HOLY PLACES OR HISTORICAL SITES? DEFINING SACRED AND ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITES IN ISRAEL, 1948 – 1967 Doron Bar According to a Galilean Jewish tradition, the doorpost of the synagogue in the ancient town of Meron cracked in 1492, a year regarded as symbolic and sig- nificant, when the traumatic expulsion of Spanish Jewry began. The Jews of Galilee believed that the crack widens during every period of Jewish distress and that the doorpost will fall to the ground when the Messiah arrives. 1 In the early 1950s, when planning preservation work on the synagogue in Meron, officials from Israel’s Department of Antiquities encountered strong resistance from observant Jews. 2 They sought to prevent the restoration of the synagogue’s doorpost, arguing that reinforcing it against collapse would delay the coming of messianic redemption. 3 From the perspective of Depart- ment of Antiquities officials, the synagogues in the Galilee were archaeolog- ical sites in every sense, and the same rules of maintenance and preservation that applied to any other archaeological site in the state of Israel should also apply to them. On the other hand, Jewish tradition maintains that Rabbi Shi- mon Bar Yochai built the ancient synagogues in the Galilee. While being un- der the jurisdiction of the Department of Antiquities, these synagogues as- © 2018 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. 0018-2710/2018/5801-0001$10.00 1 On the legend of the doorpost, see Zev Vilnay, Legends of Eretz Israel (Jerusalem: Kiryat Sefer, 1987), 242. 2 A Department of Antiquities operated under the British Mandate (1922–48). In July 1948 the Israeli Division of Antiquities was established and renamed in August 1955 as the Depart- ment of Antiquities (it later became the Israeli Antiquities Authority, but this occurred after the period discussed here). 3 Yeivin to Kahana, February 7, 1951, Israel State Archives (hereafter ISA), 98, GL-14908/6.