Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Skiers ride a lift to the slopes of Mount Hermon in the northern Golan Heights, February 2009. (Getty Im-
ages / Image Bank.)
found the remains of the First and Second Temples and other sites central to Jewish religious
and political history, many places associated with the life and death of Jesus, and the Muslim
al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock.
East of the Judean Hills and extending to the Jordan Rift Valley is a hilly desert region, the
Judean Desert. It was to this desolate area that small religious sects withdrew during the Ro-
man period. One such group wrote the Dead Sea scrolls, an important source of information
about early Biblical texts and religious thinking around the beginning of the Common Era.
The Jordan Rift Valley and the Arava
The Jordan Rift Valley, whose western side is in Israel and the West Bank and whose eastern
side is in Jordan, is one of the world's most unusual areas, much of it bereft of all but the tini-
est amount of rainfall. About 260 miles (418 kilometers) long, this geological feature includes
the Jordan River, Jordan Valley, Hula Valley, Sea of Galilee, and Dead Sea. The Dead Sea is
the lowest land on the surface of the Earth. The Jordan Rift Valley is part of a great African-
Syrian rift, located where two tectonic plates come together. Part of the valley is in the PA-ruled
West Bank. The rift continues in Israeli territory southward from there, going from the Dead
Sea through the Arava region and along the eastern shoreline of the Gulf of Eilat for another
110 miles (177 kilometers).
The movement of the tectonic plates can set off earthquakes. The biggest in modern times
took place in 1837. Between 6.5 and 7.5 on the Richter scale, it hit the northern Galilee hard,
