Talk:Tomb of Samuel

"in Israel"

Categories such as "Category:Archaeological sites in Israel" do not belong on articles about locations seized during the Six-Day War. Those territories are regarded by virtually all reliable sources, up to and including the International Court of Justice, as being foreign territory under Israeli military occupation, not a part of Israel. Even Israel's own Supreme Court regards it as an occupation. Also, avoid reverting without so much as an edit summary. <eleland/talkedits> 18:42, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

I disagree. It can be categorized as 'in Israel', as long as it is also categorized as 'in the Palestinian territories'. The status of these territories is disputed, and they don't officially belong to any country, so it's not wrong to categorize it under the country which de facto administers the archeological site. -- Ynhockey ^(Talk) 21:04, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

What about West Bank ? Ceedjee (talk) 21:10, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

The status is "disputed" according to the Israeli Foreign Ministry, FOX news, and possibly the Voice of America. It's "occupied" according to the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the Financial Times of London, the Associated Press, Agence France Presse, the BBC, CNN, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, six United Nations Security council resolutions, countless UNGA resolutions, the European Union, and most importantly the recent 14-1 decision of the International Court of Justice that "The West Bank, including East Jerusalem" are "Occupied Palestinian Territories."

Views that are held by a tiny minority should not be represented except in articles devoted to those views. To give undue weight to a significant-minority view, or to include a tiny-minority view, might be misleading as to the shape of the dispute. <eleland/talkedits> 06:19, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Location

Location of the Tomb of Samuel is the West bank of the Palestinian territories, not Israel. --Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 16:02, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

It's actually in Jerusalem. Not Israel proper and not the West Bank proper. And it might be best to list it only as that until Jerusalem's status is resolved in the eyes of the UN.206.181.86.98 (talk) 22:29, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

To reply to this old message, it is not in the Jerusalem municipal area. The boundary runs between this site and Ramot. Zero^talk 08:15, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

Over time practically every ancient Jewish traveler mentioned the place and its synagogue

"Over time practically every ancient Jewish traveler mentioned the place and its synagogue."

This statement is on a official Government of Israel website from Israeli Ministry of Tourism.

http://www.goisrael.com/Tourism_Eng/Tourist%20Information/Jewish%20Themes/Jewish_Sites/Pages/The%20tomb%20of%20Samuel%20the%20prophet%20jew.aspx

--TiberiasTiberias (talk) 10:31, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

The Israeli Ministry of Tourism is not an authority on history, nor is it an objective source regarding sites in the occupied territories. It obviously fails WP:RS for this information. Besides that, the statement is meaningless. What does "over time" mean? From when to when? Then how do we know what "practically every ancient Jewish traveler" mentioned? Some number of Jewish travelers, a tiny tiny fraction of the unknown total, left a description of their journeys and some referred to this place. Many wrote things that may or may not refer to this place, getting confused between here and Rantis (note 1) and specifying the location incorrectly. Further, illustrating the bias of the source, most of the travelers' accounts that exist about this place, and there are many, were not Jewish but Christian; some were Muslim (note 2). The body of Christian pilgrims' accounts of the Jerusalem area is far larger than all others together. This place was sacred to all three religions. To get a balanced account we need a historian, not a government department which publishes maps that don't even show the Green Line. Zero^talk 11:34, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

Note 1: Benjamin of Tudela thought Ramla was Ramah and the tomb was at Shiloh, but perhaps he had the place right and the name wrong; we need a historian to tell us. R' Shmuel b. Samson (visited 1210) said the tomb was at Ramathaim. He might have meant this place but it's a guess since Ramathaim (Aramathea) is identified with Rantis, the traditional site of Samuel's birth. However R' Jacob (ca. 1240) seems to have the right place, calling it Ramah. Note 2: Christians Theodosius, Procopius, Adomnan, Epiphanus were all before the Crusades, with a huge number after the Crusades. Muslims included Yaqut, Muqadessi, Chelebi, etc.. Zero^talk 11:34, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

Nachalat Yisrael - Rama: does it belong here?

What I found today here in the article regarding Nachalat Yisrael-Rama was unsourced (maybe translated from the Hebrew article?). Bidspirit is the only online English-language source I could locate that mentions more than just the name. However, it's just a pretentious auction portal, with obvious access to good sources, but very messy in putting together its material. My main problem is that it places Nachalat Yisrael-Rama where Ramot stands today, i.e. near Nebi Samwil (1.3 km away), but NOT right there. If that proves to be true, then the whole paragraph should be moved to the Ramot page! But Bidspirit is not really trustworthy: the old moshava could in no way cover the same area as the modern neighbourhood, as claimed; Bidspirit sets WWI before 1906 (!), and if it's not plain carelessness, maybe it means that the first inhabitants moved in in 1916, not 1906 (typo), which would be the year when the Sinai and Palestine campaign began, but WWI had already been underway elsewhere for two years; Bidspirit also claims that Jewish settlements were again built there after 1948, which cannot be - the area fell to Jordan! One cannot fully dismiss Bidspirit, a) because there's nothing else online, and b) because it has lots of other, plausible and useful data. @Zero0000: hi, the maps I have, some from you, are either too old (SWP), or too recent (1940s). This Nachalat Yisrael-Rama apparently existed between c. 1906 (?) and 1929. Do you have a map from that period, or some other useful register or gazetteer? Right now we have a ghost on the page. Thank you. Arminden (talk) 23:08, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

