On the way up into the Golan Heights last Friday, travelling along route 87, which follows Nahal Yehudiya, we first espied on our right the ruins of ancient Yehudiya.
Josephus Flavius mentions this site in his chronicles Wars of the Jews (first book, chapter 20):
"Josephus also, when he had settled these rules for determining causes by the law, with regard to the people's dealings one with another, betook himself to make provisions for their safety against external violence; and as he knew the Romans would fall upon Galilee, he built walls in proper places ... in Gaulonitis he fortified Seleucia, and Sogane, and Gamla".
In this passage, which tells how Josephus fortified the villages of the Golan as he prepared for the First Jewish-Roman War in 66 CE, it is widely-accepted that Sogane is actually Yehudiya. After 1948 a Syrian settlement was built on the ruins of Yehudiya and given the name Arabiyeh (עְרַבִּיֶה) to obscure its Jewish past. However, findings at the site include remnants of an ancient Jewish settlement: part of a synagogue, capitols and carvings of Jewish artefacts. The site was abandoned by the Syrians during the Six Day War.
Yehudiya is now within the Yehudiya Forest nature reserve, though the village is within a firing range.
Further up the road, opposite the turning to Katsrin, is the 7th Armoured Brigade Memorial. Formed during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, the brigade took part in all of Israel's wars. In the Yom Kippur War, under the command of Colonel Avigdor Ben-Gal, it was stationed at the defence line of the northern part of the Golan Heights (sharing the defence with the Barak Armoured Brigade), where it successfully repulsed heavy attacks by much larger Syrian forces. Although the 7th Brigade once belonged to Israel's Southern Command. The 7th was based in the Golan Heights as part of the 36th Armoured Division from the end of the Yom Kippur War until February 2014.
Inaugurated in 1995, the gated memorial site (the gate is shaped in the silhouette of a tank) comprises a parade ground, an arena, a number of tanks, and a memorial hall and auditorium.
More photos of the tanks and around the memorial site follow below.
