Peki'in
Peki'in
When you look around Peki'in, with its overwhelming Druze population, you may think
that it looks much the same as any other Arab village in the north of Israel. Far off the
major roads, it has been left largely untouched by the influence of modern life.
Peki'in is a village with a secret, a human secret whose guardians are two old women of
the Zinati family. The secret is that there has been a continuous Jewish presence here for
almost two thousand years. For unlike the 'family chains' which have wandered over
many lands during the course of the last millenia, the Zinati family of Peki'in claims to
have been in this village since the Bar-Kochba period - or maybe even earlier!
Peki'in is famous in Jewish tradition for being the site of the cave in which Rabbi Shimon
Bar Yochai and his son hid for 13 years while trying to escape the Romans during the
Bar-Kochba rebellion. According to legend, Rabbi Shimon and his son lived off spring
water and the fruit of a miraculous carob tree during their years of hiding, and passed the
time by writing books of Jewish mysticism.
It seems that there was once a large Jewish community in Peki'in, but over the centuries
it became smaller. In order to continue to live as Jews in an increasingly non-Jewish
environment, the Jews of Peki'in adopted the external trappings of the surrounding
community, speaking Arabic and adopting the life-styles of their neighbours. But they
kept their religious lives strictly separate; on all other things they could compromise, but
they knew where to draw the line. Even so, despite their generally good relations with
their neighbours, conditions were hard for them and the community grew progressively
smaller with time.
During the seventeenth century, the community was enlarged when families came to
Peki'in due to isolated attacks on Jews in other places in the Galil It was in this period
that the Peki'in synagogue (which can still be seen today) was built. But the revival was
only temporary, and the number of Jewish inhabitants residing in Peki'in continued to
decline.
Through the centuries, Jewish travellers looking for the cave of Shimon Bar Yochai, were
often surprised to find Arabic speaking "peasant Jews" in this isolated place. If we follow
the accounts of some of thesetravellers from the 18th and 19th centuries, we can watch
the Jewish community of Peki'in dwindle from tens of families to just a handful:
PEKI'IN: 1764
In Peki'in there are Jews, some fifty households, workers of the land and
vineyards.... And Peki'in is full of good things; nothing is lacking in this
area. Springs of water come from the valleys and hills. And there is the
huge carob tree of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai; it is old now and does not
bear fruit, and all the non-Jews regard it as holy, and any branch that falls
won't be used for anything, not even for firewood. And a fellow traveller told
me that the tree is so large that he sat together with some other men on the
top of the tree and they learnt the Kabbalah (mystical Jewish books)
together!"
- Simcha ben Joshua of Zalazich, 1764
PEKI'IN: 1824
Peki'in is a six-hour ride from