Bethlehem of Galilee (Hebrew: בֵּית לֶחֶם הַגְּלִילִית, Beit Lehem HaGlilit; lit. “the Galilean Bethlehem”) is a moshav in northern Israel. Located in the Galilee near Kiryat Tivon, around 10 kilometres north-west of Nazareth and 30 kilometres east of Haifa, it falls under the jurisdiction of the Jezreel Valley Regional Council. In 2014 it had a population of 781.
The modern moshav is located at the site of the ancient Israelite settlement known as Bethlehem of Zebulun or Berlehem Zoria. The town existed as Christian settlement in the classic era and was populated during the Middle Ages. It was reestablished as a Templer Bet Lam colony in the 19th century and turned into Jewish moshav in 1948.
To distinguish the city from the city of Bethlehem near Jerusalem, it was originally known as Bethlehem of Zebulun, whilst the town near Jerusalem was called “Bethlehem of Judea.” In the Jerusalem Talmud it is referred to as Beth Lehem Zoria, as it was part of the kingdom of Tyre at the time. Until the late 19th century, ruins of a church and a synagogue could be seen there, and archaeological findings “from the early Roman Period” show, it was a prosperous city. So the biblical Bethlehem of Zebulon is “identified” by archaeologists with today’s Bethlehem of Galilee.
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Author: Wikipedia
Keywords: Bethlehem of Galilee, Bethlehem
Bible reference(s): Josh 19:15
Source: This article uses material from the Wikipedia article “Bethlehem of Galilee,” which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0.
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