Yonatan and I had set off towards the Netofa valley to visit Horvat Amudim, but as we reached the valley's north eastern edge at Eilabun, I suddenly remembered that the site of ancient Beit Netofa was right there, and we took a dirt road along the edge of the valley in search of it.
Beit Netofa valley, looking west. The meandering white line is the Beit Netofa Canal of Israel’s National Water Carrier
Covering 46 square kilometres of flat, arable farmland, the Beit Netofa valley (in Arabic, Sahl ˀal-Baṭūf, referred to in Crusader documents as Vallée Battof) is the largest valley in the mountainous part of the Galilee and one of the largest in the southern Levant. First referred to in the Mishna and later in mediæval rabbinical literature, receiving its name from the Roman-era Jewish settlement of Beit Netofa which stood at its north-eastern edge. The valley is long and narrow and ringed by steep hills, with fatty clay soil relatively impermeable to water, leading to seasonal winter flooding, a phenomenon already described in the 14th century by medieval Arab geographer Al-Dimashqi; today it is still subject to flooding. Because of this, together with the land's high agricultural value, villages have only ever been established at the margins of the valley―where the terrain starts rising, as in the case of Beit Netofa―or on two isolated tels at Tel Hanaton (Tell Bedeiwiyeh) at its western end, and Tell el-Wayiwa at its eastern end.
The Beit Netofa Canal of Israel’s National Water Carrier travels west through the valley floor until it reaches the two Eshkol reservoirs, where the water is cleaned and tested before flowing south towards the Negev.
The Beit Netofa Canal of Israel’s National Water Carrier―in a rare dry condition, presumably for maintenance.
Shortly we came to a sprawling farmstead, next to a low, flattish hill known as Horvat ('ruins of') Beit Netofa―whose name is preserved in its Arab name of Khirbet Natif. The site shows signs of habitation from the Iron Age, Persian and Roman periods up to mediæval times. In the Early Roman period, a concentration of Jewish settlements existed in and around the Beit Netofa and adjacent Beit Rimon-Tur'an valleys, including Horvat Beit Netofa, Horvat Ammudim, Bu'eina, Nimrin, Maskana and Lubya. The modern, religious, community settlement of Mitzpe Netofa―on the summit of Mount Tur'an, which separates the Beit Netofa and Tur'an valleys―is named after ancient Beit Netofa, which is directly to its north across the valley. It was founded in 1981.
Horvat Beit Netofa, from the east, covered in autumnal columns of Squill (חצב מצוי)
The Talmud relates that, following the destruction of the Temple at the end of the First Jewish Revolt, and the displacement to the Galilee of the bulk of the remaining Jewish population of Judea at the end of the Bar Kochba Revolt, the descendants of each priestly watch established separate residential seats in the towns and villages of the Galilee, and maintained this residential pattern for at least several centuries in anticipation of the reconstruction of the Temple and re-institution of the cycle of priestly courses. Specifically, this Kohanic settlement region stretched from the Beit Netofa Valley, through the Nazareth region to Arbel and the vicinity of Tiberias.
Clay handles, Horvat Beit Netofa
There is relatively little to see on the tel, in comparison to other sites, though the ground is littered like gravel with clay shards―including bowl and handle fragments in grey and orange terracotta―and field stones. There are also remains of roughly-dressed stones, and apparently some column shafts exist, though we did not find them. Some of the masonry has been gathered by Arab shepherds to form enclosures on the tel at some time in the past, and there are a number of cisterns whose openings have been blocked with large rocks. The most interesting visible evidence is the foundations of a large building, with some post holes in the bed rock; this may have been a synagogue. I cannot find any evidence that the site has yet been excavated. There is a large spring, Ein Netofa, still in use, which flows year round, further to the west, which we did not get to.
Scenes at Horvat Beit Netofa (hover over the pictures to view the captions)
On descending to where we left the car, opposite the farmstead, an old Arab gentleman was sitting atop an equally ancient red tractor, patiently awaiting us, next to our car. He asked us what we were doing, and quizzed us where we were from, and whether we had lit fires or taken antiquities. He clearly saw himself as some sort of guardian of this ancient site, telling us how he sometimes had to call the Antiquities Authority when people started fires there. Having introduced ourselves, shook his hand, and reassured him, he naturally asked us back to the farmstead for the obligatory Arab hospitality. Mahmoud Ibrahim―who must have been in his seventies at least―was the last remaining of six brothers, whose grandfather was from Turkey. He spent the first three decades of his life in Haifa, where he became a worker in metal. He was known as Ibrahim ha’Americani as he knew how to take apart American machinery and put it back together again. But deciding he wanted a quieter life, he bought a parcel of land from the government at Horvat Beit Netofa in 1972, where he has been ever since. He said that when he first came to it, he asked the etz kotzim (thornbush) what he was doing there, and it replied that there was good soil and good air. As we sat in the shade next to what any westerner would call a shack hardly fit to live in, sipping water from the spring of Ein Netofa, and thick Arab coffee, the constant breeze was indeed refreshing.
Ibrahim―whose wife only briefly showed her face, passing the coffee to one of her sons to serve to us―had five sons and two daughters. One of the sons had developed the “ego of wealth that leads us Arabs to go abroad” which Ibrahim bemoaned, telling us how the state of Israel provided everything that one needed in this land that compared with no other. That son died in a car accident in Europe, leaving a wife and children.
Ibrahim asked us where we were from―both now and originally―and claimed he never heard of England and did not need to know about it! He retold the stories of Nebi Muza―Moshe Rabeinu, Moses―and was keen thereby to demonstrate that we are all brothers, all G-d’s children, and all doomed if we try to be our own gods.
By the time we took our leave of Ibrahim, it was time to get home for Shabbat; we never did get to Horvat Amudim! Ibrahim invited us to come again, as we left. Just for his coffee and hospitality we shall do so! But also because―can you believe it―we completely forgot to take his photograph for this blog!