Mordechai Aviam. The Life and Death of a Jewish Galilean Town

Presented by Mordechai Aviam, Senior Lecturer at the Department of Land of Israel Studies, Kinneret College on the Sea of Galilee, Senior Researcher in the institute for Galilean Archaeology Yodfat was a Jewish town in the mountains of Lower Galilee, north of Sepphoris. It started its Jewish life after the annexation of Galilee to the Hasmonean period around 110 BCE. The town was first mentioned by Flavius Josephus during his preparations for the Roman invasion at the beginning of the First Jewish Revolt. The excavation of the site started in 1992 and continued for seven seasons, during which evidence for the daily life of its inhabitants was uncovered, as well as evidence for the preparations for the war and the dramatic end. According to Josephus, the battle against the Roman army of 40,000 legionaries under the command of Vespasianus and Titus was forty-seven days of bloody siege, which ended with a heavy massacre, and fall into Roman hands. The David A. Kipper Ancient Israel Lecture Series