Aramaic: Gamla ("the Camel")
Fortified hillside
town in the Golan 7 miles east of the Sea
of Galilee, built on
inaccessible slopes below a ridge shaped like the humps of a
camel. Gamala was the hometown of Judah "the
Galilean," who led a tax revolt against the Romans in 6 CE
& whose descendents were leaders of radical revolutionary
factions up through the war with Rome. Josephus
reinforced the fortifications of the city; & it was the last
settlement in the north to hold out against the Romans (67 CE).
Rather than submit to capture the defenders jumped to their
death in the ravines below. For modern archaeologists the
primary importance of Gamala is its 65' x 53' synagogue,
the only undisputed structure for public Jewish worship
datable to the early 1st c. CE that has yet been discovered in
Palestine.
References: Josephus,
Antiquities 13.394-396; 18.4;
_____, War 1.105, 166; 4.4-8, 11-54, 62-83;
_____, Life 46-47,
58, 61, 114, 177-179, 183-185.
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