Israel Archaeological Proof: Bringing proof of ancient Jewish settlement in Israel

DAVID BRUMMER

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A close-up of the Tyrian silver shekel coin. / (photo credit: DAVID BRUMMER)

The world in general has changed since the Black Sabbath of October 7; the Jewish world in particular was forever altered. The calls about Israel’s and the Jewish people’s illegitimacy have only become more shrill since the Israel Defense Forces’ response to Hamas’s brutal onslaught against southern Israeli communities on that dark day. 

One of the consistent critiques of the current government’s handling of the crisis is that the message about what Israel is doing – and why it is justified in doing so – appears increasingly opaque. It does not help the situation when some of the people most able to provide both a clear and nuanced narrative – particularly to a highly skeptical and hostile outside world – are sidelined over seeming personality clashes. 

Enter George Blumenthal. It was he, an 80-year-old New York-based businessman with the energy and drive of a man half his age, who succinctly described how Israel is failing to tell its own fascinating and historical story. He views it as his mission in life to get Israel’s and the Jewish people’s message out as far and wide as possible, and his latest project is precisely evidence of this. Indeed, since October 7, his drive to tell Israel’s story has only increased.

His first brush with archaeology was as a seven-year-old, walking with his parents among the miraculously preserved historical gems of Ancient Rome – barely six years since the retreating Nazis, in fanatical fighting against the advancing Allies in other parts of Italy, had left the city mostly untouched. Inspired, as people so often are when they walk amid history – where the very buildings and structures seem to whisper their secrets – it left an indelible impression in his mind. Fast-forward several decades, and it was on a trip to Jerusalem that his curiosity was piqued once again. In the late 1990s, Blumenthal was at the home of Hershel Shanks, the founder and longtime editor of the Biblical Archaeology Review. Shanks had accumulated a large collection of artifacts over time and showed Blumenthal four 2,000-year-old oil lamps. It set something off in Blumenthal, and he has been purchasing archaeological objects ever since.

He has devoted more than 25 years of his life to promoting the millennia-long Jewish connection to the Land of Israel. And he is very much into the tangible evidence of this, which brings us to his latest project – Israel Archaeological Proof. His creative partner in this endeavor is Israeli photographer and imaging expert Ardon Bar Hama, who has been at the forefront of digitizing some of the most ancient Jewish sources, including the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Aleppo Codex. 

Ardon Bar-Hama with American actor Michael Douglas, who recently visited Israel. (credit: ARDON BAR-HAMA)

Bar Hama has been at the cutting edge of photographic technology’s capabilities and has consistently moved with the times as each technological iteration – along with his skill and creativity – has facilitated such imaginative use of the medium. Crucially, it has also made all of these historical artifacts and documents available online. 

During our interview at Jerusalem’s Waldorf Astoria Hotel, Blumenthal casually reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a coin. He allowed me to inspect the weighty silver shekel. In the mid-second century BCE, the Hasmoneans formalized the payment for Temple Tax. The first coin to be specified as acceptable payment for the Temple tax levied was the “Shekel of Tyre.” The coin was probably used for its recognized metal purity grade and weight. It was in circulation from 125 BCE until the outbreak of the Great Revolt in 66 CE

It is exactly for moments like this, where one can reach out and touch history, that he is involved with the Israel Archaeological Proof project. And the project’s remit is very clear: At a time when there is a concerted effort to decouple Jews from their historical homeland, the overwhelming archaeological proof of the Jewish people’s association with Israel is urgent. Helpfully, with Blumenthal and Bar Hama’s influence, it can also be distilled into easily digestible, bite-size pieces.

“We are simplifying things for the US audience,” said Blumenthal, who previously funded the City of David’s Megalim videos, which have garnered more than nine million organic views. The website itself breaks down 3,500 years of Jewish history into three sections: “From Abraham to the Second Temple;” “Common Era up to the 1800s;” and “Aliyah and the Modern State of Israel.” 

“We are countering the narrative that has developed in the United States that the Jewish people’s connection to the Land of Israel is both recent and tenuous. We are providing tangible evidence that this could not be further from the truth,” he exclaimed. “Take the Tel Dan Stele [found more than 30 years ago], which relates the story – albeit in a fragmentary way – of the Aramean king’s vanquishing of the House of David. There had always been speculation about whether the biblical stories of David were apocryphal or metaphoric, but here we have primary documentary evidence that his house existed… which means that he did, too. It’s irrefutable.” 

Being able to counter the prevailing narrative is critical, especially in the United States. 

“It is a Christian culture, and a deeply religious one, but the link between Judaism and Christianity – and, by extension, to the land – has become attenuated. If the Land of Israel was the land of many biblical events, it was also the land of Jesus. That link is being undermined, and it is obviously having a detrimental effect on Israelis and Jews.” 

At this point, he recounted that he was beginning to doubt the efficacy of the project, but a letter from a Chabad rabbi who spoke at Oberlin College in Ohio changed his outlook.

“Rabbi Shlomo Elkan said that he created a curriculum utilizing the information I provided him concerning the history of the Jews for more than 3,000 years in Israel. Shlomo and his wife, Devorah, engaged with pro-Palestinian advocates at Oberlin. At an antisemitism vs. anti-Zionism teach-in, they used much of what I had sent them. While the adversaries attempted to disprove any Jewish connection to the Holy Land, the couple countered their claims using teaching based on the Tanach, as well as archaeology. They also cited Christian and Muslim testimony of the Jewish presence in Israel that predated both… and the students were dumbfounded.”

And Israeli students in an immersive experience funded by the Athena Fund, a nonprofit organization established in 2006 whose mission is to empower teachers in Israel by providing them with tools for self-fulfillment and professional advancement will also be able to benefit. The current thinking is that the curriculum will be available in 60 schools throughout Israel by the start of the academic year in September, followed by a further 40 in December. There are also bids out across the rest of the world for other institutions to take up the mantle. 

“It’s important that we educate Israeli kids too,” Blumenthal said. “How many people know that there’s proof of King David?! We have to make that knowledge available to both Israel and the Diaspora; to Jews and Christians.” To that end, the material is available in South American Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese, as well as English, French, Hebrew, Russian, and Korean.

AnaRina Kreisman, the director of Align with Zion who was instrumental in working with Blumenthal to create the site, said: “The website provides user-friendly bite-size info on key archaeological finds and documentation in a well-organized timeline connected to the biblical narrative and other historical accounts. All the information we give on the site already exists and is out there, but no one has ever put it in an easy, understandable context. Our site, we believe, is the only one that has done so.

“Moreover, by adding empirical proof of the Jewish narrative, it shows that our ‘stories’ actually have a very organized and factual backbone. This doesn’t only help with strengthening our own Jewish Identity, but it also provides more advocacy tools in a post-October 7 era.

“Discovering an ancient artifact not only connects you to that moment in time but changes your personal life dynamic in real life/real time.

“It makes me think of the old maxim ‘What is, was already, and what will be, was (Kohelet 3:15)’

“So, digging into the past helps you navigate the future,” she said.■

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