquities Authority. When she's on the dig, I pay her salary. She takes a an unpaid uh leave of absence or halat uh from the Israel Antiquities Authority, so I pay her salary during the course of the dig. Um so, I don't get money. I don't get funding from the Israel Antiquities Authority. Instead, I have to raise all of the funding myself. My university does give us some money, but it's not like a huge amount of money. Um my current expenses are approximately $400,000 a year, which is a huge amount of money. I have to raise it myself and I raise it from a variety of sources. So, it's kind of a patchwork. So, I get a little bit from the university. I get some from our consortium school. So, I have other universities that participate and send students and faculty to work with us and they also give us a little bit of funding. Um I apply for funding from various agencies and organizations. Some of them I can name, some of them I cannot. Uh some of the more prominent ones that I can name are I've got money from the National Geographic Society and I'm hoping that we'll be able to get more from them in the future. Um and individuals. So, individual donations. I haven't I haven't yet hit that big, you know, sugar daddy or sugar mommy who's going to give us, you know, that big check. Um but I have had some generous donors and and every little bit helps. Um I use a lot of the money to help fund the students to work with us on the excavation because this is, of course, a consider this to be a form of Zionism. Most of our students are not Jewish. It's their first time in the Middle East. It's their first time in Israel. Their first exposure to Jews and Judaism and all of the rich history and culture of the country. And it it creates, I think, a lifetime bond between them and the country. And I think it's very important as part of their education and their growing up and their going on and being citizens of the world to be able to participate in our project. So, a lot of the money that we get helps fund them. And we do have sources that have also helped us fund the students. Um Um Keenan, who is a donor at the University of North Carolina, has also been very generous. But we can certainly always use more funding, especially to help the students out. Wow, it sounds like a fantastic project. And if anyone who's listening the opportunity to work with Dr. Jodi Magness, I think you should grab it. Thank you so much for taking time out of a very hectic schedule here. Eve Harow, Land of Israel Network, Rejuvenation. You can write to me [email protected]. Take care everybody. Goodbye for now. Decision, says Paul Tillich, is a risk rooted in the courage of being free. Now, I'm feeling pretty free right now and I've got the courage to take some risks cuz I've made a decision. This is the last episode of season 2. I'm Rav Mike Feuer and this is the Jewish Story. Join Rav Mike Feuer for the best Jewish history podcast. The Jewish Story.