The Byzantine-era synagogue and adjoining spring at Ein Keshatot, known in Arabic as Umm el-Kanatir (the Mother of Arches) – one of the most important Jewish historic sites in the Golan Heights – was rededicated Monday by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu following a 15-year reconstruction.
The synagogue, with its ornately carved basalt Torah ark, was built in the 1st century but extensively renovated some 500 years later. The building, which collapsed in the catastrophic earthquake of 749 CE, measured 18 meters long by 13 meters wide, and is calculated to have been 12 meters high. That impressive size made it one of the biggest of the 30 ancient synagogues discovered in the Golan Heights.
