Gary’s Q&A

Listener question & Gary’s response · Transcript passage

Sara Fredman Aeder asks, What spots in Israel outside of Jerusalem do you think are worth the visit?

The good thing is that Israel is a pretty small country, so you can actually visit quite a bit just by taking day trips outside of Jerusalem.

The place which is closest is Beit Guvrin-Maresha National Park. This is a collection of huge caves which were actually excavated by hand. There are also active archeological digs in the city of Maresha where the public can take part in a dig.

Normally, archeologists wouldn’t let the public do this, but what they are excavating are actually garbage pits, so there isn’t as much in the way of stratigraphy to worry about.

Another recommendation would be the Nahal Me’arot Nature Reserve. This is located on Mount Carmel and is not far from Haifa. It is one of the most important sites for documenting early humans and human evolution.

Masada can be visited on a day trip and it will give you an excellent view of the entire Dead Sea.

I’d also recommend visiting one of the tels. A tel is a human settlement that over the course of thousands of years, developed into an artificial hill as people continuously built up on top of the ruins of what came before them.

There are three in Israel which have UNESCO World Heritage Status: Megiddo, Hazor, and Beer Sheba. Beer Sheba is probably the closest to Jerusalem, but Megiddo is probably the most interesting and best to visit. I’ve been to all three, and I recommend checking out the ancient water systems that they developed. They were quite sophisticated.