Sataf

The entrance to the site is from Sataf Junction, where the roads coming from Mevasseret Zion, Kibbutz Tzuba and Ein Karem meet. At the beginning of the access road is the upper parking lot; a little further on, at the entrance to the site itself, is the intermediate-level parking lot, for private vehicles only. If time permits, it is best to walk from the upper parking lot. The path, which follows an ancient route winding among olive groves and cultivated plots, leads down to Ofer Overlook, which offers a marvellous view. The ruins of abandoned Sataf are clearly visible, and the path continues on to the village. Below the olive groves excavation is in progress on a Chalcolithic village (circa 4,000 BCE), the oldest agricultural traces found in the region.
From here make your way to the Sataf Spring (Ein Sataf), which was the main one in the village. From the terrace above the pool, you may carefully descend to the cave from which the spring issues. The cave was partially quarried out of the rock to increase the water supply, and a tunnel was built to convey the water to the large pool, which has a capacity of some 180 cubic meters. You can walk, stooped, through the tunnel and exit at the other side. A small room is built into the back wall of the pool, where the village women apparently did their washing.

A marked path leads from the pool to the irrigated plots. The tunnel outlet of the Sataf Spring is at the terrace on the left. Man-made plastered channels conduct water to the plots, using different devices to overcome the varying terrace heights. If you leave the leftward path to the irrigated plots, and turn right instead, you come upon a high stone wall with an Iron Gate. Behind it is the Eretz Israel Tree Garden, where fruit trees of the original strains known in the country are cultivated by traditional methods. From here you return to the irrigated plots, where vegetables and herbs are in beds or in furrows - all organically.
Below the irrigated plots are the cultivated terraces of the where JNF enables those who so desire to raise small gardens as a hobby.
From the irrigated plots you can proceed to the Bikura Spring (Ein Bikura). En route you'll see hanging stairs on the terrace wall, an efficient way to save on precious ground. From here, too, you walk through the tunnel to the cave, this time without stooping. cave contains stalactites and stalagmites.
The path up from the Bikura Spring has been restored as traditional mountain trail. Beside it, enclosed by stone walls gates, a vineyard has been planted and uses roof, pole, and trailing methods.
Further on, you may take the path back to the upper parking. From this point you may also set out on an ancient path down to Handak Spring (Ein Handak). Other options are to return to the Sataf Spring via the remains of Sataf village and, from there, descend to the lower parking lot in the Sorek Riverbed (Nahal Sorek ). Make sure you have a vehicle waiting for you there, or make your way the intermediate-level parking lot, if that is where you've left your car.

In 1949 Moshav Bikura was founded on the ruins of Sataf, an Arab village abandoned during the War of Independence. Before long the new residents, too, had to leave and, in time, the supporting walls collapsed and dirt and debris covered the two storage pools and the conduits bringing spring water to them.
In the early '80s Keren Kayemeth Lelsrael-the Jewish National Fund undertook the renovation of the agricultural terraces in the area. It restored the storage pools of the Sataf and Bikura Springs, repaired the terraces and redug the irrigation channels. As a result, biblical hillside agriculture can once again be seen in action and, in the future, ancillary industries will also be on view - such as olive pressing for oil, grape treading for wine, etc.
The ongoing restoration work is being carried out in part by pupils and soldiers who thus come face to face with concepts straight out of Jewish sources: "a sealed well," "irrigated agriculture" and "dry farming." JNF employs two families who live at Sataf and handle the restoration work, cultivate the fruit and vegetable gardens, and guide visitors around the site.
Visitors can enjoy not only seeing the site in action, but also the nearby forests, which extend over some 6,000 dunams (a dunam is 1/4 of an acre or 1/10 of a hectare).

In the Israelite period, our forefathers found that the veteran local population already occupied the easily workable lands in the valleys. They were thus left with rocky ground and natural forests in the Judean Hills and southern Samaria: "Go up to the forest and clear ground for yourselves" (Joshua 17:15). A good deal of labour went into clearing the rocks (described in the Bible as izuk) and removing them to the edges of the natural terraces (sikul). These stones were then used to build supporting walls for a layer of fertile soil imported to the area. This is how the agricultural terraces were constructed, the word "terrace" deriving from the Latin word "terra" for "land."
The leftover stones from izuk and sikul were used to build watchtowers to guard the crops. Their construction is described vividly in the Parable of the Vineyard: "My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill. He dug it and cleared it of stones, and planted it with choice vines; he built a watching place in the midst of it, and hewed out a vineyard in it" (Isaiah 5). The terraces and "watching places" thus became part of the landscape of the Judean Hills and of Jerusalem.
A prototype vineyard as described in the parable has been created at Sataf. It contains 26 of the ancient types of vine that grew in Eretz Israel, as well as terraces, mounds of cleared stones and a "watching place." Nearby are the remains of a wine press for processing the grapes.

