NAVEH

ruins of ancient Naveh (Nawa), courtesy, Wikipedia

The city of Nawa, originally Naveh, is today located in the Arab-occupied part of the Golan Heights, just a few miles east of the Israeli portion of the Golan in the Arab-occupied country of Syria. The Arab occupation authorities have made this town, with a population, as of this writing, of over 59,000 Arab settlers, a part of their so-called province of Daraa Governorate. (The town of Daraa is named after the ancient Jewish town of Edre’i, located some 20 miles to the south.) As with the majority of places in the Arab-occupied territories of the Middle East and North Africa, including Naveh, most, or all, vestiges of a Jewish presence, ancient or otherwise, have been mostly obliterated (with the enthusiastic support of the United Nations and the EU).

During the time of Joshua, Naveh, as with the entirety of today’s governorate, was allotted to the eastern half of the Israelite tribe of Menashe. It was probably identical to the town of Nobah, mentioned in Numbers 32:42. It supposedly became the burial place of Shem, son of Noah, ancestor of the Shemiim, the Semites, and was also known as the dwelling place of the Hebrew prophet Job. Naveh had been a mostly Jewish hamlet for centuries but experienced a period of immense growth during the Roman and Byzantine eras. The city was mentioned in the 3rd century “Mosaic of Tel Rehov” (in the Bet She’an area of the Jordan Valley). In the 5^th century, it was a seat of Torah learning and Rabbi Tanhuma bar Abba, amora of the 5^th generation, lived there. Naveh was also referred to by the Byzantine Christian traveler and geographer George of Cyprus in his "Descriptio orbis romani" in the 7th century.  It still contained a small Jewish community in the Middle Ages, but eventually, the Jews moved away. In the early 19^th century, two German archaeologists discovered the ancient synagogue in the area and began to study its lintel above the doorway entrance. It was found that this lintel had been dated to the fourth to fifth centuries. In later years, archaeologists would come across numerous other findings, notably the discovery of basalt architectural artifacts dating to the Byzantine period and bearing Jewish symbols—most prominently the menorah.