Samaria

Samaria is the biblical heartland, the hill country where the story of Israel in its land begins. At Alon Moreh, overlooking the Shechem valley, Abraham first entered Canaan and received the promise; at Beit El, Jacob dreamed of the ladder to heaven; and at Shechem, Joseph’s bones were buried and the kingdom later split in two. Between Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal, Joshua read the blessings and the curses to the tribes.

For 369 years the Tabernacle stood at Shiloh, where Hannah prayed for a son and the boy Samuel heard God call in the night. On the hill of Samaria, Omri and Ahab built the capital of the Northern Kingdom, Elijah confronted Jezebel’s Baal, and Herod later raised Sebastia, where tradition places the tomb of John the Baptist. On Mount Gerizim, a community of fewer than 900 Samaritans still keeps a worship that is more than 2,500 years old. Today the same terraced hills are covered with vineyards and olive groves: Samaria is home to a growing number of boutique wineries, among them the award-winning winery of Har Bracha on the slopes of Gerizim, and to olive presses that continue a harvest these hills have known since biblical times.