Most of the terraces were used for dry farming, relying solely on rainfall. In the Judean Hills, the chief produce consisted of vines, olives, figs and pomegranates. In the few places that had water, larger terraces were built on several levels in order to make the most of the rare opportunity to raise different crops all year round through irrigation. It was exhausting work, yielding only limited arable land. Crops were maximised by building the terraces as close as possible to natural springs.
Since the springs did not supply a great deal of water, the early inhabitants expanded their supply by tunnelling into the water- bearing strata. The water was then stored in large pools and conducted via a system of channels to the terrace plots. Tunnelled springs thus came to be an integral part of the terrace systems in the Judean Hills. The Song of Songs (4:12) refers to them individually as "a locked garden, a sealed well."
A village near a spring was built above it, of course, so as not to waste any land that could be irrigated through the force of gravity. The irrigated terraces below the spring produced several harvests a year.

"Of all the lands there are for dismal scenery, I think Palestine must be the prince." So wrote Mark Twain during his visit to the county in 1870.
Today this same land is blanketed in green, of which some 1.2 million dunams of forests and natural woodlands are tended by Keren Kayemeth lelsrael.Jewish National Fund. The arid landscape has been rolled back and replaced by plants. Hundreds of thousands of dunams have been reclaimed and rehabilitated, once more offering residents livelihood and welfare. It is hardly possible to imagine the nation celebrating its holidays without their popular picnics in forests and nature.
Beyond the rustle of leaves, behind the foliage of green, hides a story. Serialised and episodic, it spreads over almost a century: the story of KKl.JNF.
KKl.JNF has not stopped planting since the seeding of its first trees at Ben Shemen and Hulda. At dozens of sites, from Metulla to Eilat, it plants millions of saplings year in year out foi' a greener future, extending woodlands in the north and rolling back the desert in the south, while keeping a watchful eye on forest health.
It has been the executive arm of the Zionist enterprise from its inception. There is hardly a community in Israel whose lands it did not reclaim, whose stones it did not clear. The map of Jewish settlement in Eretz Israel prior to statehood was, to a great extent, determined by KKl.JNF: Hulda, Deganya, Jezreel Valley, Beit She'an Valley, Hefer Valley, Haifa Bay, the Negev and Galilee - interlocking links that largely molded the borders of the state-in-the-making.
The basis of KKl.JNF's work is national ownership of land which, in turn, is based on the biblical injunction that "the land shall not be sold in perpetuity" (Leviticus 25:2) - a guiding principal that has been borne out time and again, both in the past and today. Tens of thousands of immigrant homes have been built on KKL.JNF land. What would have happened had there not been land available?
Formerly, it was necessary to reclaim extensive agricultural tracts to promote settlement. Today, with the drop in demand for agricultural labour, KKL.JNF assists rural communities to develop tourism sites as additional, alternative sources of livelihood: from Timna Park at the edge of the Arava to Tel Maresha, Beit Govrin and Goren Park on the Lebanese border.
At the same time, it has been increasingly involved in helping to solve Israel's growing water shortage, as the population burgeons from high rates of both birth and immigration. Dozens of dams and reservoirs have been built allover the country in recent years to harvest excess surface runoff, primarily from winter floodwaters: ranging from Shira and Reshafim in the Beit She 'an Valley to Dalton in Galilee, the Eshet and Tzukim stow dams in the Arava, the Nirim dam, and the large Besor reservoirs in the northwestern Negev.
In many countries KKL.JNF serves as the window onto Zionism. It is active in Jewish education, deepening the bond between diaspora Jewry and Israel; and, in Israel, as well, it boosts youth identification with the land through varied and various educational activity at schools, youth organizations and its own field centers.
In the future, too, KKL.JNF will be breaking new ground. Fallow land will be turned into choice soil. Barren hillsides will continue to be painted green. KKL.JNF will keep on rolling back the desert, improving the country's ecological balance and ensuring a high quality of life and environment for Israel's residents. It is an unfinished story. A story that cannot be ended.