Beit Jimāl

views updated

BEIT JIMĀL

BEIT JIMĀL , monastery and agricultural school in the Judean Foothills, 3 mi. (5 km.) S. of Bet-Shemesh, founded in 1881 by Salesian Fathers from Italy on the supposition that R. *Gamaliel i had lived there and that the place was named after him. The site is supposed by some scholars to be identical to *Kefar Gamala, where the tomb of St. Stephen was located in the fifth century. Remnants of a church with a mosaic floor were discovered there in 1916. In 1988 a new monastery was built nearby for the Bethlehem Sisterhood, which houses about 30 nuns who choose to live their lives in solitude and silence.

website:

www.trekker.co.il/israel-monasteries.htm.

[Efraim Orni /

Shaked Gilboa (2nd ed.)]