Tiyul to the Belvoir Crusader Fortress

by Sara Lidski,      10^th grade,      NJ

Many years ago the crusaders built dozens of fortresses in Israel to attempt to take the holy land from the Muslims, and now me and my fellow peers get to walk and attempt to reenact our own version of a crusade.

having class in the Belvoir crusader fortress with some of the parents who are visiting too

            It was a rainy Thursday morning, and I have to admit hearing I had to wake up at 6:15 in the morning was not something I was looking forward to. Never-the-less we got on the bus and prepared for a long drive. I sat down, put in my earbuds and fell asleep. About an hour and half later I woke up to our madrichim announcing we would be arriving shortly. The long windy road consisted of millions of beautiful yellow flowers, and at the end sitting on top of the mountain stood the large Belvoir fortress, also known as Kochav HaYarden.

for class in the fortess, we broke into 4 groups to learn and present the material

We all quickly hopped off the bus eager to enter the old castle. As we approached and got closer and closer we could see just how big this structure truly is. Its large slanted stone walls towered over us. We then continued into the castle with our guide Hadas, she told us to take out our swords because we were about to storm and attack. My whole class ran towards the entrance, swords gleaming and in the air only to be surprised when the enemy (the parents) began to pelt candy at us attempting to keep us out.

one of my classmates holding up her sword as we get ready to storm the castle

            Since we were in the fortress for a short amount of time we took a brief tour and then found as nice dry area away from the rain to begin our lesson for the day. There we were all instructed to get into groups of 4 or 5 and make a skit about the topic you were assigned. There were three main topics discussed about anti-Semitic accusations in the middle ages that were used as a pretext to persecute the Jews.

1.      The Jewish people were being blamed for the black plague. Due to the ritual of the Jewish people washing their hands before eating a meal they were generally more clean than everyone else causing them to be less vulnerable to this horrible disease. This lead everyone to think the Jewish people were poisoning wells in the 14^th century and causing hundreds of deaths, just because less of the Jewish people died because they had better hygiene.

2.     Many children were being killed or disappeared so people would say the Jews were killing these children and made matzah with their blood.  This awful accusation in known as the "blood libel".

3.     People thought the Jews were stealing the holy bread and wafers used for communion at church, which symbolizes Christ, and were said to have stabbed the items recreating the killing of Christ, or even trying to kill him again.

All three of these ideas are completely ridiculous but it's the reality of the hate and anti Semitism the Jewish people had to face throughout the middle ages.

tons of yellow flowers were in bloom on the day we visited the Belvoir crusdaer fortress