Susya (, ; Susiyeh, Susiya, Susia) is a location in the southern Hebron Governorate in the West Bank. It houses an archaeological site with extensive remains from the Late Roman and Byzantine periods, including the ruins of an archeologically notable synagogue, repurposed as a mosque after the Muslim conquest of Palestine in the 7th century. A Palestinian village named Susya was established near the site in the 1830s. The village lands extended over 300 hectares under multiple private Palestinian ownership,A Chronicle of Dispossession: Facts about Susiya, B'tselem 29 July 2015 and the Palestinians on the site are said to exemplify a southern Hebron cave-dwelling culture present in the area since the early 19th centuryOren Yiftachel, Neve Gordon, "The Lurking Shadow of Expulsion", 15 May 2002.Nir Hasson, "Should 250 Cave Dwellers Interfere With the Fence?", Haaretz 13 September 2004. whose transhumant practices involved seasonal dwellings in the area's caves and ruins of Susya.
In 1982, an Israeli land authority, Plia Albeck, working in the Civil division of the State Attorney's Office, determined that the 300 hectares where Palestinians had been living, and which included an area with remains both of a 5th–8th century CE synagogue and of a mosque that had replaced it, were privately owned by the Palestinian Susya's villagers. In 1983, an Israeli settlement also named Susya was established next to the Palestinian village. In 1986, the Israeli Defense Ministry's Civil Administration declared the entire area owned by Palestinians an archeological site, and the Israeli Defense Forces expelled the Palestinian owners from their dwellings and appointed Israeli settlers from the recently built settlement to manage the site.Magness (2003), p. 99–104 Some of the expropriated Palestinian land was incorporated into the jurisdictional area of the Israeli settlement, and an illegal Israeli outpost was established on the area of the previous Palestinian village. The expelled Palestinians moved a few hundred meters southeast of their original village.Stefano Pasta, "Cisgiordania, Susiya: i pastori palestinesi che tutte le mattine temono l'arrivo dei bulldozer", La Repubblica 10 June 2015: "Espropriati nel 1986, sotto sgombero dal 5 maggio. Fino a quell'anno i palestinesi abitavano nelle grotte a mezzo chilometro di distanza. Ne furono espropriati quando l'area fu riconosciuta sito archeologico. Andarono quindi a vivere nei terreni agricoli limitrofi di Susiya, di loro proprietà ma senza il permesso per costruire."[Translation please]
The Israeli government, which has issued injunctions against the Israeli Supreme Court's decisions to demolish illegal Israeli outposts, made a petition to the High Court to permit the demolition of the new Palestinian village. The state expressed a willingness to allocate what it called "Israeli government-owned lands" near Yatta for an alternative residence, and to assist rebuilding, considering it ideal for the displaced villagers grazing. Though the existence of the Palestinian village is attested on maps as early as 1917, confirmed by aerial photographs in 1980 that show cultivated farmland and livestock pens maintained by Palestinians on the site, the official view of Israel is that no historic Palestinian village ever existed there, just a few families residing seasonally, and that the area was required for archaeological work. It is notable that Jews also reside in illegal structures on the same archaeological site. The attorney for the Palestinians replied that the army was stopping Palestinians building on their own privately owned land, while permitting settlers to seize their agricultural fields.Chaim Levinson, "Israel seeks to demolish Palestinian village on 'archaeological' grounds", Haaretz 28 March 2015.
The population of the Palestinian community has fluctuated. It reportedly numbered 350 villagers in 2012 and 250 residents the following year,"Khirbet Susiya", B'tselem 1 Jan 2013. constituted by 50 nuclear families (2015), up from 25 in 1986 and 13 in 2008. By 2018 17 families were reported to still be clinging on, working the few fields that remain to them of their former lands.David Shulman, Freedom and Despair: Notes from the South Hebron Hills, University of Chicago Press, 2018 pp.4-6.
The international community considers Israeli settlements in the West Bank illegal under international law; the Israeli government disputes this.
Name The site is called in Arabic Khirbet Susiya, also spelled Susiyeh, which means "Ruin (khirbet) of the Liquorice Plant (susiya)" after a wild plant species widely growing there.
The spelling Susya represents the Hebrew name, as decided by the Israeli Naming Committee, in consultation with the settlers."A unique case is Susya. The existence of the ancient Jewish town was unknown in Jewish sources, but was discovered in archaeological excavations ... the settlers are not free to decide on the names chosen: the National Naming Committee at the Prime Minister's Office has that responsibility and considers various factors. The settlers, however, being well acquainted with the territory and its history, play a significant role in the decision."
History
Late Roman and Byzantine period town Susiya is considered an important site for the study and research of ancient Jewish village life in Palestine during Late Antiquity. It was the site of a monumental synagogue. The settlement on the hill contiguous to the synagogue seems to have once had a thriving economy. A fine store has been excavated from its ruins.See the drawing of the reconstruction and groundplan in Zeev Safrai, The economy of Roman Palestine, Routledge, 1994, , p. 127 (no access on Google Books as of 2021). It may have undergone a decline in the second half of the 4th century, and again in the 6th century. Some speak of abandonment though the evidence from the synagogue suggests continuity into the medieval period.Safrai (1998), p. 149.
