The area of Judea and Samaria which is located on the west bank of the Jordan River, provides Israel  with essential security. It is 5,860 Square kilometers, slightly smaller than the state of Delaware. The 1949 Armistice lines left only 9 miles between the eastern border and the Mediterranean Sea. (This is roughly the distance from LaGuardia airport to downtown Manhattan). Over half of Israel's population lives in this narrow vulnerable stretch of land. In addition, most of Israel's industry and economic infrastructure is concentrated there, including its energy and power installations. It includes West Bank, Latrun Salient, and the northwest quarter of the Dead Sea, and Jerusalem.
    The climate is temperate, temperature and precipitation vary with altitude, warm to hot summers, cool to mild winters. The terrain is mostly rugged dissected upland, some vegetation in west, but barren in east .
Timeline of the Peace Process

Resources about Judea and Samaria:
Maale Shomron Geography
Zionist Century Homepage  - Pedagogic Center
The Jewish Agency in Israel - department of Jewish Zionist Education
The Judea Magazine - the story of the rebirth of Jewish life in Judea, Israel

Jerusalem
The Jerusalem Mosaic
    Jerusalem is the heart and capital of Israel. The city is nestled in the hills between the Mediterranean Sea and the Dead Sea at a height of 835 meters above sea level. Because of its elevation, Jerusalem can be chilly --even in the summer. It almost never ever rains in Jerusalem during the summer. From May until September almost every day is sunny, with only a few clouds. With such a long period between rainfalls the hills can get dry. In long periods of intense heat, the evergreen trees in the hills surrounding Jerusalem sometimes get burned in forest fires.
    Jerusalem has a recorded history of 4000 years.  King David unified the city and proclaimed Jerusalem the capital in the 10th century BCE. It's the city of Solomon's Temple, and where the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah spoke of living a moral and ethical life.
    In Babylonian Talmud Tractate, Kiddushin 49:2, it states, "Ten measures of beauty were bestowed upon the world; nine were taken by Jerusalem, and one by the rest of the world."

Activity: Take a virtual tour of the tunnels beneath and adjoining the remaining Western Wall of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem and learn about the history and archaeology from its beginning until the present time. Learn how different populations rebuilt the rooms, arches, and passageways to accomodate their needs. In your virtual tour, you should learn about:

• the Two Temples built by King Solomon in 825 BCE and Ezra in 352 BCE.
• Robinson's Arch
• Wilson's Arch
• an aqueduct used by the Macabbees around 150 BCE
• Barclay's Gate
• The Donkey Stable
• "The Secret Passageway" - who built it and why?
• how water was brought in from Hebron, many miles away.

• Herod the Great - King of Judea from 37 BCE - 4 BCE
• King David
• Suleiman the Great - 10th Ottoman Sultan - in 1520 during the Moslem period in Jerusalem
• Dirk the Crusader
• Tamar - a resident of modern Jerusalem in the 1990's

Activity: Learn about Israeli butterflies and moths    Create a class database about the butterflies in Israel. The database could be created on a computer and should include pictures of the various butterflies. This is an excellent way to integrate computer skills with a research project. An explanation should be included about why and how these butterflies migrated to Israel.

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