{"id":59933,"date":"2019-07-22T17:30:25","date_gmt":"2019-07-22T14:30:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=59933"},"modified":"2023-02-14T12:57:23","modified_gmt":"2023-02-14T10:57:23","slug":"emek-refaim-from-battlefield-to-boulevard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/emek-refaim-from-battlefield-to-boulevard\/","title":{"rendered":"Emek Refaim: From Battlefield to Boulevard"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"entry-content\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[834,539,864,434],"acf":{"old_id":"59933","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":34245,"related_cahpter":"268","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"A decisive defeat of the Philistines from the perspective of 3000 years","content":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If you walk west on Emek Refaim street in Jerusalem, there\u2019s a spot where the street ends, the ground seems to drop off from beneath you, and you find yourself looking down.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A sharp right turn will keep you on elevated ground; in fact, you\u2019ll soon find yourself walking uphill towards the San Simon Monastery. Turn left, and you will remain on elevated ground as well, and eventually walk uphill towards neighborhoods like Arnona and Talpiot. But right ahead of you, there is no way but down: down into what was once known as the valley of Rephaim, and through it down to the Brook of Sorek, and through it all the way down to Israel\u2019s coastal plain.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Had you stood in this very spot sometime between 1892-1998, you might have seen a train chugging up the valley towards you, bearing goods and passengers form Jaffa\u2019s port. When the Jerusalem businessman Yosef Navon first approached the Ottoman government with his plan to build a Jaffa-Jerusalem railway, he followed in the footsteps of many others who tried, for millennia, to connect Israel\u2019s fertile coastal plain with its forbidding mountain range. The route he picked wasn\u2019t original either; long before Navon\u2019s train, the Philistines marched up this valley to make war against King David.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Philistines could have picked other routes for their attack. Yet they preferred the Valley of Rephaim, and probably for the same reason Navon chose it for his railway: unlike other passages, this valley is broad enough to accommodate heavy machinery. It allowed Navon to build a rail, and it allowed the Philistines to march up with their heavy iron weapons and their chariots. But these preparations ultimately failed them: by circling around the Philistines and forcing them to flee to the coastal plain through a narrower route, David turned their heavy weapons into a liability. The boy who killed an armored giant with a stone became the king who deprived well-armed armies from what they saw as their advantage. And so the Philistines retreated, never to make a serious stand again.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The site of this final defeat lies roughly where Navon\u2019s railway ended, in what became, in recent years, a hub of restaurants, live concerts and cultural events. If you follow in the Philistines\u2019 footsteps all the way there can enjoy a classic Jerusalem-esque juxtaposition, and sip iced coffee in the very place where a war that spanned three biblical books and several centuries had come to a decisive end.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Image: Emek Refaim St., photo: Avishai Teicher, 2007 \/ wikimedia<\/span><\/p>\n","image":{"ID":59934,"id":59934,"title":"2sam5-emek_refaim_st","filename":"2sam5-emek_refaim_st.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/2sam5-emek_refaim_st.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/emek-refaim-from-battlefield-to-boulevard\/2sam5-emek_refaim_st\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"2sam5-emek_refaim_st","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":59933,"date":"2019-07-22 14:30:06","modified":"2019-07-22 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