Mount Hermon

 Midway along the road leading up from Banyas to Majdal e-Shams, beside the grave of Nebi Hazori, is a grove of large kermes oak trees with unusual shapes. One tree, for example, has a hollow trunk, which someone has gone to the trouble of bolstering with stones. Another has a bowed trunk, but still affords a great deal of shade. But most important, between the trees you can see Mt. Hermon, its slopes covered with a dense grove of kermes oaks that is the “ancestral homeland” of the trees of Nebi Hazori. Some botanists say that in their natural form, kermes oaks are only shrubs. Others maintain that in the right conditions, they would grow and flourish like the oaks of Nebi Hazori – which have certainly been given special treatment, due to the site’s holiness for the local Druze population.Sheikh Othman el-Hazori was a Druze holy man who was known as an ardent seeker of peace. Legend has it that he would present people passing through the area with a special kind of salt: it tasted good to peace lovers, but made warmongers so confused that they forgot their target.The Jewish National Fund has installed a pleasant picnic site in the shade of the grove. Don’t be alarmed at the fence surrounding the site: all you have to do is open the green gate and go in. If you prefer, you can stop at the little picnic site a bit further along, on the dirt road that is marked in red. This is a newly marked trail, which will appear in the next edition of the Golan and Hermon Trail Map, Dany Gaspar, coordinator of the Israel Trails Committee, promises us. When we visited, we were happy to be among the inaugurators of the trail, which leads to Nimrod’s Fortress.