Bar’am National Park


Site of a well-to-do village from the 1st to the 7th centuries AD, Bar’am National Park is best known for its impressive Talmudic-period synagogue, solidly built of finely hewn limestone around 400 CE. At the top of the hill, surrounded by fields and a grove of cypress trees, stands a Maronite church that’s still used by the former residents of the Christian-Arab village of Bir’am, evacuated by the Israeli army ‘for two weeks’ during the 1948 war.


Lonely Planet's must-see attractions

Nearby attractions

1. Adir Winery

3.67 MILES

Adir has built a reputation for producing outstanding wines and equally good goat cheeses and for serving great dairy meals. Sampling three wines, four…

2. Dalton Winery

3.72 MILES

Dalton produces some excellent, award-winning wines. Three or four of them can be sampled for 20NIS in a log-cabin-style tasting centre (the modern…

3. Tomb of the Rashbi

4.57 MILES

Authorship of the Zohar, the most important work of Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism), is traditionally credited to the 2nd-century-CE Jewish sage Rabbi Shimon…

4. Safed Candles Gallery

6.76 MILES

If you’ve ever wondered how Shabbat, Havdalah and Hanukkah candles are dipped, decorated and braided, drop by to watch an expert candlemaker at work – she…

5. Ashkenazi Ari Synagogue

6.77 MILES

Founded in the 16th century by Sephardic Jews from Greece, this venerable synagogue looks much as it did 150 years ago. It stands on the site where,…

6. Tombs of the Kabbalists

6.77 MILES

The graves of many of Tsfat’s greatest sages and Kabbalists are about one-third of the way down the slope of the Ancient Jewish Cemetery, just below a…

7. Kabbalah Art

6.78 MILES

Denver-born David Friedman uses the mysteries of the Hebrew alphabet, Kabbalistic symbols such as the Tree of Life, and the universal language of colour…

8. Fig Tree Courtyard

6.78 MILES

Set around a centenarian fig tree and a 9m-deep cistern (visible through a glass floor panel), this collection of four galleries is one of Tsfat’s…