Photos

One of the vitrage windows in Beit Gamal Monastery, near Jerusalem.

The architectural silhouette of a Florentine building over a hell, south of Bet Shemesh, is well known to Christian pilgrims and local visitors.

The building us the Catholic monastery called Bet Gemal and belongs to the Salesians came, there was a Muslim village called Beit Jimal and before them, the Byzantine Christians spread around with their villages and monasteries. Still earlier the place was inhabited by Roman owners sent there by the emperor Vespasian, and before them, Bet Gemal belonged to rich Jewish people who settled there probably at the time of the Hasmonaean rulers.

Yet, the history of Bet Gemal and the surroundings ges father back, up to the legendary figure of Samson of Zorah, and the people of Beth Shemesh, who, first among the Jews, welcomed the Ark of Yahweh, which had been sent back to them by the Philistines