Gan Le‘ummi ‘Attiqot Qesarya

Visiting Caesarea, city of Cornelius
the Centurion, the first Gentile to convert (Acts 10). We visited the Roman theatre, walked on the pier used by the apostle Paul on his way to Rome, and saw the impressive water aqueduct built by Herod the Great. We were also able to see what is believed to be the prison that Paul was held in!

Ancient Caesarea

The modern town is named after the ancient city of Caesarea Maritima, built by Herod the Great about 25–13 BCE as a major port. It served as an administrative center of the province of Judaea (later named Syria Palaestina) in the Roman Empire, and later as the capital of the Byzantine province of Palaestina Prima. During the Muslim conquest in the 7th century, it was the last city of the Holy Land to fall to the Arabs. The city degraded to a small village after the provincial capital was moved from here to Ramla and had an Arab majority until Crusader conquest. Under the Crusaders it became once again a major port and a fortified city. It was diminished after the Mamluk conquest. [4] In 1884, Bosniak immigrants settled there.[4] In 1940, kibbutz Sdot Yam was established next to the village. In February 1948, the village was conquered by a Palmach unit commanded by Yitzhak Rabin, its people already having fled following an earlier attack by the Lehi paramilitary group.Read more