Latrun (, ''Latrun''; , ''al-Latrun'') is a strategic hilltop in the Latrun salient in the Ayalon Valley. It overlooks the road between

Tel Aviv Tel Aviv-Yafo ( or , ; ), sometimes rendered as Tel Aviv-Jaffa, and usually referred to as just Tel Aviv, is the most populous city in the Gush Dan metropolitan area of Israel. Located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline and with a popula ...

and

Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

, 25 kilometers west of Jerusalem and 14 kilometers southeast of

Ramla Ramla (), also known as Ramle (, ), is a city in the Central District of Israel. Ramle is one of Israel's mixed cities, with significant numbers of both Jews and Arabs. The city was founded in the early 8th century CE by the Umayyad caliph S ...

. It was the site of fierce fighting during the 1948 war. During the period of 1949–1967, it was occupied by Jordan at the edge of a no man's land between the armistice lines. In the 1967 war, it was occupied by Israel. The hilltop includes the Latrun Abbey, Mini Israel (a park with scale models of historic buildings around Israel), The International Center for the Study of Bird Migration (ICSBM), the

Yad La-Shiryon Yad La-Shiryon (officially: The Armored Corps Memorial Site and Museum at Latrun; ) is Israel's official memorial site for fallen soldiers from the Israeli Armor Corps, armored corps, as well as one of the most diverse tank museums in the world. ...

memorial to armored corps soldiers killed in action, and military

tank A tank is an armoured fighting vehicle intended as a primary offensive weapon in front-line ground combat. Tank designs are a balance of heavy firepower, strong armour, and battlefield mobility provided by tracks and a powerful engine; ...

museum.

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 ...

(Oasis of Peace) is a joint Israeli-Palestinian community on a hilltop south of Latrun. Canada Park is nearby to the east.

Etymology

The name Latrun is derived from the ruins of a medieval Crusader castle. There are two theories regarding the origin of the name. One is that it is a corruption of the Old French ''La toron des chevaliers'', or of the Castilian ''La torón de los caballeros'' (The Castle of the Knights), so named by the

Knights Templar The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon, mainly known as the Knights Templar, was a Military order (religious society), military order of the Catholic Church, Catholic faith, and one of the most important military ord ...

, or by its Castilian founder, Rodrigo Gonzales de Lara (see below). The other is that it is from the Latin, ''Domus boni Latronis'' (The House of the Good ''

Thief Theft (, cognate to ) is the act of taking another person's property or services without that person's permission or consent with the intent to deprive the rightful owner of it. The word ''theft'' is also used as a synonym or informal short ...

''), a name given by 14th-century Christian pilgrims after the

penitent thief The Penitent Thief, also known as the Good Thief, Wise Thief, Grateful Thief, or Thief on the Cross, is one of two unnamed thieves in Luke's account of the crucifixion of Jesus in the New Testament. The Gospel of Luke describes him asking Jesu ...

who was crucified by the Romans alongside Jesus ().

History

In the Hebrew Bible

In the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' Ayalon Valley was the site of a battle in which the

Israelites Israelites were a Hebrew language, Hebrew-speaking ethnoreligious group, consisting of tribes that lived in Canaan during the Iron Age. Modern scholarship describes the Israelites as emerging from indigenous Canaanites, Canaanite populations ...

, led by

Joshua Joshua ( ), also known as Yehoshua ( ''Yəhōšuaʿ'', Tiberian Hebrew, Tiberian: ''Yŏhōšuaʿ,'' Literal translation, lit. 'Yahweh is salvation'), Jehoshua, or Josue, functioned as Moses' assistant in the books of Book of Exodus, Exodus and ...

, defeated the

Amorites The Amorites () were an ancient Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic-speaking Bronze Age people from the Levant. Initially appearing in Sumerian records c. 2500 BC, they expanded and ruled most of the Levant, Mesopotamia and parts of Eg ...

().

Hellenistic period

Later, Judah Maccabee established his camp here in preparation for battle with the

Seleucid The Seleucid Empire ( ) was a Greek state in West Asia during the Hellenistic period. It was founded in 312 BC by the Macedonian general Seleucus I Nicator, following the division of the Macedonian Empire founded by Alexander the Great, a ...

Greeks, who had invaded Judea and were camped at

Emmaus Emmaus ( ; ; ; ) is a town mentioned in the Gospel of Luke of the New Testament. Luke reports that Jesus appeared, after his death and resurrection, before two of his disciples while they were walking on the road to Emmaus. Although its geograp ...

