Amidst the fantastic beauty of the Golan Heights, the blueness that resonates from Kineret Lake, the various banana and date plantations, vineyards, and green fields on the border of Jordan, there is a kibbutz (a communal farm in Israel) named Maoz Haim.
In 1974, the kibbutz founder Avshalom Yakobi lied to the soldiers who were about to commence construction of a military project on this land. They had accidentally come across some archeological treasures of antiquity and he told them that it was a synagogue. One of the officers replied, "When guns roar, muses become silent." But in the end, the construction work was cancelled.
He felt remorse for telling a lie, and Avshalom made a decision that after his work day was over, he would go and dig out the ancient relics. It was thus that he labored for 3 additional hours every day.
One day he had dug no more than 8 inches, and discovered a red ornament depicting a menorah.
Avshalom informed the Department of Archeology about "the underground miracle," and since then, archeologists have unearthed the entire synagogue. What Avshalom had originally believed to be a lie turned out to be true! During further scientific inspection and analysis, it was found that there were 3 synagogues. Originally, it was just a simple structure, but later some Roman basilica-style structures with windows that were traditionally pointed towards Jerusalem were added.
The floors were paved with small stones of about 70 different hues depicting Itzhak's sacrifice, the Ark of the Covenant, inscriptions in Hebrew and Aramaic, traditional Jewish symbols, such as the menorah, customary national ornaments, and many different swastikas.
Avshalom, who is 91, has an excellent memory and possesses a detailed historical knowledge of this place, which dates back to 400-600 A.D. He relayed his fascinating story over the course of 3 hours. As it turned out, there was an ancient Bedouin cemetery and an ancient Arabian village under the base of the synagogue. In the next layer of the excavation, they found the 3rd century Jewish settlement named Baala, where Jews had lived for more than 300 years (the settlement of Baala is mentioned in 1 of the 3 parts of the Old Testament).
When asked about how swastikas found their way into a synagogue, Avshalom answered, "All Jewish archeologists that had been working here did not pay any attention to swastikas. People all over the world have been using this ancient symbol of happiness for millennia. This swastika is hundreds of years old. At that time, Hitler was not born yet, how could this fiend be more powerful than the world's history, world's art, and world's culture? I think now it is a right time for all of mankind to put in order some acquired erroneous concepts regarding the swastika symbol."
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