Kfar Bar'am

Kfar Bar'am

Ancient synagogue ruins.
Shown within Israel
Location	Northern District, Israel
Coordinates	33°02′37″N 35°24′51″E / 33.043611°N 35.414075°E / 33.043611; 35.414075

Kfar Baram (Hebrew: כְּפַר בַּרְעָם‎), is the site of an ancient Jewish village. It is situated near to the site of Kafr Bir'im or Kafar Berem, a medieval Maronite Christian village. Today, it is located in Northern Israel, 3 kilometers from the Lebanese border.

The name is often assumed to mean "Son of the People," incorporating the Aramaic word bar בר, meaning "son" and the Hebrew word am עם meaning "people". However, if like at Shfar'am, both elements are Hebrew, the name could derive from a literary Hebrew word בר indicating cleanliness, purity, pristineness and wholesomeness - "The wholesome people" or "wholesomeness of the people".

Bar'am was established in ancient times as a Jewish village. At an unknown point between the 7th and the 13th century, Jews abandoned the village. After a period of Muslim inhabitation, by the 19th century the village was entirely Christian, comprising Maronites and Melkites. A church on the site, the Maronite church, is maintained and is in regular use.

For many centuries, the place was a place of Jewish pilgrimage. It was said in the 12th century to contain the tombs of Barak, the prophet Obadiah and Queen Esther. The Jews of Safed would assemble around these shrines each year on Purim to "eat, drink and rejoice," and the Megillat Esther (Scroll of Esther) was read at her grave. A few people were reported to still visit the spot in 1868. However, the Persian city of Hamadan (ancient Ecbatana) contains a more prominent monument which is also said to be the tomb of Queen Esther and her cousin Mordechai. According to Jewish tradition, Pinchas ben Yair (2nd-century CE) was buried in Kfar Bar'am.