Israeli Kids Help Excavate 900-Year-Old Crusader Fortress

Exploring Masada. Image by Liza Schoenfein

By Daniel J. Solomon June 20, 2017

Israel is home to some of the world’s richest archaeological treasures – from the Iron Age, to the time of the Hebrews, to the Middle Ages, through the modern period.

Now, students in the Modiin-Maccabim-Re’ut are helping uncover some of those antiquities, participating in excavation efforts near their hometown.

Recently, the kids participated in the find of precious jewelry from the Crusades, when a fortress stood on a site near their villages.

“You get to find things and then you can take pictures and remember the time that you found things from hundreds of years ago, and even more,” 9-year-old Kinneret Goodman told the Times of Israel.

Avraham Tendler, the leader of the excavation, credited the kids – who range from the 4th to 12th grade – for their help with the dig.

“The students and volunteers from Modiin have exposed the inner courtyard of the Crusader fortress. Here, the fortress’s occupants cooked and baked for hundreds of years during the Middle Ages, some 900 years ago,” he told the Times of Israel.

Contact Daniel J. Solomon at solomon@forward.com or on Twitter @DanielJSolomon

Daniel J. Solomon is the former Assistant to the Editor/News Writer at the Forward. Originally from Queens, he attended Harvard as an undergraduate, where he wrote his senior thesis on French-Jewish intellectual history. He is excited to have returned to New York after his time in Massachusetts. Daniel’s passions include folk music, cycling, and pointed argument.

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