I found the subject of this article in the Jewish Journal to be quite interesting.  How would a Jewish rabbi react to statues of Greek and Roman gods?  One point that the writer does not seem to recognize though is the ease with which hellenized cities could be avoided.  Just as one can easily live in Israel today and avoid the “pagan centers” of Tel Aviv and Eilat, it is not difficult to imagine the religious avoiding Beth Shean and Caesarea in the Roman period.  To give one example, there is no record that Jesus ever entered either city.

Imagine a rabbi encountering a statue of Zeus in Roman Palestine, circa 70 to 300 C.E. — a monotheist’s nightmare.
“The myth is that he would have uttered something like the Yiddish ‘gevalt,'” said professor Yaron Z. Eliav of the University of Michigan, who recently spoke about Jews and statues at the Getty Villa in Pacific Palisades. “We imagine he would have put his hand over his face, the way an ultra-Orthodox Jew might shield his eyes from a poster of a woman in a bikini.”
But the sages who wrote classical texts, such as the Talmud, could not afford to ignore such statues, which were like the mass media of the ancient world.
Images of gods, mythological monsters, sports heroes and emperors were everywhere: atop pedestals and in niches, adorning public buildings, temples, fountains and tetrapyla, the colonnaded structures marking street intersections. They were intended to be lifelike and often heavily painted, as revealed in the Getty’s new exhibition, “The Color of Life: Polychromy in Sculpture From Antiquity to the Present.”
“One could not have strolled heavily Jewish cities such as Tiberias or Caesarea without encountering Roman sculpture every step of the way,” said Eliav, as he strolled amid ancient statues at the museum. “While the assumption has been that the sages opposed everything Graeco-Roman, they were in fact far more sophisticated and varied in their response.”

The article continues here.

HT: Joe Lauer

This summer I was out scouting around trying to locate some sites on the Coastal Plain, including Ono, Eltekeh, and Bene-berak.  Bene-berak is mentioned in Josh 19:45; 21:45; 1 Chr 9:14; Neh 11:15.  The most likely location is el-Kheriyah, located about 3 miles south of the modern Israeli city of Bene-berak.  I wasn’t quite sure if I had found the right spot or not.  It wasn’t for lack of remains that I lacked certainty, but for an overabundance.  Today it was announced that the government is going to transform the Hiriya landfill into the “Ariel Sharon Park.”  While I’m not sure if I’d feel honored if a trash dump was named aft er me, I am hopeful that the $250 million project will make the ancient Israelite site accessible to tourists.

The Hiriya Landfill, located between Ramat Gan and Tel Aviv is a mountain of garbage that was used from 1952 until 1998. The government is now planning on transforming the site and the area around it into one of the largest parks in the country.The Hiriya site stretches out along 112 acres and the garbage mountain itself is elevated around 200 feet.
“The restoration project will transform Hiriya from a waste landfill into a flourishing, green park which will attract thousands of visitors each year, providing leisure and recreational opportunities as well as pleasant walks along its paths,” organizers say.
“Today is the opening shot in the building of this incredible park,” said Danny Shternberg of the Ayalon Park Government Company. “We are proud to name it for former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who was an enthusiastic backer of the idea, advancing the park himself.” Shternberg declined to comment on the unorthodox nature of deciding to name a park after someone who is still living.
The park will contain within it sheltered areas (such as the Menachem Begin Park), open areas, forested regions, agricultural tracts and man-made lakes and streams.
Archeological sites will also be refurbished and put on display. The ancient city of B’nei Brak, spoken of in the Passover Haggadah, lay at the site and an Arab village named Hiriya was built atop its ruins until its residents fled in 1948. Emergency plans when Israel feared an Arab victory in the 1967 Six Day War called for mass graves to be dug in the area for the expected Jewish casualties.

For more, see the Arutz-7 report.

Playground in modern Bene-Berak.  It’s pretty nice for a neighborhood park.  It doesn’t have any relation to the landfill, but it is certainly more picturesque than the subject of the story.  Apologies if it makes your kids jealous.

Several months ago a new museum opened at the foot of Masada. I won’t repeat the details about the museum that you can read in the Haaretz, JPost, and goisrael articles, but I’ll just add a personal comment from my recent visit: I found the displays to be beautifully presented, mentally stimulating, and historically accurate. Entrance requires a handheld audio guide, which costs about 20 NIS ($5), and no photos are allowed. The audio guide is more of a gimmick, as the text of the audio (and much more) is written on the displays. Overall, I recommend a visit to the museum, especially to those who are making a second visit to the site.
UPDATE (8/10): The Jerusalem Post has just posted a lengthy article about the museum.