; this site is today identified by archaeologists as Hurvat Eked. According to the Book of Maccabees, Judah Maccabee learned that the Greeks were planning to march on his position, and successfully ambushed the invaders. The Jewish victory in what was later called the

Battle of Emmaus The Battle of Emmaus took place around September 165 BC during the Maccabean Revolt between Judean rebels, led by Judas Maccabeus (Judah Maccabee), and an expedition of Seleucid Empire forces under generals Gorgias, Ptolemy the son of Dorymenes, ...

led to greater Jewish autonomy under Hasmonean rule over the next century.

Crusader period

Little remains of the castle, which was reputedly built in 1130s by a Castilian nobleman Rodrigo González de Lara who later gave it to the Templars. The main tower was later surrounded with a rectangular enclosure with vaulted chambers. This in turn was enclosed by an outer court, of which one tower survives.

Ottoman period

Village

Walid Khalidi Walid Khalidi (; born in Jerusalem on July 16, 1925) is a Palestinian historian who has written extensively on the Palestinian exodus. He is a co-founder of the Institute for Palestine Studies, established in Beirut in December 1963 as an inde ...

in his book ''All That Remains'' describes al-Latrun as a small village established in the late 19th century by villagers from nearby

. In 1883, the PEF's '' Survey of Western Palestine'' (SWP) described Latrun as a few

adobe Adobe (from arabic: الطوب Attub ; ) is a building material made from earth and organic materials. is Spanish for mudbrick. In some English-speaking regions of Spanish heritage, such as the Southwestern United States, the term is use ...

huts among the ruins of a medieval fortress. Latrun Trappist Monastery Exterior

Trappist monastery

In December 1890, a monastery was established at Latrun by French, German and Flemish monks of the Trappist order, from Sept-Fons Abbey in France, at the request of Monseigneur Poyet of the

Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem The Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem () is the Latin Catholic ecclesiastical patriarchate in Jerusalem, officially seated in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem is the archbishop of Latin Church Catholics of th ...

. The monastery( fr) is dedicated to

Our Lady of the Seven Sorrows Our Lady of Sorrows (), Our Lady of Dolours, the Sorrowful Mother or Mother of Sorrows (), and Our Lady of Piety, Our Lady of the Seven Sorrows or Our Lady of the Seven Dolours are names by which Mary, mother of Jesus, is referred to in relatio ...

. The liturgy is in French. The monks bought the 'Maccabee Hotel', formerly called 'The Howard' from the Batato brothers together with two-hundred hectares of land and started the community in a building which still stands in the monastic domain. The old monastery complex was built between 1891 and 1897.Latroun
the abbey's official website. Accessed 11 May 2021. In 1909 it was given the status of a

priory A priory is a monastery of men or women under religious vows that is headed by a prior or prioress. They were created by the Catholic Church. Priories may be monastic houses of monks or nuns (such as the Benedictines, the Cistercians, or t ...

and that of an

abbey An abbey is a type of monastery used by members of a religious order under the governance of an abbot or abbess. Abbeys provide a complex of buildings and land for religious activities, work, and housing of Christians, Christian monks and nun ...

in 1937.Latroun Abbey Archive The community was expelled by the Ottoman Turks between 1914–1918 and the buildings pillaged, a new monastery being built during the next three decades. The monks established a vineyard using knowledge gained in France and advice from an expert in the employ of Baron

Edmond James de Rothschild Baron Abraham Edmond Benjamin James de Rothschild (; 19 August 1845 – 2 November 1934) was a French member of the Rothschild banking family. A strong supporter of Jewish settlement in Palestine, his large donations lent significant support to ...

from the Carmel-Mizrahi Winery. Today they produce a wide variety of wines that are sold in the Abbey shop and elsewhere.

British Mandate

In the

1922 census of Palestine The 1922 census of Palestine was the first census carried out by the authorities of the British Mandate of Palestine, on 23 October 1922. The reported population was 757,182, including the military and persons of foreign nationality. The divis ...

, conducted by the British Mandate authorities, ''Latrun'' had a population of 59, all

Muslim Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...

s. In addition, ''Dair Latrun'' ("The monastery of Latrun") had a population of 37 Christian males.Barron, 1923, Table VII, Sub-district of Ramleh, p
21
/ref> In the 1931 census they were counted together, and Latrun had a population 120; 76 Muslims and 44 Christians, in a total of 16 "houses".Mills, 1932, p
22
During WWI the monastery sustained significant damage. Latrun and its environs saw heavy fighting during the

Sinai and Palestine campaign The Sinai and Palestine campaign was part of the Middle Eastern theatre of World War I, taking place between January 1915 and October 1918. The British Empire, the French Third Republic, and the Kingdom of Italy fought alongside the Arab Revol ...

