Israeli Kids Help Excavate 900-Year-Old Crusader Fortress

Exploring Masada. Image by Liza Schoenfein

By Daniel J. Solomon June 20, 2017

Israel is home to some of the world’s richest archaeological treasures – from the Iron Age, to the time of the Hebrews, to the Middle Ages, through the modern period.

Now, students in the Modiin-Maccabim-Re’ut are helping uncover some of those antiquities, participating in excavation efforts near their hometown.

Recently, the kids participated in the find of precious jewelry from the Crusades, when a fortress stood on a site near their villages.

“You get to find things and then you can take pictures and remember the time that you found things from hundreds of years ago, and even more,” 9-year-old Kinneret Goodman told the Times of Israel.

Avraham Tendler, the leader of the excavation, credited the kids – who range from the 4th to 12th grade – for their help with the dig.

“The students and volunteers from Modiin have exposed the inner courtyard of the Crusader fortress. Here, the fortress’s occupants cooked and baked for hundreds of years during the Middle Ages, some 900 years ago,” he told the Times of Israel.

Contact Daniel J. Solomon at [email protected] or on Twitter @DanielJSolomon

Daniel J. Solomon is the former Assistant to the Editor/News Writer at the Forward. Originally from Queens, he attended Harvard as an undergraduate, where he wrote his senior thesis on French-Jewish intellectual history. He is excited to have returned to New York after his time in Massachusetts. Daniel’s passions include folk music, cycling, and pointed argument.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO