JEZREEL

ruins of Biblical Jezreel adjacent to the present kibbutz of the same name,
courtesy, Wikipedia

Jezreel today is a kibbutz in northern Israel, established shortly after independence in 1948. It is also an archaeological site located on a low hill on the southeastern edge of the Jezreel Valley. In Biblical times, Jezreel was an ancient Israelite city and fortress allotted to the Tribe of Issachar (Joshua 19:18). Owing to its importance, Jezreel gave its name to the whole district and also played an important role in ancient Jewish history. It was near its fountain that King Saul and his army encamped during their war with the Philistines (I Sam. 29:1). Jezreel was also the hometown of Ahinoam, fourth wife of King David. But it acquired its greatest fame during the reign of Ahab, who chose it for his residence and built for himself a palace (I Kings 18:45). Close to Ahab's palace was the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite, so much coveted by Ahab (I Kings 21:1) that it led to his murder in Samaria by royal decree. Following the prophet Elijah's victory over the prophets of Ba'al at Mount Carmel, Elijah instructed Ahab to return home to Jezreel, where he would be reporting on events to Jezebel, his wife, a pagan Phoenician who brought foreign gods into Israel. But "the hand of the Lord was upon Elijah" and he reached Jezreel ahead of Ahab (1 Kings 18:45-46). He then ordered Jezebel’s death. In front of Ahab's palace was an open space where dogs roamed and it was there that they devoured Jezebel's body (II Kings 19:35-37). Jezreel was also the residence of Joram, son of Ahab; there he, along with 69 of his brothers, were murdered at the hands of Jehu. In the 8^th century BCE, God mentions Jezreel repeatedly to the Prophet Hosea in connection to the fate of the northern Kingdom of Israel.

Under Roman rule, Greco-Roman immigrants began to arrive in the town, but it remained a largely Jewish town even after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70. In the course of the succeeding Byzantine Christian rule, Jezreel began to be taken over by Christian immigrants causing many Jews to leave. At the beginning of Arab hegemony, Jezreel was left with a tiny Jewish minority. In the 12^th century, Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela, a traveler from Spain, found there one Jewish inhabitant, a dyer. The Jewish population fluctuated since then until the last Jew left around the 18^th or 19^th centuries.

The modern kibbutz Jezreel was founded during Israel’s War of Independence. During the war, the strategically situated Arab village of Zaʿrīn served as a vantage point from which Arab units harassed Jewish settlements in the Harod Valley and tried to block communications with nearby Afulah. A Palmaḥ group took the village in an attack on May 30, 1948. A few weeks later a group of Israel-born youth established the kibbutz on the abandoned site. Today, the kibbutz contains a Monument to the Fallen, a music school Bet HaMusika, Maytronics a robotic pool cleaning company, Neomis Café, and the Emek Chen Potter Studio

In 1987, a bulldozer working near the site accidentally uncovered ancient structures, and a salvage dig was conducted leading to the major dig under the direction of David Ussishkin and John Woodhead over seven seasons (1990-1996). Staff and volunteers from about 25 countries (the largest groups were from United Kingdom, Sweden and Denmark) joined the dig.

Renewed excavations began in the summer of 2012 under the new directorship of Dr. Norma Franklin of the University of Haifa Zinman Institute of Archaeology, and Dr. Jennie Ebeling of the University of Evansville. The excavations uncovered a casemate wall and four projecting towers surrounding the ancient Israelite fortress, built with a combination of well-cut ashlars, boulders and smaller stones, and an upper level of mud-brick, all covering an area of almost 11 acres.