Many legends surround this village in the north of Israel. New Peki’in was established as a Jewish community in 1955, a short distance from Old Peki’in, a village populated by Druze, Christians, and a few Jews.

There is a tradition that the Jewish community in Peki’in was never exiled from the Holy Land. Arab riots in 1936 forced the Jews of Peki’in to leave their homes for safer parts of the country and only a few of them later returned.

Another tradition is connected with the ancient synagogue which was restored in 1837. Two carved stones lying sideways were reportedly brought from Jerusalem and legend has it that they fell on their sides as a sign of mourning when the Temple was destroyed.

But certainly the most famous tradition regarding Peki’in is that it houses the cave in which the great Talmudic Sage Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai and his son Elazar hid from the Romans for thirteen years, miraculously sustained by a spring of water and a carob tree while totally absorbed in the study of Torah.

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