THE ARBEL

A visit to the Arbel cliffs near Tiveria can be one of those wondrous experiences that remains with you for the rest of your life.  We were there a couple of weeks at the beginning of the Spring bloom of wild flowers. The following photo shows the top of the Arbel Plateau on the right and the twin cliff called Tzok Nitai, on the opposite side of the canyon.

Between the two shear rocky cliffs we see a field of yellow wild flowers probably a type of mustard plant.  In the distance we can just make out the northern tip of the Kineret despite the hazy visibility.  A young man and his two children are walking in the middle of the field of flowers on the way to visit the remains of the Talmudic village of Arbel and its Beit Kenesset.  From the far tip of the Arbel cliff to the right there is a breathtaking view of the entire Kineret Basin.

These cliffs along the shores of the lake are filled with deep caves that have served as places of hiding for refugees and the persecuted for Millennia.  Most recently, a Druze Emir from the 16th century, Faher al Din, built himself a fortress down the side of the cliff as a fortress against his enemies.  Prior to that in the year 38 BCE, the country was entangled in a civil war between Herod the Great and his Roman legions, and Antigonus last king of the Hashmonaim dynasty, aided by his Persian allies.  Herod lowered Roman legionnaires down the side of these steep cliffs in large baskets in order to attack and kill the Jewish refugees hiding in the caves.  About a hundred years after that, during the first Judean revolt, the Jewish rebels built a defensive wall across the tip of the Nitai cliff.  The attached photograph shows the toppled rocks of that wall still sitting where they fell, waiting to be discovered by the descendants of those defenders 2,000 years later.

 The Israeli Parks Authority has changed the route of the trail around the Arbel cliff in order to make it much more accessible to a broader range of people.  Now it is possible to complete a circular route from the parking lot that climbs up to the crest of the Arbel cliffs and descends into the valley about a third of the way down. The path then then loops across the front of the cliffs near some of the caves and comes back up not far from the parking lot where the hike began.  The total trip takes about 2-3 hours.

As you walk around and take in the view of the Kineret and the Golan Heights beyond, it is impossible not to take notice of the multitude of wild flowers on the way.

Finally, before you get into your vehicle to leave stop to admire the agricultural fields that cover the plateau as it stretches out below you.  The earth here is a fertile combination of common sedimentary rocks dotted with spots of igneous basalt rock from the ancient volcanic activity in the area typified by the dormant volcano with the twin peaks in the western horizon. That formation is more commonly known as Karnei Hittim but that is a story for another occasion.