Mount Tabor

Geography

Mount Tabor rises abruptly from the flat landscape of the Lower Galilee, its near-perfect dome shape reaching 575 meters high and towering some 450 meters above the town of Kfar Tavor below. Geologically, it is a monadnock, not volcanic, and stands as a distinct formation separate from the nearby Nazareth mountains. Two Christian monasteries sit atop the mountain: a Catholic one on the southeast side and a Greek Orthodox one on the northeast side, with the Catholic church clearly visible from a distance. The base of the hill is nearly encircled by the Arab villages of Daburiyya, Shibli, and Umm al-Ghanam. Access to the summit is via a road from Shibli, off Highway 65. A five-kilometer hiking trail begins in the Bedouin village of Shibli and forms part of the Israel National Trail.

History

Mount Tabor's strategic value came from its location at an important road junction: Via Maris passed there from the Jezreel Valley northward towards Damascus. Its bulgy formation above its environment gave it strategic value and wars were conducted in its area in different periods. The mountain is mentioned for the first time in the Hebrew Bible in Joshua 19:22 as border of three tribes: Zebulun, Issachar and Naphtali. According to the Book of Judges, Deborah summoned Barak and gave him God's command, 'Go and draw toward mount Tabor, and take with thee ten thousand men of the children of Naphtali and of the children of Zebulun' (Judges 4:6).

Descending from the mountain, the Israelites attacked and vanquished Sisera and the Canaanites. In the Second Temple period, Mount Tabor was one of the mountain peaks on which it was the custom to light beacons in order to inform the northern villages of Jewish holy days and of the beginning of new months. In 55 BCE, during a Hasmonean rebellion against the Roman proconsul of Syria, Aulus Gabinius, Alexander of Judaea and his army of 30,000 Judeans was defeated in battle at Mount Tabor.

As many as 10,000 Jewish fighters were killed in the battle and Alexander was forced to flee, apparently to Syria. In 66 CE, during the First Jewish-Roman War, the Galilean Jews retrenched on the mountain under the command of Yosef Ben Matityahu, better known as Josephus Flavius. Itabyrium, as Josephus calls it, was one of the 19 sites fortified by the rebels in Galilee under his very orders. Vespasian sent an army of 600 riders, under the command of Placidus, who fought the rebels.

Placidus understood that he could not reach the top of the steep mountain with his forces, and therefore called the fortified rebels to walk down the mountain. A group of Jewish rebels descended from the mountain, supposedly, in order to negotiate with Placidus, but they attacked him. The Roman forces initially retreated, but while they were in the valley, they returned towards the mountain, attacked the Jewish rebels, killed many of them, and blocked the road for the remaining rebels who tried to flee back to the top of the mountain.

Many of the Jewish rebels left Mount Tabor and returned to Jerusalem. The rest of the fortified rebels in the fortress on the mountain surrendered after their water ran out. They then handed over the mountain to Placidus. After the destruction of the Second Temple, Jewish settlement on Mount Tabor was renewed.

Of the New Testament, the gospels relate that Jesus brought Peter, James, and his brother John onto a high mountain, and that Jesus became radiant there. However, none of these accounts identifies the 'high mountain' of the scene by name. The earliest identification of the Mount of Transfiguration as Tabor is by Origen in the 3rd century. This early speculation is recounted by St. Cyril of Jerusalem and St. Jerome in the 4th century.

It is later recounted in the 5th-century Transitus Beatae Mariae Virginis. Due to the importance of Mount Tabor in Christian tradition, from the 4th century onward it became a pilgrimage site. According to descriptions of the pilgrims, during the 6th century there were three churches on the top of the mountain. During the 8th century there were four churches and a monastery on the mountain.

During the Arab Caliphate period, in 949, a battle occurred on Mount Tabor between different factions over the control of Palestine on behalf of the Abbasid Caliphate. During the period of the Crusades, the mountain changed hands many times between Muslims and Christians. In 1099 the Crusaders fortified the area of the monastery which was on the peak of the mountain, in order to protect the pilgrims from Muslim attacks. In 1101, when Crusaders controlled the area, the Benedictine monks rebuilt a ruined basilica and erected a fortified abbey.

In 1212 the mountain was occupied by the Ayyubid Sultan Al-Adil I who built a large fortress at its top, which was unsuccessfully besieged by the armies of the Fifth Crusade in 1217, but in 1229 it was again occupied by the Christians. In 1263, the Mamluk ruler Baibars occupied the fortress and destroyed the buildings on the mountain. In 1799, during the time of Napoleon Bonaparte's Syrian expedition, in the valley between Mount Tabor and the Hill of Moreh, the Battle of Mount Tabor was fought in which a French force of about 3,000 soldiers under the command of Napoleon and general Kléber won against an Ottoman force of about 35,000 soldiers.

Jews lived in rural villages in the area in the mid-19th century, where they farmed the land. At the end of the 19th and the beginning the 20th century, the Bedouin tribe Arab Al-Sabehi settled on the mountain. It was one of the strongest tribes in that region. During the 1948 Arab–Israeli War members from the Arab Al-Sabehi tribe joined the Arab Liberation Army of Fawzi al-Qawuqji and amongst others killed seven members of Kibbutz Beit Keshet.

At the start of May 1948 the Golani Brigade occupied Mount Tabor. Most members of the tribe were forced out to Syria and to the Kingdom of Jordan, except for one branch of the tribe, the clan of Shibli, whose members refused to leave their land. After the war their village was established, Arab Al-Shibli, which is nowadays part of the village Shibli-Umm al-Ghanam. The Bedouin village was admitted as a tourist village by the Israeli government.

Many tribes in the region, like Arab-Al Hieb, began their military cooperation with the Jewish underground forces before the establishment of the state, in the late 1930s. Since the late 1960s many of the tribesmen joined the Israeli security forces (such as IDF, Border Police).

Landmarks

It only states that at the top of the mountain are two Christian monasteries, one Catholic on the southeast side and one Greek Orthodox on the northeast side, and that the Catholic church at the top is easily visible from afar.