Givat HaMivtar#Archaeology

File:Mitzpe Oded Giv'at HaMivtar Jerusalem 3 July 10 2009 037.jpg

The hill on which Givat Hamivtar was established was the site of a Jordanian fort, one of a series of military installations blocking Jewish access to Mount Scopus and cutting off Hadassah Hospital, the Hebrew University, and the National Library of Israel from West Jerusalem.{{when|date=October 2011}}{{cite web |url=http://www.jerusalem.muni.il/jer_sys/picture/atarim/Toursite_form_atar.asp?site_id=8542&pic_cat=1&icon_cat=5&york_cat=8&type_id=318 |title=Ammunition Hill|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110617063656/http://www.jerusalem.muni.il/jer_sys/picture/atarim/Toursite_form_atar.asp?site_id=8542&pic_cat=1&icon_cat=5&york_cat=8&type_id=318|archive-date=17 June 2011|language=he}} The Jordanians called it Tal al-Mudura, lit. "round hill."{{cite web |url=http://noar.education.gov.il/main/upload/perut/nale1.doc |script-title=he:שער ראשון "אם אשכחך" |language=he |trans-title=The first gate, "If I forget thee" |publisher=Israel Ministry of Education |format=Microsoft Word doc |access-date=29 August 2014 }}{{Dead link|date=June 2024 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} Jordanian snipers used this strategic location to fire on Israeli troops during the Battle of Ammunition Hill. Givat HaMivtar was conquered by an Israeli tank force after two attempts. The first mission failed after an Israeli soldier was killed by friendly fire.{{cite news |author=Moshe Meir |date=30 April 2006 |script-title=he:אבי אבי |language=he |trans-title=Avi Avi |url=http://www.haaretz.co.il/news/health/1.1102067 |newspaper=Haaretz |access-date=29 August 2014}}{{cite web |author=Uri Milstein |url=http://www.faz.co.il/story?id=352&force_skin=print0 |script-title=he:קרב גבעת התחמושת כמשל |language=he |trans-title=The battle of Ammunition Hill as a parable |date=6 June 2002 |publisher=Faz |access-date=29 August 2014}}

The Jerusalem neighborhood of Givat Hamivtar was planned as part of a sequence of Jewish neighborhoods called the bariah or "hinge" neighborhoods[http://www.02net.co.il/site/templates/inPage.asp?catID=1&subID=17&docID=16698&SearchWord=%F9%EB%E5%F0%E5%FA%20%E4%E1%F8%E9%E7 סיור לאורך "הקו העירוני", אילן שפירא] {{dead link|date=May 2016|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}} connecting west Jerusalem to Mount Scopus. The name of the neighborhood means "bissected hill," either referring to the crisscross of Jordan bunkers that existed before the neighborhood was built, or the earthworks cutting through Mount Scopus to create a road from Jerusalem's Old City to Nablus.{{cite web |url=http://www.eshkolbagiva.org.il/Index.asp?ArticleID=5&CategoryID=46&Page=1 |script-title=he:גבעת המבתר ורמות אשכול |language=he |trans-title=Givat Hamivtar and Ramot Eshkol |publisher=Congregational administration of the neighborhoods French Hill, Givat HaMivtar, Tzameret Habira and Ramot Eshkol |access-date=29 August 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140903093749/http://www.eshkolbagiva.org.il/Index.asp?ArticleID=5&CategoryID=46&Page=1 |archive-date=2014-09-03 |url-status=dead }}{{cite web |url=http://2008.uploaded.fresh.co.il/2008/09/11/10469627.jpg |script-title=he:המיבתר במרומי הר הצופים |language=he |trans-title=HaMivtar atop Mount Scopus}} The earthworks cutting picture, early 1970s.

In July 1967, Prime Minister Levi Eshkol ordered government clerks to bypass the ordinary procedures to allow for Givat HaMivtar and the other hinge neighborhoods to be built as quickly as possible. When purchasing land encountered difficulties, some tracts were expropriated. To speed up the building process, land was subsidized by the government. Most of the homes in Givat HaMivtar were privately built. The majority of the homes were two-family homes, originally one-story high, to which a second and often a third floor was added over time.

