Sajur (ساجور in Arabic, or סאג'ור in Hebrew) is a town of about 4,500 souls, all Druze, to the east of Karmiel and adjacent to Rameh. Built on the site of ancient Shezor, a Jewish town of the Mishnaic period, as attested by two extant tombs of the period and the grave of a high priest of the second Temple, on the southern edge of the town. Excavations in 1951, 1980 and 1993 in the centre of the town revealed, respectively, a further tomb with thirteen loculi that dated to the Roman–Byzantine periods, a tomb with eight or nine loculi dating to the end of the second century CE, and a small tomb with a single room dating to the first or second century CE. Sajur may be even older, with excavations in the first years of the twenty-first century having revealed evidence of Iron Age occupation. The Jewish town is remembered not only in the Arabic name of the current Druze town, but in moshav Shezor, a kilometre to the south, established in 1953 as a Nahal outpost and settled in the ensuing years by Jewish immigrants from Morocco.
But almost the only ancient structures visible today are the three tombs. What do we know of their provenance?
Beginning with the two Mishnaic tombs, the current structures around each is identical, a square, stone, 'horned', sarcophagus-shaped structure with a gated aperture, inside which is in each case what appears to be a part-buried stone sarcophagus of the Roman-Byzantine period (see pictures below). The tombs are surrounded by walls and are well-kept. However when, in 1875, Victor Guérin, the French explorer and archaeologist, passed by, although he noted that, "Dans le Talmud, cette localité est mentionnée sous le nom de Chizour, en hébreu שִיזור," he didn't mention any antiquities or tombs. He described Sajur briefly as "a small village, inhabited by Druze; it is located on a hill that was once completely covered with houses. At the bottom, some gardens are planted with fig, olive, pomegranate and mulberry trees." It is amongst these orcahrd, which are still on the edge of the town, that the tombs can be found.
Conder & Kitchener, in the Galilee volume of the Palestine Exploration Fund's monumental 1881 Survey of Western Palestine, provided more detail: "Seijûr is mentioned in 1210 CE by Rabbi Samuel bar Simson, as between Acre and Kefr 'Anân [Kfar Hananya]. He identifies it with the Shazor of the Talmud (Demai iv. 3), the home of Rabbi Shimon, whose tomb, with that of his son Rabbi Eleazar, was shown to him there. Isaac Chelo (1334 CE) [a rabbi of 14th century Larissa who is famous for an itinerary of the Holy Land] speaks of these tombs as square monuments of stone, with terebinth trees round them. These and other tombs are noticed also in the sixteenth century. Marino Sanuto [the Elder, the Venetian statesman and geographer] shows the place on his map in 1322 CE under the name Seggori. Two sacred places still exist near the village."
These two tombs are clearly the ones I described above, but their designations today are different, although it is possible that Conder and Kitchener confused the names. Today one is designated as belonging to the fourth generation Tanna (the rabbinic sages whose views are recorded in the Mishnah, from approximately 10–220 CE), Rabbi Shimon Shezori, a pupil of Rabbi Tarfon, and the other to Rabbi Shimon ben Eleazar, a fifth generation Tanna. (There are some who claim he is Rabbi Eleazar ben Shimon, which may account for Conder and Kitchener's designation and assumption that the one was the son of the other, but this is a personal theory!)
Rabbi Shimon Shezori's surname most obviously means 'of Shezor', as confirmed by most sources, but the Rambam (Rabbi Moses ben Maimon) suggests it may come from shezirah (שזירה), referring to his livelihood: spinning fibres. His work is frequently recorded in the Mishnah and Talmud. The tradition concerning his tomb can be traced at east as far back as Menachem ben Peretz of Hebron, who visited the area in 1215 and wrote about the tomb.
Next to the tomb is a grave of a Druze border policeman, Second Sergeant Hassan Hassan, seeming to indicate the propitious sighting for a grave next to a sage, even of another religion, that is not uncommon in the Galilee.
Sergeant Hassan was born in Sajur in 1930. In 1948 he enlisted as a volunteer in the Israel Defense Forces and later moved to regular service in the IDF, and graduated from officer's training. In 1953 he volunteered for the Border Police and served as a platoon commander. He was a serious man with a strong work ethic, but warm towards his wife and children spending a lot of time with his family. On 28 December 1957, Sergeant Hassan was on operational duty on a dirt road leading to kibbutz Kfar Glikson near Pardes Hanna. He was hit by a bullet and seriously injured and died on the way to the hospital, leaving his wife and three children. He is remembered on the official memorial website of the State of Israel.
