Eshtaol Forest () is a

forest A forest is an ecosystem characterized by a dense ecological community, community of trees. Hundreds of definitions of forest are used throughout the world, incorporating factors such as tree density, tree height, land use, legal standing, ...

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

, located north of

Beit Shemesh Beit Shemesh () is a city council (Israel), city located approximately west of Jerusalem in Israel's Jerusalem District. A center of Haredi Judaism and Modern Orthodoxy, Beit Shemesh has a population of 170,683 as of 2024. The city is named afte ...

and near

Ta'oz Ta'oz () is a moshav in central Israel. Located to the northwest of Beit Shemesh with an area of 1,500 dunams, it falls under the jurisdiction of Mateh Yehuda Regional Council. In it had a population of . History The village was established in 1 ...

and

Neve Shalom Neve Shalom (), also known as Wahat as-Salam () is a cooperative village in Israel, jointly founded by Israeli Jews and Arabs in an attempt to show that the two peoples can live side by side peacefully, as well as to conduct educational work f ...

, south of the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem Highway. The

Forest of the Martyrs Forest of the Martyrs () is a forest on the outskirts of West Jerusalem, Israel. It is on the western edge of the Jerusalem Forest near Beit Meir. It was planted as a memorial to those who died in the Holocaust and contains six million trees, sy ...

lies to the east. The forest is a popular recreation area and is one of the largest forests in Israel.

History

Eshtaol Forest features an 8-kilometer hiking trail and numerous scenic views. The forest (like most other forests in Israel) was planted in by the

Jewish National Fund The Jewish National Fund (JNF; , ''Keren Kayemet LeYisrael''; previously , ''Ha Fund HaLeumi'') is a non-profit organizationProfessor Alon Tal, The Mitrani Department of Desert Ecology, The Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research, Ben Gurion ...

, which continues to expand it. The forest covers an area of approximately . A 2015 forest fire decimated of the forest. In addition to numerous recreational and picnic areas, the forest has internal roads that allow for scenic drives through the forest. The Eshtaol hiking trail also contains part of the much larger

Israel National Trail The Israel National Trail (, ''Shvil Yisra'el'') is a hiking trail that crosses the entire length of Israel, with its northern end at Kibbutz Dan in the far north of the country, extending to Eilat at the southernmost tip of Israel on the Red Sea ...

. The forest has a recreation area named for

Bernardo O'Higgins Bernardo O'Higgins Riquelme (; 20 August 1778 – 24 October 1842) was a Chilean independence leader who freed Chile from Spanish rule in the Chilean War of Independence. He was a wealthy landowner of Basque people, Basque-Spanish people, Spani ...

, the first leader of independent

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in western South America. It is the southernmost country in the world and the closest to Antarctica, stretching along a narrow strip of land between the Andes, Andes Mountains and the Paci ...

. His image is engraved on the face of a giant coin embedded in a rock at the site.Chilean hero hides in Israeli forest
''

The Jerusalem Post ''The Jerusalem Post'' is an English language, English-language Israeli broadsheet newspaper based in Jerusalem, Israel, founded in 1932 during the Mandate for Palestine, British Mandate of Mandatory Palestine, Palestine by Gershon Agron as ''Th ...

References

External links

Jewish National Fund website
{{Coord, 31, 48, N, 34, 59, E, display=title Forests of Israel Jewish National Fund forests and parks Protected areas of Jerusalem District

History

See also

References

External links