According to Israel archaeologist Yonathan Mizrachi, the Jewish population is attested from the 4th to 6th century, after which a population change took place.
Theory: Susya as "new Carmel" Susya, whether it refers to the site of the ancient synagogue or the ruins of the contiguous ancient and large settlement of some ,Steven H. Werlin, Ancient Synagogues of Southern Palestine, 300–800 C.E.: Living on the Edge, Brill, 2015 p. 136. is not mentioned in any ancient text, and Jewish literature did not register an ancient Jewish town on that site.Safrai (1998), p. 101. It is thought by some to correspond to the Biblical Carmel (), a proposal made by Avraham Negev.Günter Stemberger, Jews and Christians in the Holy Land: Palestine in the fourth century, tr. Ruth Tuschling, Continuum International Publishing Group, 2000 p. 151Negev & Gibson (2001), p. 484. Part of Negev's theory is that, in the wake of the Second Revolt (132–135), when the Romans garrisoned Khirbet el-Karmil, identified as the biblical Carmel, religious Jews uncomfortable with pagan symbols moved 2 km south-west to the present Susya (which they perhaps already farmed) and that, while they still regarded their new community as Carmel, the name was lost when the village's fortunes declined in the early Arab period, in part, it has been suggested, because the new Muslim overlords might not have tolerated its wine-based economy.1 Samuel:25
Ancient synagogue
Susiya is the site of an archaeologically notable ancient synagogue. The site was examined by Shmarya Guttman in 1969, who uncovered the narthex of a synagogue during a trial dig. He, together with Ze'ev Yeivin and Ehud Netzer, then conducted the Israeli excavations at Khirbet Suseya, (subsequently named by a Hebrew calque as Horvat Susya) over 1971–72,Negev & Gibson (2001), p. 482.Amit (1998), p. 132. (No Google Books access as of Oct 2021). by the Palestinian village of Susiya Al-Qadime.
The excavated synagogue in Susya dates from the 4th to the 7th century CE and was in continuous use until the 9th century CE.Post-Byzantine according to the language of an inscription. See Safrai (1998), p. 149."The synagogue is tentatively dated to the end of the 4th-beginning of the 7th. century AD, and was used as a Jewish prayer house until the 9th century." Negev & Gibson (2001), p. 482. According to Jodi Magness, the synagogue was built in the 4th - 5th centuries and continued in use for "at least" another two centuries. It is one of four of an architecturally unique group in the Southern Judean Hills.Amit (1998), p. 129.Levine, Lee I. "Jewish Archaeology in Late Antiquity: art, architecture, and inscriptions", in Steven T. Katz (ed.), The Cambridge History of Judaism: Vol. 4, The Late Roman-Rabbinic Period, Cambridge University Press, 1984 p. 540. Only six synagogues have been identified in Judea as a whole; the lower number may be accounted for by a shift in the Jewish population from Judah to Galilee in the 2nd and 3rd centuries. The other three of this distinctive group are those of Eshtemoa, Horvat Maon, and 'Anim. Three outstanding characteristics of the Susya-Eshtemoa group, are their width, entrances at the short eastern wall, and the absence of columns to support the roof.Amit (1998), p. 138.
According to David Amit, the architectural design, particularly the eastern entrance and axis of prayer, which differ from the majority of Galilean synagogues, exhibits the ramifications of the earliest halakhic law conserved in southern Judea for generations after the destruction of the Temple. This was forgotten in Galilee, but in Judea there was a closer adherence to older traditions reflecting closer proximity to Jerusalem.Amit (1998), pp. 148–155 [148, 152]. The eastern orientation may be also related to the idea of dissuading heretics and Christians in the same area, who bowed to the east, in the belief that the Shekinah lay in that direction.Amit (1998), p. 146.
The synagogue was built as a broadhouse, rather than along basilica lines,"Uniquely Jewish adaptations of Christian architecture did occur. The synagogues at Khirbet Shema, in the Upper Galilee, Horvat Rimmon 1 in the southern Shephelah, at Eshtemoa, and Khirbet Susiya were built as broadhouses and not as longhouse basilicas. In these buildings, the basilica form is turned on its side, and the focal point of the synagogue is the wide wall of the hall. Benches were built round the interior walls of these synagogues, focusing attention on the centre of the room. This architecture is a continuation of the house-synagogues that literary sources suggests existed from the second and third centuries." Steven Fine, Art and Judaism in the Greco-Roman world: toward a new Jewish archaeology, Cambridge University Press, 2005 p. 88Eric M. Meyers, Galilee through the centuries: cultures in conflict, Eisenbrauns 1999 p. 233 measuring 9 by 16 metres (27 by 48 feet) built in well-wrought ashlar construction, with triple doorway façade in an eastward orientation, and the bimah and niche at the centre of the northern wall. There was a secondary bimah in the eastern section. Unlike other synagogues in Judea it had a gallery, made while reinforcing the western wall. East of the synagogue was an open courtyard surrounded on three sides by a roofed portico. The western side opened to the synagogue's narthex, and the floor of the narthex composed of coloured mosaics set in an interlaced pattern. This model was of short duration, yielding in the late Byzantine phase (6th/7th) to the basilica form, already elsewhere dominant in synagogue architecture.Amit (1998), p. 156.