Numerous archeological digs have been carried out in Givat HaMivtar.{{cite web |url=http://www.hadashot-esi.org.il/search.asp?q=%E4%EE%E1%FA%F8&site_name=&submit1=%E7%F4%F9&Writer=&permit= |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120821041648/http://www.hadashot-esi.org.il/search.asp?q=%E4%EE%E1%FA%F8&site_name=&submit1=%E7%F4%F9&Writer=&permit= |url-status=dead |archive-date=August 21, 2012 |script-title=he:כתב העת "חדשות ארכאולוגיות"] באתר רשות העתיקות |language=he |trans-title=Archaeological News }} Sepulchers discovered in the course of the digs were determined to be Jewish tombs of the Second Temple period.

One tomb yielded the only physical evidence for the Roman custom of crucifixion found to date.[https://web.archive.org/web/20110718171841/http://chesterrep.openrepository.com/cdr/bitstream/10034/40813/1/Some%20Notes%20on%20Crucifixion.pdf Some Notes on Crucifixion]{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EdbdQ-5fMr0C |author=David W. Chapman |title=Ancient Jewish and Christian perceptions of crucifixion |publisher=Coronet Books |year=2008 |isbn=9783161495793 |pages=86–89}}[https://web.archive.org/web/20040311065035/http://www.joezias.com/CrucifixionAntiquity.html Joe Zias, Crucifixion in Antiquity - The Anthropological Evidence]{{cite web |url=http://www.snunit.k12.il/heb_journals/galileo/008030.html |script-title=he:מעשה הצליבה |language=he |trans-title=Crucifixion |author=Merit Selvin |access-date=25 August 2014}}[http://www.imjnet.org.il/htmls/article_128.aspx?c0=13310&bsp=13802] {{Dead link|date=December 2019|bot=InternetArchiveBot|fix-attempted=yes}} עמוס קלונר ובועז זיסו, עיר הקברים של ירושלים בימי הבית השני, הוצאת יד יצחק בן צבי {{dead link|date=August 2014}} These were the remains of a person called Jehohanan Ben Khagqol, and they included a heel bone with a nail driven through it from the side. The tip of the nail was bent, perhaps because of striking a knot in the upright beam, which prevented it being extracted from the foot.

Another tomb, highly ornate, held the remains of the family of "Simon, builder of the temple" (Simon Bana Hekhalah), probably a builder of the Herodian Temple, as his name indicates.[https://www.ybz.org.il/_Uploads/dbsAttachedFiles/Article_106.2.pdf הקבורה המשפחתית והחוץ-משפחתית בירושלים ובסביבתה בתקופת בית הורדוס]דוד בנבנישתי סיורים בירושלים קירית ספר 1980 {{dead link|date=August 2014}}[http://www.museumsinisrael.gov.il/en/items/Pages/ItemCard.aspx?IdItem=ICMS_IMJ_227513 Image of the ossuary] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151222154457/http://www.museumsinisrael.gov.il/en/items/Pages/ItemCard.aspx?IdItem=ICMS_IMJ_227513|date=2015-12-22}} from the Israel Museum, Jerusalem, with extensive caption[https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/ossuary-bearing-an-aramaic-inscription-reading-simon-builder-of-the-temple/hQGSBSy2J5gGmQ?hl=en Image of the ossuary from the Israel Museum, Jerusalem]

