The stone ruins at Bar‘am, one of the best-preserved ancient synagogues in the country, lie in a beautiful pine forest about 40 kilometers northwest of Safed. Now the centerpiece of Bar‘am National Park, it is also one of the country’s most ancient Jewish houses of prayer and assembly, dating to the third century CE.

The intricate carvings on its doorways, especially the central one with its delicately rounded arch fronted by a row of magnificent free-standing columns, reveal that the community that once worshipped here and lived nearby invested a great deal of both money and energy in creating a monument of which they would be proud. Standing in what was once the central prayer hall with its two rows of columns, one can imagine it in all its glory, similar in its basilica style to synagogues elsewhere in the Galilee, including Capernaum and Korazim.

Medieval sages mention visiting Bar‘am, and fascination by European explorers with the site began in the 19^th century. In fact, an inscription from the façade, bearing the Hebrew words “May there be peace in this place and in all the places of Israel,” is now in the Louvre in Paris.