JISH (GUSH HALAV)

ruins of ancient synagogue, Gush Halav/Jish, courtesy, IsraelImage.net

The ancient fortress of Gush Halav is today a small town in the Upper Galilee populated by Phoenician Maronites, Greek Catholics, and Arabs. The residents call it “Jish”. It is where the Tomb of the Prophet Joel is located, for centuries, a Jewish pilgrimage site. The nearest Jewish town is the moshav Kfar Hoshen lying adjacent to the town’s southwest border, founded in 1949 by Jews from Bulgaria.

During the time of Joshua, Gush Halav/Jish was allotted to the tribe of Naphtali. When the Land of Israel was ruled by the Greeks, the town was called “Giscala”. Located in the center of an olive-growing district, the town was famous for its production of large quantities of fine oil as well as fine raw silk. It was also a center of milk and cheese production, owing to the town’s name which means “Milk Bloc”. It is said that two of the leaders of the Sanhedrin, Shemaiah and Avtalyon are buried there and according to Jerome, it was where the apostle Paul's parents lived. It was the native city of the patriot Yohanan ben Levi, better known in history as John of Giscala, an oil merchant who, during the first Roman-Jewish War (66-73 CE), tried to keep his fellow citizens from engaging in battle with the Romans, but when the town was captured and burned by them and the surrounding pagan population, he rose up and, falling upon the assailants with his army, defeated them. He then rebuilt Giscala, making it more beautiful than it had been before, and fortified it with walls. He seems also to have secured the means by seizing and converting into money the grain gathered from Upper Galilee for the emperor. Giscala held out the longest among all the cities of Galilee. Finally Titus attacked it with 1,000 horsemen. But it being the Sabbath, John requested a truce, and secretly escaped in the night with his warriors. The city surrendered the next day, and Titus had the walls razed and the fugitive inhabitants massacred (67 CE). After the destruction of the Second Temple, during the days of the amoraim and tannaim, Gush Halav/Jish remained a largely Jewish town. It was even mentioned in the Mishnah and had strong commercial ties with the Phoenician/Israelite city-state of Tyre. One of the most prominent of the tannaim who live in Gush Halav/Jish was one Eleazar b. Simeon, described in the Talmud as a very large man with tremendous physical strength. He was initially buried in his hometown but later reinterred in Meron, next to his father, Shimon bar Yochai, credited as the originator of kabbalah.

On the summit of the hill on which Gush Halav/Jish stands is a Phoenician Maronite church with the remains of an ancient synagogue beneath it. At its foot, near a spring, are the ruins of a second synagogue, excavated by German archaeologists Heinrich Kohl and Carl Watzinger in 1916, in which an Aramaic inscription was found on a column mentioning a certain Yose ben Tanhum and dated to between 250–551 CE. It was destroyed in the earthquake of 551 but was rebuilt soon after. In a nearby mausoleum, archaeologists also found several skeletons, oil lamps and a glass bottle dating to the fourth century CE as well as several Jewish-Christian amulets.

In 1172, the Jewish traveler Benjamin of Tudela found about 20 Jews living in Gush Halav/Jish. Ishtori Haparchi attended a megilla reading when he visited in 1322. Gush Halav continued to have a strong Jewish community at least until the 15^th century.

In October 1948 when the town was taken by the Israeli army, the Muslim Arabs left and the Phoenician Maronite inhabitants of the neighboring Kafr Birʿim came to settle in the village soon afterwards. Since then, the majority village population has been Phoenician Maronites.

In December 2010, a hiking and bicycle path known as the Coexistence Trail was inaugurated, linking Jish with Dalton, a neighboring Jewish village. The 1 ½ mile trail, accessible to people with disabilities, sits half a mile above sea level and has several lookout points, including a view of Dalton Lake, where rainwater is collected and stored for agricultural use.

Today Jish is known for its efforts to revive Aramaic as a living language. In 2011, the Israeli Ministry of Education approved a program to teach the language in Jish elementary schools. Maronites in Jish say that Aramaic is essential to their existence as a people, in the same way that Hebrew and Arabic are for Jews and Arabs.