Emek Ha'arazim (עמק הארזים)

The high viaduct of the new Tel Aviv-Jerusalem railway line

Amber and I decided to spend the day exploring Emek Ha'arazim (Cedar Valley) below Lifta, outside Jerusalem. Anyone who has driven along the Tel Aviv–Jerusalem highway will have seen the picturesque landscape of Arazim Valley to the north of the road; the entire valley floor and most of the surrounding slopes remain free of construction. Some areas have been planted; others are covered by farming terraces; and others still are covered with typical native shrubs. The valley contains a tributary of Nahal Soreq and is full of contrast: nature and modernity (it is surrounded and crossed by roads, railways and the high viaduct of the new Tel Aviv-Jerusalem railway line); ancient and modern agriculture, natural vegetation and introduced, ancient habitations and more modern ones. It is nevertheless a green lung, part of the Jerusalem Metropolitan Park.

At the springs of Einot Telem in the valley are the remains of a small Jewish settlement – Bet Talma. The land was purchased in 1906 and a building intended for a soap and oil factory was erected. The two-storey structure was never completed, and the site was abandoned until 1922, when five Jewish families settled there, naming their settlement Emek HaArazim. The site was abandoned during the 1929 Arab Riots, and further settlement attempts were unsuccessful.

The valley has been developed somewhat for leisure, so that when we visited the several recreation areas were full of people enjoying chol hamoed Pesach, but nevertheless we found deserted spots to explore. Amongst the terraced slopes of one of the side-valleys, along the dry stream bed of Nahal Luz, near to Ein Luz (the Luz spring) we came across Horvat Luz (in Arabic Khirbet a-Luza), the remains of a fortified Crusader farmhouse, possibly built atop Byzantine ruins. Built on three levels of the terraced hillside, the lowest is a massive enclosed stone pool, now empty, with walls 3 metres thick at the base and 2 metres at the top. On the middle level are the remains of a large building, the 8 x 20 metre basement of which remains intact. On the upper level of the complex are the remains of another building, which has two basements with vaulted ceilings. A doorway and a lintel built of dressed stones are also preserved, along with a narrow slit-like window. There is a spring above the farmhouse which may have fed the pool on the lowest level of the farmhouse. Hover over the pictures in the slideshow below to see some of these features of the farmhouse.

Another spring, Ein Luz, is below, and slightly downstream of the Crusader farmhouse, and was adopted by the fighters of the Yahalom (the IDF's Special Operations Engineering Unit), whose members maintain the site. For this reason it is thus also known as Ein Ya'elim.

Ein Luz

Above the valley on the Alona hill is Israel's memorial to 9/11, the Twin Towers Memorial. It was constructed by the Jewish National Fund to commemorate the victims of the terror attack in New York on September 11, 2001, following the suggestion of landscape architect, Yehiel Cohen, and artist, Eliezer Weisshoff, who conceived of the idea in 2002. The idea was presented to the Jerusalem Municipality and its twin city—New York. It was decided that the site should be next to the portal of the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv express train which was then being planned, and is now nearing completion, symbolically positioned directly in view of Har Hamenuhot, the main cemetery of Jerusalem. The monument was inaugurated on September 11, 2009.

Amber entering the memorial

The monument, containing a piece of the frame of the Twin Towers

The monument was designed in bronze and aluminum, and was inspired by an image of the American flag waving in the wind, as well as resembling a memorial flame. The pedestal of the monument contains a piece of molten steel from the frame of the collapsed Towers, which is visible through a glass pane. The names of all the people who perished are engraved around the monument.