The Musta’arib Jews Who Have Lived In The Land Of Israel For More Than 3300 Years

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UPDATE 9 am Israel time Sunday:

At around 9:30 pm last evening, an IDF reserve soldier was attacked near the Jewish community of Shavei Shomron by Palestinian terrorists who attempted to kidnap him and steal his weapon. He managed to make it safely to his nearby base and a search for the terrorists is continuing this morning.

TODAY’S BLOG:

Margalit Zinati: the last remaining member of a Jewish family that has lived in Peki'in Israel since the destruction of the Second Temple on the 9th of Av in 70 CE--and in the land of Israel for over a thousand years before that.

Put things in perspective.

Think about all the dangers that Israelis face on any given day: PLO/PA assaults and attempted kidnappings in Judea and Samaria,  Hezbollah terrorism against tourists, rockets from Palestinian Hamas Gaza, possible chemical and nerve gas attacks from Syria, and threatened nuclear annihilation from Iran.

But what if your family had survived the Assyrian invasion of 715 BCE during which hundreds of thousands of your neighbors and friends were slaughtered and taken off into captivity–never to be seen again? And then had managed to survive the Babylonian invasion of 586 BCE which saw the First Temple destroyed and, again, hundreds of thousands of your neighbors and friends killed or taken off into captivity?

Or the three Roman wars from 70-135 CE during which the Second Temple was destroyed and over a million of your fellow Jews were massacred and hundreds of thousands more carted off into servitude? And yet you were still there when the Arabs came in 637 CE, and the Crusaders came in 1099 CE, and the Turks came in 1519?

There are ancient Jewish communities and families living in Israel today who have lived continuously in the land of Israel for over 3300 years. These Jews are called the Musta’arib and they live in isolated pockets in Jerusalem, Tzfat (Safed), and in the northern Galilee.

Take, for example, the tiny village of Peki’in which is located at the base of Mt. Meron near the Lebanese border. Today, Peki’in is composed mainly of Israeli Arabic Druze and Christians. But there is also Margalit Zinati and her small group of ancient Jews.

But before we get to Margalit, a little bit about the history of that community of Peki’in Jews. . .

Their history is a book in itself, but suffice it to say that the community was formed by three priestly families from the Second Temple who managed to escape the destruction and massacres in Jerusalem in 70 CE to make their way north–carrying with them stones from the destroyed Second Temple and two stone tablets.

One of the stone tablets in the Peki'in synagogue--brought from Jerusalem by the three families 1,942 years ago. Note the menorah, shofar, and lulav.

The front edifice of the Peki'in Synagogue--built on the site of the ancient synagogue: both synagogues were built by Margalit Zinati's ancestors.

Two hundred years later, the descendants of these families used the stones from the Second Temple and the tablets they brought with them from Jerusalem in the construction of a synagogue that was destroyed and rebuilt numerous times over the course of centuries because of earthquakes. Today’s synagogue in Peki’in (built in 1873) is built on the site of the ancient synagogue and still contains the same stone tablets and stones from the Second Temple.

And so Jewish life in Peki’in continued until the 1930s when the community was largely wiped out by Arab pogroms. All of those who survived were forced to flee to other locales in Israel.

Some of the Peki'in Jewish community in the early 1930s.

Only Margalit Zinati’s family–direct descendants of one of the three priestly families who escaped Jerusalem in 70 CE–returned two years later. Over the years, Margalit’s family has slowly passed away, and sadly, Margalit–who never married–is the last of her family’s line. Today, this remarkable woman is revered throughout Peki’in and throughout the northern Galilee. She, alone, keeps the keys of the Peki’in synagogue, and if one knocks on her door, she will gladly take you across the street and show you the wonders of that synagogue.

So when you hear people tell you about how Jews first came to Israel in 1947 or that Jews have no connection to the land of Israel, remember Margalit Zinati and her fellow Musta’arib Jews who have lived in the land of Israel since before the time of King Saul and King David–since time immemorial.

By the way, your humble servant will be knocking on Margalit’s door next month–and, of course, will tell you about the experience.

Addenda:

Margalit Zinati is even on youtube. Click on this link to see her and her friend Hoda preparing food. 

As sad as the end of the Zinati family will be, the good news is that another family descended from the original three Peki’in families of two thousand years ago moved back to Peki’in in the 1950s–and so the the Jewish community will not come to an end with Margalit. And apparently there is now a waiting list of 50 more families anxious to move to Peki’in.

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