Free Republic

The name of the security guard who was killed in the shooting attack on Saturday night at the entrance to Ariel was allowed to be published: 23-year-old Vyacheslav Golev from Ariel left behind a fiancée, parents and seven brothers and sisters The security guard who was killed last night in the shooting attack in Ariel was allowed to be Vyacheslav Golev, 23, from Beit Shemesh. He is survived by parents and seven brothers and sisters. The security guard who was killed last night in the shooting attack in Ariel was allowed to be Vyacheslav Golev, 23, from Beit Shemesh. He...

Beit Nattif lamps. Photo: Yoli Schwartz, Israel Antiquities Authority. One of the largest ceramic oil-lamp workshops in Israel has been discovered by Israel Antiquities Authority excavations in Beit Shemesh. Hundreds of ceramic oil lamps, two bearing symbols of the menorah and stone lamp molds for their production were found along with terracotta figurines which were made about 1600–1700 years ago. In the past few months, the Israel Antiquities Authority excavations aided by dozens of pre-military program students. The large-scale archaeological excavations are being carried out prior to the establishment of a new neighborhood by the Ministry of Construction and Housing....

BEIT SHEMESH, Israel — The carved stone block is about the size of an occasional table. It has held its secrets for two millenniums. Whoever engraved its enigmatic symbols was apparently depicting the ancient Jewish temples. But what makes the stone such a rare find in biblical archaeology, according to scholars, is that when it was carved, the Second Temple still stood in Jerusalem for the carver to see. The stone is a kind of ancient snapshot. And it is upending some long-held scholarly assumptions about ancient synagogues and their relationship with the Temple, a center of Jewish pilgrimage and...

'A tiny seal has been uncovered that could be the first archaeological evidence of Samson, the Biblical slayer of Philistines. Archaeologists discovered the ancient artifact while excavating the tell of Beit Shemesh in the Judaean Hills near Jerusalem, Israel. It appears to depict the Old Testament story of Samson, whose might was undone by his lust for the temptress Delilah, and his fight with a lion. The seal, which measures less than an inch in diameter, shows a large animal with a feline tail attacking a human figure. The seal was discovered at a level of excavation that dates it...

New finds presented Tuesday from an intriguing site in the Judean Hills are part of a scholarly argument about the accuracy of the Bible The excavation at Hirbet Qeiyafa is currently one of the most important in the world of Biblical archaeology (Courtesy of Hebrew University of Jerusalem)Two rare 3,000-year-old models of ancient shrines were among artifacts presented by an Israeli archaeologist on Tuesday as finds he said offered new support for the historical veracity of the Bible. The archaeologist, Yosef Garfinkel of Hebrew University, is excavating a site known as Hirbet Qeiyafa, located in the Judean hills not far...

An American immigrant was attacked and beaten Sunday night in Beit Shemesh by a gang of ultra-Orthodox zealots, in what appears to be an escalation of tension between religious groups in the city. T., who is himself ultra-Orthodox, was kicked, beaten and threatened with further violence in an attack that landed him in the hospital. T.'s car windows were also smashed. T., who asked to go unnamed, has been active in trying to stem the recent tide of Haredi violence in the city. "A bunch of goons, maybe 20 or 30 guys, attacked me - it was like a pogrom,"...