Bronze and Iron Ages The association of Meron with the ancient Canaanite city of
Merom or
Maroma is generally accepted, though the absence of hard archaeological evidence means other sites a little further north, such as
Marun ar-Ras or Jebel Marun, have also been considered.
Merom is mentioned in 2nd milleniun BCE
Egyptian sources, and in
Tiglath-pileser III's accounts of his expedition to the
Galilee in 733–732 BCE (where it is transcribed as
Marum).
Classical Antiquity Excavations at Meron found
artifacts dating to the
Hellenistic period at the foundation of the site. The economic and cultural affinities of the inhabitants of the Meron area at this time were directed toward the north, to
Tyre and southern
Syria in general. "One of the largest Palestinian synagogues in the
basilica style", it is the earliest example of the so-called 'Galilean' synagogue, and consists of a large room with eight columns on each side leading to the facade and a three-doored entrance framed by a columned
portico. Artifacts uncovered during digs at the site include a coin of
Probus (276–282 CE) and African ceramics dating to the latter half of the 3rd century, indicating that the city was commercially prosperous at the time.
Early Islamic to Mamluk periods Denys Pringle describes Meron as a "[f]ormer Jewish village", with a synagogue and tombs dating to the 3rd and 4th centuries, noting the site was later reoccupied between 750 and 1399. In the 12th century,
Benjamin de Tudela, a
Navarrese rabbi, visited Meron and described a cave of tombs located there believed to hold the remains of
Hillel,
Shammai, and "twenty of their disciples and other Rabbis". In the early 14th century,
Arab geographer
al-Dimashqi mentioned Meron as falling under the administration of Safad. He reported that it was located near a "well-known cave" where Jews and possibly non-Jewish locals travelled to celebrate a festival, which involved witnessing the sudden and miraculous rise of water from basins and
sarcophagi in the cave.
Ottoman period Palestine was incorporated into the
Ottoman Empire in 1517, and by 1596, Meron was a large village of 715 located in the
nahiya ("subdistrict") of Jira, part of
Sanjak Safad. The village paid taxes on goats, beehives, and a press that processed either grapes or olives. All the villagers were Muslim. Meron suffered relatively minor damage in the
Galilee earthquake of 1837. It was reported that during the earthquake the walls of the tombs of Rabbi Eleazer and Rabbi Shimon were dislodged, but did not collapse. A number of European travellers came to Meron over the course of the 19th century and their observations from the time are documented in travel journals.
Edward Robinson, who visited Meron during his travels in Palestine and Syria in the mid-19th century, describes it as "a very old looking village situated on a ledge of bristling rocks near the foot of the mountain. The ascent is by a very steep and ancient road [...] It is small, and inhabited only by Muhammedans." The tombs of Shimon bar Yochai, his son rabbi Eleazar and those of Hillel and Shammai are located by Robinson as lying within a khan-like courtyard underneath low-domed structures that were usually kept closed with the keys held in Safad. Robinson indicates that this place was the focal point of Jewish pilgrimage activities by his time; the synagogue is described as being in ruins.
Karl Baedeker described it as a small village that appeared quite old with a
Muslim population. By the late 19th century, Meron was a small village of 50 people who cultivated olives.
British Mandate of Palestine Towards the end of
World War I, the ruins of the Meron synagogue were acquired by the "Fund for the Redemption of Historical Sites" (''Qeren le-Geulat Meqomot Histori'im''), a Jewish society headed by
David Yellin. In
1931, Meron consisted of an Arab and Jewish quarter, with the former being the larger one and the latter being built around the tomb of bar Yochai. That year, there were 259 Arabs and 31 Jews.
Sami Hadawi's 1945 survey, conducted toward the end of the
British Mandate in Palestine, depicted an entirely Arab population. Meron had a boy's elementary school. Agriculture and livestock was the dominant economic sectors of the village, with grain being the primary crop, followed by fruits. Around 200 dunams of land were planted with olive trees, and there were two presses in the village used to process olives. in Meron, 1948
State of Israel Meron was founded as a
moshav by the
religious Zionist Hapoel HaMizrachi movement in 1949, next to the ancient site of Meiron, by eastern European Jews who fought in the 1948 war. Politicians
Yehuda Leib Maimon and
Dov Yosef attended the moshav's establishment ceremony, which took place on
Lag BaOmer in 1949. ==Tomb of Shimon Bar Yochai==