Returning to the rabbis' tombs, a few metres away is that of Rabbi Shimon ben Eleazar, who was a leading student of Rabbi Meir, whose teachings he passed on. He is only mentioned a few times in the Mishna but numerous times in the Tosefta, Brisos and Talmud. For instance in the Talmud, in Ta'anit 20a-b, it is told that once, when returning in a very joyful mood from the academy to his native city, Rabbi Shimon met an exceedingly ugly man who greeted him. Rabbi Shimon did not return the greeting, and even mocked the man on account of his ugliness. When, however, the man said to him, "Go and tell the Master, who created me, how ugly His handiwork is," Shimon, perceiving that he had sinned, fell on his knees and begged the man's pardon. As the latter would not forgive him, Shimon followed him until they came to Shimon's city, when the inhabitants came out to meet him, greeting him respectfully as rabbi. The man thereupon said to them, "If this is a rabbi may there be few like him in Israel," and told them what had occurred; he, however, forgave Shimon when the people begged him to do so. Shimon went the same day to the school and preached a sermon, exhorting all the people to be pliable like a reed and not unbending like a cedar. Like his teacher Rabbi Meir, Rabbi Shimon engaged in polemic discussions with the Samaritans, who denied the resurrection, proving to them that the resurrection was taught in the Torah (Numbers 15:31).
No mention is made by Conder & Kitchener of any other grave, although the PEF map marks "Yusef el Gharib" ('Joseph the stranger' - possibly referring to Joseph the prophet, son of Jacob and Rachel) and "Benât Yakûb" ('daughters of Jacob'), so it is possible that the Druze or Moslems venerated one or more of the graves as a maqam (shrine). There is some scant mention in recent years of the tomb now accredited to Rabbi Yishmael ben Elisha, Cohen Gadol (High Priest), as having been a Druze shrine until modern times, but I have been unable to verify this. Whatever the truth, of the three, this tomb, a few metres from the other two, is the most developed, and is now sited inside a large study hall. Far from any possible change in status of the tomb causing a problem amongst the Druze, the study hall was apparently built, and is looked after, by the town council of Sajur. Indeed we found it unlocked and open, although deserted apart from a Druze caretaker who arrived on foot as we left.
Not that there isn't some evidence form Rabbi Yishmael having lived in Shezor. Ishtori Haparchi (the pen name of the 14th-century Jewish physician, geographer, and traveller, Isaac HaKohen Ben Moses), in his work Kaftor v'Perach ('Button and Flower', a phrase taken from the description of the menorah in Exodus 37:17, referring to its beauty and craftsmanship), states that, after the destruction of the Temple, Rabbi Yishmael moved to the Galilee and established his house in Shezor, as does Rabbi Shimon Shazori in his Sefer Yochsin ('Book of Pedigree'). The tomb is credited with miracle stories by the local Druze, who even participate, along with municipal dignitaries, in the annual yahrzeit (death anniversary) of Rabbi Yishmael, on 25 Sivan, which attracts large crowds of Jewish worshipers.
According to our Sages, Rabbi Yishmael ben Elisha was one of the prominent leaders of the first generation of Tannaim. He served as Cohen Gadol shortly before the destruction of the Second Temple. Some interpret the Sages as indicating that his father also served as Cohen Gadol, but there is no record of a High Priest by the name of Elisha.
Rabbi Ishmael was one of the Ten Royal Martyrs killed by the Romans in the period after the destruction of the Second Temple, as recounted in Midrash Eleh Ezkerah. His son and daughter were taken captive as slaves and, since they were both extremely beautiful, their respective owners decided to mate them together and share the offspring. They were brought together at night, when they could not see each other, but refused to cohabit. When they recognized each other in the morning, they embraced each other and cried until their souls departed. This story is recited in one of the Kinnot for Tisha B'Av, Ve'Et Navi Hatati. There are conflicting accounts of Rabbi Ishmael's martyrdom. The Avot of Rabbi Natan states that he and Shimon ben Gamliel were decapitated in quick succession, whereas the Midrash Eleh Ezkerah tells how Caesar's daughter was so taken by Ishmael's beauty that she ordered his head skinned while he was still alive so that she could stuff it with straw and preserve it, and this is how Ishmael died. Rabbi Yishmael was executed, together with Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel the Elder, on 25 Sivan 1870 (16 June 1890 BCE).
In the Babylonian Talmud, Berachot 7a, it is related how Rabbi Yishmael once entered the Holy of Holies, where G-d asked him for a blessing, and he replied by asking for God to treat Israel mercifully:
It was taught [in a baraita, a tradition in the Jewish oral law not incorporated in the Mishnah] that Rabbi Yishmael ben Elisha, [the High Priest, said:] Once, [on Yom Kippur,] I entered the innermost sanctum, [the Holy of Holies,] to offer incense, and [in a vision] I saw Akatriel Ya, the Lord of Hosts, [one of the names of G-d expressing His ultimate authority,] seated upon a high and exalted throne.
And He said to me: Yishmael, My son, bless Me.
I said to Him [the prayer that G-d prays:] “May it be Your will that Your mercy overcome Your anger,
and may Your mercy prevail over Your other attributes,
and may You act toward Your children with the attribute of mercy,
and may You enter before them beyond the letter of the law.”
[The Holy One, Blessed be He,] nodded His head [and accepted the blessing. This event] teaches us that you should not take the blessing of an ordinary person lightly. [If God asked for and accepted a man’s blessing, all the more so that a man must value the blessing of another man.]
With our visit over, we returned to Karmiel, pictured below from Sajur, and thence home for Shabbat.