, an offensive launched in the fall of 1917 by the Entente powers against the Ottoman Empire and its allies. The monastery's interior furnishings, as well as all of its windows and doors, were either looted or destroyed as a result of the conflict. After the war, a new monastery was built at Latrun in 1926, and the crypt was completed in 1933. However the church was again damaged during the Arab-Israeli war of 1948, and required further restoration. This work was completed, and the church officially consecrated, on 21 November 1953. The monastery was designed by the community's first abbot, Dom Paul Couvreur, and is an example of

Cistercian architecture Cistercian architecture is a style of architecture associated with the churches, monasteries and abbeys of the Roman Catholic Cistercian Order. It was heavily influenced by Bernard of Clairvaux (d. 1153), who believed that churches should avoid ...

. Many of the stained-glass windows were produced by a monk of the community. A Juniorate, a school for young boys, ran from 1931 until 1963 and provided many vocations for the community, especially of Lebanese monks. Following the 1936–39 Arab revolt, the

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. * British national identity, the characteristics of British people and culture ...

authorities built a number of police forts (named Tegart forts after their designer) at various locations; Latrun was chosen due to its strategic significance, particularly its dominant position above the Tel-Aviv-Jerusalem road. Many members of the

Yishuv The Yishuv (), HaYishuv Ha'ivri (), or HaYishuv HaYehudi Be'Eretz Yisra'el () was the community of Jews residing in Palestine prior to the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. The term came into use in the 1880s, when there were about 2 ...

who had resisted the British administration were imprisoned in a detention camp at Latrun.

Moshe Sharett Moshe Sharett (; born Moshe Chertok (); 15 October 1894 – 7 July 1965) was the second prime minister of Israel and the country’s first foreign minister. He signed the Israeli Declaration of Independence and was a principal negotiator in th ...

, later Israel's second Prime Minister, and several other members of the

Jewish Agency The Jewish Agency for Israel (), formerly known as the Jewish Agency for Palestine, is the largest Jewish non-profit organization in the world. It was established in 1929 as the operative branch of the World Zionist Organization (WZO). As an ...

's Executive Committee, were held at Latrun for several months in 1946. As of the 1945 statistics, the population of the Latrun village had grown to 190 Christians,Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics, 1945, p
30
/ref> with a total of 8,376

dunam A dunam ( Ottoman Turkish, Arabic: ; ; ; ), also known as a donum or dunum and as the old, Turkish, or Ottoman stremma, was the Ottoman unit of area analogous in role (but not equal) to the Greek stremma or English acre, representing the amo ...

s of land.Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. ''Village Statistics, April, 1945''. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p
67
/ref> Of this, a total of 6,705 dunams were used for

cereal A cereal is a grass cultivated for its edible grain. Cereals are the world's largest crops, and are therefore staple foods. They include rice, wheat, rye, oats, barley, millet, and maize ( Corn). Edible grains from other plant families, ...

s, 439 dunams were irrigated or used for orchards, 7 for citrus and bananas, while 4 dunams were classified as built-up public areas. Latrun

1948 and 1967 Arab–Israeli Wars

The road from the coastal plain to Jerusalem was blocked after the British withdrew and handed the fort of Latrun over to

Jordan Jordan, officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, is a country in the Southern Levant region of West Asia. Jordan is bordered by Syria to the north, Iraq to the east, Saudi Arabia to the south, and Israel and the occupied Palestinian ter ...

Arab Legion The Arab Legion () was the police force, then regular army, of the Emirate of Transjordan, a British protectorate, in the early part of the 20th century, and then of the Jordan, Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, an independent state, with a final Ar ...

. The Arab Legionnaires used the fort to shell Israeli vehicles traveling on the road below, effectively imposing a military siege on Jerusalem and the Jewish residents there, despite that the United Nations plan was to keep Jerusalem as an international zone with neither Jordan, Israel, nor the Palestinian

Arab Higher Committee The Arab Higher Committee () or the Higher National Committee was the central political organ of Palestinian Arabs in Mandatory Palestine. It was established on 25 April 1936, on the initiative of Haj Amin al-Husayni, the Grand Mufti of Je ...

having sovereignty over it. On 24 May 1948, ten days after the

Israeli Declaration of Independence The Israeli Declaration of Independence, formally the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel (), was proclaimed on 14 May 1948 (5 Iyar 5708), at the end of the 1947–1948 civil war in Mandatory Palestine, civil war phase and ...

per the

United Nations General Assembly The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA or GA; , AGNU or AG) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN), serving as its main deliberative, policymaking, and representative organ. Currently in its Seventy-ninth session of th ...

's Resolution 181 and the Arab assaults against Israel which followed, the Jordanian Legion's fort was assaulted by combined forces of Israel's newly created 7th Armored Brigade, and a battalion of the Alexandroni Brigade.