This is a tough one, though one easy part is that the auction site is absolutely unreliable and must be removed. I didn't find any maps yet. The 1922 census does not show a Jewish population anywhere near here. A 1922 JNF map of Jewish settlements in Palestine shows nothing here, though a 1940s map shows spots of Jewish ownership. The 1945 Village Statistics for the village lands of En Nabi Samwil show about 25% Jewish ownership. I found some references that are Hebrew books I don't have access to. I found that the Nahalath Israel Ramah Cooperative Society Limited was registered in 1923 with a capital of 12,000 Egyptian pounds (which doesn't mean it didn't exist before that as the mandate registration system was new). Encyclopedia Judaica (2nd edn, vol 17, 2007, p757) says "The land around the shrine was acquired by the group Naḥalat Israel Ramah in 1887 but attempts to settle there failed. The mosque and tower were almost completely destroyed in World War I and later rebuilt. Few Jews pray there now owing to the doubtfulness of the site’s authenticity." I didn't find anything about an actual settlement, which doesn't mean there wasn't one. The article in the Hebrew wiki has some references (mostly newspaper articles), including a source that the settlement lasted only half a year, and there is nothing about 1929. The statement on the auction site that Ramot was built in place of the former settlement means that the information either cannot be trusted or is irrelevant to this page, since Ramot is some distance south. Zero^talk 05:16, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

To warn against mistaken identity (and a reason auction sites should not be used) a settlement called "Nahalat Israel" was established in 1925 far away near "Jadjur dans l'Emek", which I think is Yajur, Haifa (LAURORE Le Caire, Friday, July 24, 1925; Page: 3). Zero^talk 05:47, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

As a clue, I found a newspaper notice of a house owned by Nahalat Israel Ramah being sold to pay off a debt. The location given is "El Burj, Beit Iksa". This is now at the north end of Ramot, about 1.1km SSE of the Tomb of Samuel. Zero^talk 08:11, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

The last one sounds exactly right. The auction houses are selling to collectors who know a lot about their topic of interest, so as long as it is confirmed in some way (not fantasy), and until we find smth. reliable, I would leave the core info in. The property deeds from the 1920s now put on sale look solid, R. Yitzchak Zvi Rivlin is an important figure mentioned elsewhere, so it's OK. It looks very much like the typical "holy cave" story: a hint or old tradition is enough, one Orthodox group or another is attracted, and eventually takes over (see Upper Galilee, or that ridiculous "Tomb of David"). We just need the specifics. 1 km from Nebi Samwil is as good as there, the village land is never round or square. There's another very similar example nearby, the Yellin farm at Motza: Old Yishuv, religious people, who settle outside the city - and are killed or manage to run during one riot or another, but mainly in 1929. Same like Rabbi Beck on Mount Meron, the Jews of Hebron, the Yemenite Jews of Silwan etc. It's a very interesting process, but since they weren't secular Zionists, nor hardcore ultra-Orthodox anti-Zionists, but a kind of precursors of today's National-Religious camp, hardly anyone in Israel is dealing with them. Not mainstream, not part of history's "winning team" (or maybe "not yet", I'm afraid to say judging by what's happening). Half a year or ten years is not the point. Conservative Jews from Russia and Yemen (!), probably none of them used to agriculture, move to an unwelcoming continent, land, and neighbourhood and settle there - next to what they consider to be a holy place. That hill is the highest in the area, so it has seen a lot throughout history, and long before the Byzantines. Probably has had a high place-type shrine at some point, too. The Samuel story told by B. of Tudela is madness, typical for many centuries of religious fantasy, and the Nahala association follows in their footsteps. The Byzantines build a memorial on a hilltop, the Crusaders invent a "saint" out of an obscure skeleton dug out in Ramla, a city founded by the early Muslims, the Jews & Muslims fight over the Crusader remains, in the end the ones get the ground floor and the others the basement, and fight each other over the remainders. A carousel of somnambules who're moving mountains - or not. We could sell the story to Hollywood. Arminden (talk) 19:08, 7 August 2020 (UTC)