Outrage is mounting at New York Times coverage of the recent Israel-Gaza war, with prominent Israeli and American Jewish leaders...
The first person we know of who made the connection between Meron and Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai was a 12th-century Jewish traveler by the name of Jacob ben Netanel HaCohen, who wrote a travel diary of his visit to the Holy Land. He mentions Rashbi’s tomb in Meron, and adds that his son Rabbi Eleazar is also buried there. Oddly enough, various other medieval pilgrims who authored travelogues and visited Meron — such as Benjamin of Tudela and Petachia of Regensburg — neither mention the tomb of Rashbi, nor that of his son — which, to be blunt, is a jarring omission.