The Grand Windows of the King of Samaria’s Palace

The book of Kings describes the palace of King Ahab—who ruled over the Northern Kingdom of Israel (also known as Samaria) in the 9th century BCE—as an “ivory house.” Drawing on textual and archaeological evidence, Rupert Chapman argues that this palace was of a type, known as a bit hilani (literally, “a house of windows”), then common in parts of what is now Syria. Megan Sauter explains how this theory illuminates a particular biblical passage:

Since a bit hilani must contain a window (or windows) for its name to make sense, some scholars have proposed that the window(s) in question were clerestory windows (i.e., windows near the ceiling). However, Chapman has another interpretation. He believes that the bit hilani [took its name from the presence of] a “window of appearances” above the palace’s entrance. From this window, kings and queens would show themselves to the people standing below. This is akin to what the [British] royal family still does from Buckingham Palace’s balcony. . . .

This identification also sheds light on Queen Jezebel’s death as recounted in 2Kings 9:30-37. When Jezebel (the widow of King Ahab) hears that Jehu, who had [just killed her husband and] usurped the throne, is approaching the palace, she “painted her eyes, and adorned her head, and looked out of the window.” At Jehu’s command, Jezebel is thrown from this “window” and killed. Now we can better envision this scene as taking place at a “window of appearances.”

Read more at Bible History Daily

More about: Ahab, Ancient Israel, Archaeology, Book of Kings, Hebrew Bible, Jezebel

It’s Time for Haredi Jews to Become Part of Israel’s Story

Unless the Supreme Court grants an extension from a recent ruling, on Monday the Israeli government will be required to withhold state funds from all yeshivas whose students don’t enlist in the IDF. The issue of draft exemptions for Haredim was already becoming more contentious than ever last year; it grew even more urgent after the beginning of the war, as the army for the first time in decades found itself suffering from a manpower crunch. Yehoshua Pfeffer, a haredi rabbi and writer, argues that haredi opposition to army service has become entirely disconnected from its original rationale:

The old imperative of “those outside of full-time Torah study must go to the army” was all but forgotten. . . . The fact that we do not enlist, all of us, regardless of how deeply we might be immersed in the sea of Torah, brings the wrath of Israeli society upon us, gives a bad name to all of haredi society, and desecrates the Name of Heaven. It might still bring harsh decrees upon the yeshiva world. It is time for us to engage in damage limitation.

In Pfeffer’s analysis, today’s haredi leaders, by declaring that they will fight the draft tooth and nail, are violating the explicit teachings of the very rabbis who created and supported the exemptions. He finds the current attempts by haredi publications to justify the status quo not only unconvincing but insincere. At the heart of the matter, according to Pfeffer, is a lack of haredi identification with Israel as a whole, a lack of feeling that the Israeli story is also the haredi story:

Today, it is high time we changed our tune. The new response to the demand for enlistment needs to state, first and foremost to ourselves, that this is our story. On the one hand, it is crucial to maintain and even strengthen our isolation from secular values and culture. . . . On the other hand, this cultural isolationism must not create alienation from our shared story with our fellow brethren living in the Holy Land. Participation in the army is one crucial element of this belonging.

Read more at Tzarich Iyun

More about: Haredim, IDF, Israeli society