Shomron Trip IV: Itamar

Previous posts in this series:
Shomron Trip I: The Ride to Shchem
Shomron Trip II: Mayim Chayim
Shomron Trip III: On Mount Grizzim

Yours truly, Itamar behind me.

We arrived in Itamar, unloaded from the bus, and were herded to the top of the hill.

Uh... what are we doing?

Made it to the top first, with my new binoculars.

Our guide, Menachem, gave us a brief rundown on the origins of Itamar. The place was actually founded by a garin (seed) group of yeshiva students from our very own Machon Meir. Originally, they had wanted to name it Tel Chayim (the hill of life,) but the government was opposed because there were already too many places with similar names. Looking through the pages of the Tanach, they realized that Itamar, son of Aharon the Cohen (and nephew of Moses himself) was buried a few kilometers down the road, in what is now the Arab village of Awarta. The name Itamar stuck.

At the top of the more heavily settled section of Itamar one finds the ancient ruins typical of almost every hilltop in Israel. Sifting through the rocks and rubble on the ground, one finds shards of loose pottery all around.

A piece of a pitcher handle.

Pottery shards strewn about.

Moving higher on the hill, one comes to an ancient mikvah. One way of proving the Jewishness of particular ancient ruins is to find a mikvah. In this case, there is evidence of two layers of civilization. First, one finds a mikvah, meeting the requirements of Jewish Halachah. However, notice on the bottom left of the entrance there seem to be the remains of steps. However, the steps were later removed. It seems clear that this was originaly a Jewish settlement, but later civilizations had no use for the mikvah and so chiseled off the steps, turning it into a cistern. Cisterns do not require steps because one need only drop in a bucket from above rather than completely immerse one's body.

A mikvah, hewn from the stones. You can see the remnants of the steps on the bottom left vertical wall.

Chisel marks pointing down and to the left, which would indicate that the chiseler was left handed. Also note the traced edges of the former steps.

Rebuilt terraces.

Another mikvah.

But today, Itamar is again a thriving Jewish settlement.

Flowers on fruit-bearing cacti.

A small farm house. On the next ridgeline is Awarta.

Afterwards we descend back to the more "thickly" settled area of Itamar. "Thickly settled," is, of course, a relative term out here.

Clusters of houses in Itamar, with Mount Eval seen in the background.

The modest homes of Itamar.

Unlike the neighboring community of Elon Moreh, Itamar subsists largely on agriculture. However, growing edible foods on the barren hilltops has proved to be much more challenging than in the valleys below. Our next stop is an organic hilltop farm.