American Veterans Archaeological Recovery (AVAR)

ARCHAEOLOGICAL THERAPY: U.S. veterans use archaeology to dig through trauma in Israel. "Because of their separation from the military culture, a lot of them are really isolated" (Paul Goldman and Francis Whittaker, NBC News).

Stephen Humphreys, a former U.S. Air Force aircraft maintenance officer, heads up the program. He served in the military for six-and-a-half years, before going back to college to become an archaeologist.

[...]

Humphreys hopes that the program won’t just give veterans an “amazing transformative experience to bond together again,” but also bring potential employment opportunities in the field.

AVAR works with specialists from the University of Haifa’s Zinman Institute of Archaeology, including Dr. Adi Erlich, who is in charge of the excavation at Beit She’arim, a site rich in history.

“Ancient Beit She’arim was a major Jewish town in Galilee during the Roman and Byzantine periods,” Erlich said.

The site was the hometown of Rabbi Judah — a major Jewish leader in the late second and early third centuries — whose burial place became a famous necropolis.

Past PaleoJudaica posts on Beit She'arim (Beith Shearim) are here and links.

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