Jessica Steinberg covers Sabra level from south to north and back to downtown.
“It’s a procedure to make money,” Samovith said. “It’s complicated, it’s not on any budget and it’s the crown era. It would be less difficult if Netivei Yisrael gave us two months. But that’s how it works.”
“Netivei Yisrael is not going to close the door for us,” said Gray, a former venture capital firm. “The challenge is to put all the pieces together enough to make them feel like we’re doing it. But it’s not a fundraising environment.”
Gray, now an excursion consultant who has lived in Hannaton since the kibbutz was renewed in 2008, volunteers at the excavation, one of his coronavirus-related activities, he said.
The Israel Antiquities Authority is called when Netivei Yisrael, the National Transport Infrastructure Company, works on roads or bridges with known archaeological artifacts. The government company has spent millions of shekels on archaeological recovery excavations on various projects over the past decade, according to a Spokesman for Netivei Yisrael.
When excavations began, archaeologists thought they were excavating a well-known Byzantine-era farm and were operating a rescue dig with volunteers like Gray and the school’s top graduates of a nearby sabbatical program.
But when the Jewish National Fund did not allow the removal of a forged oak that was also in the same place, the bypass had to be adjusted and the excavation expanded, finding the ritual bath.
The discovery was made in the last two days of excavations, Gray said, adding that the leading archaeologist was so excited that he took a shovel and a bucket and began digging, which he had not done in 20 years.
“We knew there was a Byzantine farm here,” said Sami Kamil, the Arab-Israeli archaeologist who oversees the northern region of Israel for the Israel Antiquities Authority. “But when we discovered the mikvé, we suddenly understood that the wonderful farm of Roman times, and if there is a mikve, it is a Jewish farm, because Jewish farmers were ritually purifying themselves before making olive oil or wine. The mikve replaced everything with us.
She, like Gray, felt it would make sense to mikve for Hannaton.
“It’s the synchronicity of everything,” said Ner-David, who was ordained an interfaith rabbi and minister, qualified as a non-secular adviser and has a doctorate in Mikvé from Bar Ilan University.
It was Ner-David who had worked on the repair and recovery of the fulbred kibbutz after moving to Hannaton from Jerusalem in 2008 with his circle of relatives and as a component of an organization of families who helped renovate the kibbutz.
Shmaya: A Mikveh for Mind, Body and Soul, is now the only mikvé in Israel that can be used through virtuallyArray and is meant to attract others who need to explore Jewish spirituality through ritual bathing, brides and converts, to LGBT. couples officially convert their babies, infantrymen about to enter the army or who live a special event.
The kibbutz now has the opportunity to further expand its own Mikvé program by moving the ancient ritual bath to its site, and expanding the domain to an archaeological park with the help of the Israel Antiquities Authority.
The domain of the archaeological park would be next to the kibbutz mikveh, a domain already zoned as green for the sprawling kibbutz.
Anat Harrel, tour guide, resident of Hannah and member of the Mikvé rescue team, pointed to the ancient city of Zippori, across the valley, where Jesus’ grandmother Anne is said to have lived.
“Jesus would possibly have immersed himself in this mikve; he’s about to reach his grandmother and he’s only a day away from Nazareth,” he said.
For now, however, the mikvé is still in its original location, on a warm and sunny hill a few minutes’ drive from Hannah, on a hill where the underpass is under construction.
The wide, staggered stairs and the mikvé’s deep pool, which measures 4.2 meters long by 3.2 meters wide and about 1.8 meters deep, are almost the same as today’s ritual baths. Archaeologist Sari assumed that the wide stairs were created to allow others to climb up and down stairs.
“This is a wonderful discovery for this area,” Sari said, adding that excavations would continue on a component of the hill, where new discoveries were made.
“All we have to do is trust us, ” added Gray. “If there is will and luck, we will.”