BETAR

ruins of the fortress of Betar, courtesy, Wikipedia

The fortress of Betar was located practically on the border of the ancient Israelite tribal territories of Judah and Benjamin. Later containing a local Sanhedrin, it was of some importance at the time of the destruction of Jerusalem. During the revolt against Rome (132-135), Shimon Bar Kokhba, the leader of the revolt, made Betar the chief base of operations, giving shelter to large numbers of Jewish refugees from the Roman onslaughts. As the revolt was being suppressed, town by town, a powerful Roman force under Julius Severus, which included detachments of the fifth (Macedonica) and the tenth (Claudia) legions, closely surrounded Betar and besieged it for two and a half years until 135. In the summer of that year when the nearby Yoredet HaZalman stream ran dry, the city began to suffer from thirst. Betar was, hence, destroyed on the ninth of month of Av, exactly 65 years to the day after the destruction of Jerusalem. The killed were left to decay in the surrounding fields and only after the revolt was totally suppressed, was it made possible to give them a proper burial. A Roman garrison was then left at the site because of its strategic importance. After the Arab conquest and occupation of Israel in the 7^th century, Arabs settled on top of this ancient Jewish town calling it by the Arabic name, “Batir”. Overnight, Betar became an Arab town but it has been suggested that the Fin-Nun clan, who partly lives in this town, is of Jewish origin. In 1874, Betar became the site of archaeological excavations under the noted French archaeologist Charles Simon Clermont-Ganneau who discovered there, a Latin inscription mentioning the Roman detachments that surrounded the fortress during the revolt against Rome.  

After the War of Independence in 1948, Batir found itself just a few hundred yards from the armistice line, inside Arab-occupied Judea. Beginning in 1950, native-born Israelis along with olim from Argentina from the right-wing movement also named “Betar”, began to return to the approximate area, on the Israeli side, and the town of Mevo Betar was founded. The armistice line was erased after the Six Day War but much of the land on the outskirts of both towns remained barren. It wasn’t until 1985 that the religious, and still growing community of Betar Illit was founded a few miles south, over the “green line”.