Kefar Shihlayim

In circa 64 CE, when Cestius and his contingent of Roman soldiers were defeated by the people of Jerusalem, this greatly emboldened the war-like faction of Jerusalem who resolved to subdue also the inhabitants of the coastal town of Ascalon, a town inhabited by foreigners and which had a Roman garrison stationed there.

There, the few who escaped, recuperated and enlisted other able-bodied men of their fellow countrymen to launch a second attack against Ascalon, but once again failed in their endeavor.

[7] A settlement is mentioned by Eusebius from the beginning of the fourth century CE called Saaleim (Greek: Σααλειμ), which he places seven Roman miles (ca.

[8] Medieval geographer Yāqūt al-Ḥamawi (Muʿğam 3:46, 49) mentioned "in the territory of ʿAsqelân" a contemporary settlement called Siḥlīn (Arabic: سحْلين).

[1]The origin of the name of the settlement Kefar Shiḥlayim is explained in the Jerusalem Talmud as being because they were prolific in child-bearing, just as garden-cress (Aramaic: taḥlūsiya) grows profusely when cultivated.

[19] Hebrew names such as Pella = פחל‎ and Sallis (Saaleim) = שחלים‎ are always transcribed by Greek writers in a geminative form, rather than in a guttural.

[22][23] Neubauer, throwing further light on the subject, suggests that the identification of Kefar Shiḥlayim, found in the Talmud and midrashic literature, be recognized in the name Shilḥim of the Bible (Joshua 15:32).

[22] According to others, the Palestinian toponym Sihlin represents a complex linguistic tradition, characteristic of other place-names in Idumea and which toponymy show by their evolution a Judaean Hebrew substratum, followed by an Arabo-Edomite superstratum presumably not devoid of an Aramaic adstratum.

Josephus places Sallis (Chaallis) in Idumaea, a geographical region of ancient Palestine directly south-southwest of Jerusalem.

[30] Yoel Elitzur followed in Klein's footsteps, proposing the same location for the village, based on the similar Arabic name preserved in the 1596 Ottoman tax registers.

[35] Yeshayahu Press, chief editor of Topographical-Historical Encyclopedia of the Land of Israel, proposed that the town Kefar Shiḥlayim lay within the confines of the ruin Khirbet Shaḥleh (Kh.

Šaḥleh), now Ḥórvat Šēlaḥ, a ruin located almost 2 statute miles to the east of Iraq al-Manshiyya, and called Khŭrbet Shalkhah (grid position 131113 PAL) in the British Survey of Western Palestine map (III, 285).

German historical geography Georg Kampffmeyer proposed that Sharuhen found in Joshua 19:6 (a site rarely discussed by scholars of topography) be recognised in the name Tell esh-Sheri'ah, a ruin situated ca.

[44] Albright, dissenting, thought that the same site was realized in Tell el-Huweilfeh, a ruin east of Dahiriyeh,[45] or else in Tell el-Fârʿah, west of Beersheba.