National Geographic : 1947 Dec
Staff Photographer Maynard Owen Williams Under a Benign Mediterranean Sun, Tel Avivians Head for Relaxation at the Seashore Palestine's modern, all-Jewish city, once a stretch of sand dunes, boasts an excellent beach which has become the country's most popular resort. Here pleasure-seekers pass through London Square, a section of the seaside promenade named to commemorate the British capital's heroism under World War II bombard ment. On the promontory in the distance stands Jaffa, the Joppa of Biblical times. can School of Oriental Research, Jerusalem* (page 746). The Nabataean trade route, as a matter of fact, led from Trans-Jordan across southern Palestine to Gaza and Ascalon. From these places the exotic goods of Arabia were ex ported to Egypt, Rhodes, Italy, and else where. Of Ascalon's Glory an Onion Survives Gone is the glory of Ascalon! And who could guess that the name of the lowly scal lion, shallot, or eschalot, as it is variously known, is derived from that of once-proud Ascalon, or Ashkelon, of the Philistines and Herodians? Bite into the common onion of Ascalon and bewail the fate of frail mortals and their handiwork! On the seashore near Gaza, which is twelve miles south of its sister-city of Ascalon, we saw Arab fishermen mending their nets and calking their boats. We watched some of their boats approaching the shore, sails furled and men rowing. In vessels probably not much larger than these, the Philistines once reached these very sands. Here, as in other parts of the coast, they seized and maintained a foothold and com menced the attempt to subjugate all of Canaan. For long they bested the hosts of Israel. They beat a path as far as Beth Shemesh and planted their banners on the walls of Beth shan, but then the tide ebbed. The might of their martial spirit and the strength of their spears alone failed to turn the fortunes of history in their favor. Instead of blessings, the Ark of the Cove nant of the God of Israel, which they had * See "On the Trail of King Solomon's Mines," by Nelson Glueck, in the NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGA ZINE, February, 1944, pages 248-249.