A third archaeologically interesting tomb on Givat HaMivtar is that of "Abba, son [descendant?] of the priest Eleazar, son [descendant] of Aaron the high (priest)." The inscription is in Aramaic, but written in the by then anachronistic ancient Hebrew script. In the tomb prepared for his family, Abba, who had been exiled to Babylon, secretly brought back to Jerusalem and buried the remains of "Mattathiah son of Juda(h)".[https://web.archive.org/web/20110721145546/http://www.teva.org.il/_Uploads/dbsAttachedFiles/ktovot_bayit2.pdf כתובות מתקופת בית שני, המשנה והתלמוד] website of the Society for the Protection of Nature in IsraelS. Rosenthal, "The Giv'at Ha-Mivtar Inscription". IEJ 23 (1973), 72-81{{cite web |author=Samuel Safrai |url=http://lib.cet.ac.il/Pages/item.asp?item=14768 |script-title=he:ארץ - ישראל והתפוצה היהודית : ה. העלאת מתים לקבורה בארץ - ישראל |language=he |trans-title=The land of Israel and the Jewish diaspora: Raising of the dead for ritual burial in the land of Israel |access-date=29 August 2014}} Some believe that Mattathiah son of Judah was Antigonus II Mattathias, the exiled heir of the Kingdom of Judea.{{cite web |url=http://www.kinbooks.co.il/katava30?c0=21618&bsp=12700 |script-title=he:אילת נגב בראיון עם אמילי עמרוסי |language=he |trans-title=Eilat Negev interview with Emily Amrussi |date=May 2009 |access-date=29 August 2014 |archive-date=4 September 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140904181224/http://www.kinbooks.co.il/katava30?c0=21618&bsp=12700 |url-status=dead }} However, according to anthropologist Joe Zias, former Curator of Archaeology and Anthropology for the Israel Antiquities Authority, this theory is just little more than an urban myth, since the only beheaded skeleton found in 1971 and at the later reexamination of the previously untouched tomb, belonged to an elderly woman. In his view, no other set of remains found there could be associated with King Antigonus II.{{cite web|title=A Jerusalem tomb, 'blind leading the blind' or just another Day in Paradise? |author=Joe Zias |work=The Bible and Interpretation |publisher=Mark Elliott and Patricia Landy |date=April 2014 |url=https://bibleinterp.arizona.edu/articles/2014/04/zia388008 |access-date=24 December 2021}}{{cite web|title=Tomb Inscription at Givat Hamivtar |work=COJS Jewish History Database |publisher=Center for Online Judaic Studies (COJS) |date=12 January 2009 |url=http://cojs.org/tomb_inscription_at_givat_hamivtar |access-date=13 December 2015}}

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| alt2 = Joined Sepharadi and Ashkenazi synagogue

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Givat HaMivtar has only preschools and kindergartens. The elementary schools of Ramat Eshkol were built on the border between the two neighborhoods in order to serve them both. High schools are located on French Hill and Ma'allot Dafna.

The first synagogue in Givat HaMivtar was unique in that prayer services followed a non-specific nusach so that Jews of all ethnic groups could pray there.{{cite news |author=Avishai Ben Haim |date=8 February 2005 |url=http://www.nrg.co.il/online/11/ART/867/083.html |script-title=he:אדיר זיק הובא למנוחות |language=he |trans-title=Adir Zik was laid to rest |newspaper=Maariv |access-date=29 August 2014}} In the first decade of this millennium, many of the neighborhood's secular and Modern Orthodox residents have moved out, and ultra-Orthodox Jews have become a majority.{{cite news |author=Tamar Rotem |date=20 February 2008 |url=http://www.haaretz.com/news/beit-hakerem-the-last-secular-holdout-in-jerusalem-1.239732 |title=Beit Hakerem - The last secular holdout in Jerusalem |newspaper=Haaretz |access-date=29 August 2014}}
{{cite news |author=Ronit Mizrahi |author2=Mirav Shalom |date=28 April 2009 |url=http://www.nrg.co.il/online/54/ART1/884/085.html |script-title=he:בגובה העיניים עם שלמה רוזנר |language=he |trans-title=At eye level with Shlomo Rosner |publisher=NRG |access-date=28 August 2014}}

Since the mid-1980s, there is a Makuya center in the neighborhood.{{cite web |url=http://www.tapuz.co.il/blog/net/viewentry.aspx?EntryId=995993 |script-title=he:מרכז המקויה בירושלים |language=he |trans-title=The Makuya Center in Jerusalem |access-date=29 August 2014}}

• Shlomo Amar
• Gilad Atzmon
• Binyamin Ben-Eliezer
• Dror Etkes
• Joshua Matza
• Lilit Nagar
• Adir Zik

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{{Commons category|Giv'at HaMivtar}}

{{Neighborhoods of Jerusalem}}

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Category:Neighbourhoods of Jerusalem

Category:Six-Day War

Category:Archaeological sites in Jerusalem

Category:Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem

Category:1970 establishments in Asia

Category:Populated places established in 1970