Ariel Sharon Ariel Sharon ( ; also known by his diminutive Arik, ; 26 February 192811 January 2014) was an Israeli general and politician who served as the prime minister of Israel from March 2001 until April 2006. Born in Kfar Malal in Mandatory Palestin ...

, then a platoon commander, was wounded at Latrun along with many of his soldiers. The assault, codenamed Operation Bin Nun Alef (24–25 May), was unsuccessful, sustaining heavy casualties. On 31 May 1948, a second attack against the fort, codenamed Operation Bin Nun Bet, also failed, although the outer defenses had been breached. Many of the Israeli fighters were young

Holocaust The Holocaust (), known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (), was the genocide of History of the Jews in Europe, European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ...

survivors who had just arrived in the country and had minimal military training. The official casualty figure for both battles was 139. Burma Road 1948

To circumvent the blocked road, a makeshift camouflaged road through the seemingly impassable mountains towards Jerusalem was constructed under the command of Mickey (David) Marcus. This bypassed the main routes overlooked by Latrun and was named the Burma Road after its emergency supply-line namesake between Kunming (China) and Lashio (Burma), improvised by the Allies in

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. By 10 June 1948, the road was fully operational, putting an end to the month-old Arab blockade. On 2 August, the Truce Commission drew the attention of the

Security Council The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN) and is charged with ensuring international peace and security, recommending the admission of new UN members to the General Assembly, an ...

to the Arabs' refusal to allow water and food supplies to reach Jewish West

. After much negotiation, it was agreed that United Nations convoys would transport supplies, but the convoys often came under sniper fire. Towards the end of August, the situation improved. The destruction of the Latrun pumping station made it impossible for water in adequate quantities to flow to West Jerusalem, but the

Israelis Israelis (; ) are the Israeli citizenship law, citizens and nationals of the Israel, State of Israel. The country's populace is composed primarily of Israeli Jews, Jews and Arab citizens of Israel, Arabs, who respectively account for 75 percen ...

built an auxiliary small-capacity water pipeline along the "Burma Road", which provided a minimum amount of water. After Operation Danny, Israeli forces anticipated a Jordanian counterattack, possibly from Latrun, but King Abdullah remained within the bounds of the tacit agreement made with the Jewish Agency and kept his troops at Latrun. In the

1949 Armistice Agreements The 1949 Armistice Agreements were signed between Israel and Egypt,salient under

Jordanian control Jordanian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Jordan, a country in the Near East * Jordanian culture * Jordanian people, see Demographics of Jordan * Jordanian cuisine * Jordanian Arabic * Royal Jordanian, an airline See also * L ...

, which was in turn surrounded by a perimeter of no man's land. Under the cease-fire agreement,

was not to disrupt Israeli travelers using this road; in practice, constant sniper attacks led Israel to build a

bypass road A bypass is a road or highway that avoids or "bypasses" a built-up area, town, or village, to let through traffic flow without interference from local traffic, to reduce congestion in the built-up area, to improve road safety and as replacement ...

around the bulge. In the

Six-Day War The Six-Day War, also known as the June War, 1967 Arab–Israeli War or Third Arab–Israeli War, was fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab world, Arab states, primarily United Arab Republic, Egypt, Syria, and Jordan from 5 to 10June ...

of 1967, Latrun was captured by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), and the main road to Jerusalem was reopened and made safe for travel. Sculpture outside outside the Latrun Trappist Monastery in Jerusalem

Sculpture outside outside the Latrun Trappist Monastery in Jerusalem

Since the Six-Day War

The Latrun monastic community allowed two communities, Neve Shalom/Wahat as-Salam and an affiliate of the , to be established on its land. The Tegart fort became the

memorial for the fallen soldiers of the Israeli Armored Corps and a museum was established there.

References

Bibliography

* * * * (pp
59309
��313) * * * * * * * ''Latrun'' (2002, ) is a novel by Ram Oren describing the two Battles of Latrun and the events surrounding them. * * * * * * * * (pp
753
ff)

External links

Abbaye de Latroun
(Latrun Abbey), official website of the Cistercian (Trappist) monastery, in English

at PalestineRemembered.com
al-Latrun
Zochrot
Photo gallery at davidpride.comLatrun tanks photo gallery
The gallery of annotated photos of the tanks
Latrun support armoured vehicles photosLatrun monuments
The gallery of annotated photos of the monuments at the Latrun museum dedicated to the fallen soldiers

from the Jewish Agency for Israel *Survey of Western Palestine, Map 17
IAA

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Latrun Battles

8 Latrun MIAS Identified 2005
{{Authority control Six-Day War Castles and fortifications of the Knights Templar Hebrew Bible places Arab villages depopulated during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War Ramallah and al-Bireh Governorate Tegart forts Trappist monasteries Roman Catholic monasteries in Palestine Christian monasteries in the West Bank