The Secret Charms of Ramla

Mosques, churches and subterranean rowboats!  (Also the biggest radishes ever.)

Ramla is not a destination that jumps immediately to mind when planning a trip to Israel. In fact, a number of Israelis were puzzled when they heard we had gone there. It is however a very interesting place, and not without some eccentricities of its own. (It is in Israel after all).

We went on a field trip offered by Mike’s program at the university, so there was also an educational component to the visit.

Ramla was originally founded by one of the early Moslem Caliphs in 716 CE as the administrative capital of Palestine. It was strategically located at the intersection of the north-south road from Egypt to Syria,  and the road connecting Jerusalem with Jaffa. We were interested to learn that it was the first and only city in Israel founded by Moslems; all other cases they built on top of existing cities. Although most of what was built in the earliest years is no longer visible, there are remnants of the ancient town that are very interesting. Like Tel Aviv, it was built on sand dunes, hence its name, Ramla, which is the Arabic word for sand.

I’ll start with the part of town that has survived, virtually from its inception. The Pool of the Arches, built in 789 CE, served as an underground water reservoir for the city. It was fed by a sophisticated aqueduct, and possibly a spring below. It is  impressively large, with approximately  5000 square feet of underground lake, and it is covered with a roof supported by graceful  stone arches, like an underground cathedral.  It is a stunning piece of architecture that has survived both turmoil and earthquakes for over 1200 years. Seeing it today is not without its comic element, as the city has decided to allow people to row boats within it, to add to its appeal as a tourist attraction. Since the arches make the space too awkward for fixed oars, manoeuvering the boats requires a combination of canoeing and gondola skills, neither of which the average visitor possesses, as you can see.

We also had a tour of the Great Mosque, which is still in use today.  It is large, open, beautiful, and…Gothic? Yes, it was originally built by the Crusaders, who took the town in 1096, and it is the best preserved example of a Crusader cathedral still in existence in Israel…even though it is now a mosque! Around 1268 when the Mamluks were in control, the steeple was re-built as a minaret, the pews were moved out…and voila!  But otherwise it is still very church-like.

The Mamluks also built the White Tower,  a marvel of its time.  It was a minaret and, given its size, likely also a look-out tower,  forming part of a very large mosque complex that did not survive. The tower did endure however; it stands 90 feet high, and you can climb up 111 ancient steps to the very top which has a commanding view of…well… not that much.

We  visited a large Franciscan church/monastery complex dating back to the 14^th century, passing on our way a Greek orthodox church, even older.   In 1799, Napoleon was staying in the Franciscan hospice, and it is told that he was apparently so enraged at being woken up by the muezzin, (a mosque was in close proximity), that he got out of bed and shot him!

As we quickly learned, the town is very diverse by Israeli standards, including a mix of Arabs, both Muslim and Christian, and a large Jewish population.

In fact, even the Jewish population is also more diverse than usual, as it also includes the Karaite World Centre. This is a very small strand of Judaism that does not recognize the authority of Rabbinical Judaism,  or the Talmud, and that therefore does not follow the religious practices developed in the diaspora, which they consider to be man-made. They practise Judaism based on the plain text of what is written in the Torah/Tanach. So, just by way of example,  they would follow the commandment not to boil a kid in its mother’s milk as written in the Torah, but not the elaborate meat/dairy kosher laws that were later derived by the rabbis from that simple injunction.  For them, Jewish descent is patrilineal, as it is in the Bible;  and by the same token,  their new year starts in the spring, aligning it with  the first month in the Torah, (and with Passover);  and not in the 7th month, when our Rosh Hashana takes place… all very interesting, and new to me! (Although I have often wondered how it came to be that our New Year takes place in the 7th month.)

Another highlight of our tour was a visit to one of the loveliest open air markets I have seen in Israel, where in addition to the usual fine produce, including the biggest radishes I have ever seen, you can also buy anything else you might need, like say a fridge…or an evening gown.

Our final stop was for lunch in the old city, in a 700 year old building, where Samir’s restaurant now provides  an elaborate and lengthy meal of many courses, somewhat reminiscent of an Italian wedding in that it is designed to have you gain five pounds in one sitting. It was of course delicious!