In the summer of 2009, my wife and I fulfilled a long-held dream and made aliyah to Israel. After a lot of research and thinking about where I might end up working, we settled in the beautiful city of Modiin, centrally located midway between the two main cities of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Given my urban planning background, I was well-aware of the outstanding planning that went into Israel’s newest and fastest-growing city and the beautiful new infrastructure, but we were also drawn to what my wife described as the “biblical landscape” of the surrounding Judean hills and the stunning Ayalon Valley full of vineyards. However, what really interested me was the history of the area. In truth, all of Israel is a gigantic archaeological site, but Modiin was something special to me because the ancient village of the same name was the home of the Maccabees and the beginning of the story of Chanukah.
Shortly after our arrival, the city’s new olim (immigrants) were invited on a tour of important sites and ongoing projects in our new hometown. At one point, the tour stopped at the edge of our new neighborhood, a short walk from our home, in order to view what was described as an important historical site known as Umm el-Umdan (Arabic for “Mother of the Pillars”). It contained remains of an ancient rural village, a mikvah and a synagogue that was large enough to have had a roof supported by stone pillars and confirmed as dating back to the Second Temple period. Given its location and dimensions, a number of well-known archaeologists contend that this site is ancient Modiin, the home of the Maccabees. The synagogue was a major building for its time: construction with stone pillars that supported a roof was not typical for a small rural village of modest means. Ancient Modiin was not a big town in its time. Aside from the beit knesset (synagogue), there were no impressive mosaics or frescoes found here. None of the major structures found in other more impressive sites around the country are found here. Yet there is plenty of evidence of ancient agricultural activity, including olive oil production, vineyards and wine presses.

One of the most memorable moments of my aliyah that year (and every year since) was to join about 150-200 men and women from our neighborhood at the site of the ancient synagogue for Kabbalat Shabbat services, which that year fell on the first night of Chanukah. The men congregated in the central part of the site, in a rectangular area that had been the main floor of the beit knesset. In front of me was a small indentation in the stone framework surrounding the floor, perfectly positioned to perhaps accommodate an ark to hold Torah scrolls. As I looked past it, I realized that it was oriented on this hill to face Jerusalem. Our prayers began. We completed Minchah and proceeded with a very beautiful service, followed by dancing.

My head was spinning, thinking about where I was at that moment. On this first night of Chanukah, could I really be standing in the very spot where Matityahu and his sons stood? Beyond the significance of standing in the ruins of a rare beit knesset, believed to be the oldest ever unearthed in Israel, is the fact that from this modest rural village came one of the great ideas and movements in the history of our people: the Maccabees fought and defeated the Syrian-Greek invaders who sought to Hellenize the people of Israel. In driving their oppressors from the land, the Maccabees reclaimed the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, rededicated it to the service of G‑d, restored religious freedom and ensured the future of the Jewish people.
I plan to be there again in the coming days, as I now do every year, to pray, to find inspiration, celebrate, remember and to give thanks for what occurred here more than 2,000 years ago.
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