Antipatris
Antipatris (or Antiparis as it appears in the Talmud) is linked to a holiday of Second Temple days known as “Mount Gerizim Day” celebrated on the twenty-fifth of the month of Tevet.
The Jew-hating Kuttites (Samaritans) in Eretz Yisrael incited Alexander the Great to destroy the Beit HaMikdash, and he began marching at the head of his army towards Jerusalem to do their bidding. When the high priest, Shimon HaTzaddik, learned of this, he donned his high priestly garments and, together with Jerusalem notables, walked all night to meet this force. The two finally met at Antipatris where Alexander descended from his royal chariot and prostrated himself before Shimon HaTzaddik, explaining that it was this vision which led him to victory in all his battles. The tables were then turned on the Kuttites as the destruction which they planned for the Beit HaMikdash was visited instead upon their shrine on Mount Gerizim.
Built on the ruins of the biblical city Aphek, site of a great battle between Israel and the Philistines recorded in the Book of Samuel, Antiparis is mentioned in the Talmudic description of the proliferation of Torah study during the reign of King Chizkiyahu: “They checked from Dan to Beersheba [north to south] and found not one unlearned Jew; from Geves to Antiparis [east to west] and found not a single child or adult unlearned in the laws of purity.”
