Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Remnants of Talmudic-Era City Found

Archaeologists working in the lower Galilee have discovered remnants of an elaborate synagogue from the Talmudic period at Khirbet Hukuk, where a Jewish city once stood.

The synagogue dates back to somewhere between the fourth and sixth centuries, during the late Roman or early Byzantine period. The site is located above the northwestern shore of the Sea of Galilee, near Kibbutz Hukuk.

The existence and location of the ancient synagogue were recorded by Rabbi Ishtori Haparchi in his Book of Bulb and Flower, the first Hebrew geography of the Land of Israel, written in the fourteenth century, and by archaeological surveys conducted in the area in the more recent past.

The surveys revealed decorative architectural elements, which were characteristic of the elaborate synagogues built in the Galilee during the period. The recent dig unearthed sections of the synagogue, including an ornate wall made of large hewn stones and a mosaic floor.

“The jewel in the crown of the discoveries this season is the colorful mosaic floor, which is of very high quality,” explained Dr. David Amit of the Israel Antiquities Authority, one of the bodies supervising the dig.

For more, go to Haaretz.com

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

2X match on all Passover gifts!

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:

  • Credit the Forward
  • Retain our pixel
  • Preserve our canonical link in Google search
  • Add a noindex tag in Google search

See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.