Hebron Hills

The Hebron Hills, also known as Mount Hebron (جبل الخليل, הר חברון), are a mountain ridge, geographic region, and geologic formation, constituting the southern part of the Judean Mountains. The Hebron Hills are located in the southern West Bank. The highest peak of the mountain ridge is in the Palestinian city of Halhul, where a tableland exists with an altitude of . The Book of Joshua mentions Maon, Carmel, Adora, and Juttah among others as part of the tribal territory of the Tribe of Judah. The modern Arabic names of Ma'in, al-Karmil, Dura, and Yatta respectively preserve the ancient names. As the Nabataeans pushed northwards, the Edomites were driven out of old Edom to the south of the Dead Sea and into the southern Hebron Hills between the southern part of the Dead Sea and the Mediterranean, establishing new Edom or Idumaea. During the Hellenistic period, the Edomites became the dominant population of the southern Hebron Hills. Under Ptolemaic rule, the area became a separate administrative unit known as Idumea, named after its inhabitants. Marisa became its administrative center, with Ziph and Adoraim being of secondary importance. Hellenistic rule brought Greek and Phoenician culture into Idumea, while the prevalence of male circumcision shows a growing affinity with Judaism. In 113-112 BCE, the region was captured by the John Hyrcanus, who converted the Edomites to Judaism and incorporated Idumaea into the Hasmonean kingdom. The region took part in the Bar Kokhva revolt against the Roman Empire (132-135 CE). The revolt left many settlements in the area destroyed or abandoned, and some of its residents migrated to the Galilee. However, while many areas in Judea proper were depopulated during the revolt and subsequently resettled by foreigners loyal to the Romans, the southern Hebron Hills stood out with its continuing, albeit diminished, Jewish presence. In his Geography, written around 150 CE, Claudius Ptolemy describes Idumea as a desolate area, in contrast to the relative density in the rest of the country north of Idumea to the Galilee.

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Related concepts (9)

Judea

Judea, Judaea or Judah (dʒuːˈdiːə or dʒuːˈdeɪə; from יהודה, Standard Yəhūda, Tiberian Yehūḏā; Ἰουδαία, ; Iūdaea) is a mountainous region in the southern Levant traditionally dominated by Jerusalem, and now part of the modern States of Palestine and Israel. The name is an ancient, historic, Biblical Hebrew, contemporaneous Latin, and modern-day term originating from the Hebrew name Yehudah, a son of the biblical patriarch Jacob/Israel, with Yehudah's progeny forming the biblical Israelite tribe of Judah (Yehudah) and later the associated Kingdom of Judah.

Hebron Hills

Jews

Jews (יְהוּדִים, Yehudim, jehuˈdim) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group, nation or ethnos native to the Levant, originating from the ancient Israelites and Hebrews of historical Israel and Judah. Jewish ethnicity, nationhood, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the ethnic religion of the Jewish people, although its observance varies from strict to none. Jews take their origins from a Southern Levantine national and religious group that arose towards the end of the second millennium BCE.