Katzrin 5.06

Katzrin is an Israeli settlement organized as a local council in the Golan Heights Known as the "capital of the Golan," it is the second-largest locality there after Majdal Shams, and the largest Jewish locality. In it had a population of. It is the seat of Golan Regional Council.The international community considers Israeli settlements in the Golan Heights illegal under international law, though the Israeli government disputes this.GeographyTo the south of Katzrin is the Sea of Galilee, to the north Mount Hermon, and to the west are the Upper Galilee hills of Israel.HistoryAntiquityThe site was occupied from the Middle Bronze Age, continuing into the Iron, Hellenistic and Roman periods. The most substantial structural remains date from the Late Roman, Byzantine and Early Islamic periods, when the site was a Jewish village with a synagogue.Arab and Mamluk periodsThe Jewish settlement served as an important trading location in the region, but started to decline with the change of trading routes after the Islamic conquest. The village was destroyed in an earthquake in CE 746–749. As a result of the earthquake the location was most probably abandoned by the declining Jewish community.During the Mamluk period (13th–14th centuries), it was a Muslim village and a mosque was built on the ruins of the synagogue.