A few months ago, I was contacted by a good friend and Brother George Shukha, from a lodge in Israel, who informed me about a lodge meeting in Solomon’s Quarries, a rather famous cave in Jerusalem, very well known in Masonic circles. The photos of the event were captivating, and the meeting included a lecture by Brother Yosef Bahar. Solomon’s Quarries – known as Zedekiah’s Cave – is situated under the Muslim Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem, and is believed to have been the quarries that supplied the stone for the Temple. Cherub graffiti was found in the cave by a nineteenth century French archaeologist, which has been used to support that the quarries were used in Solomon’s time, and Masonic lodges have met in the cave since the later nineteenth century. Brother Bahar then emailed with more photographs and details of this historical event.

As Brother Bahar explained ‘It all started when brethren from “Cukurova Lodge” in Adana (a city in the south-eastern part of Turkey) invited me on March 2015, to give a lecture on Zedekiah’s Cave – King Solomon’s Quarries. I gave the lecture, the brethren liked it and were very interested to visit Jerusalem and have a lodge meeting in the cave. So our “Nur Lodge” in Tel-Aviv (it is a Turkish speaking-working lodge) made all the preparations and logistics and on the 7^th of September  2015, we had a working in the cave. Thirty two brethren from Nur Lodge and 130 visiting Brethren from Turkey—Including the Grand Masters—participated on that lodge meeting. They asked me to repeat my lecture for the brethren who did not hear it (there were brothers from Istanbul and Izmir). The lecture was in Turkish and a Hebrew translation printed for the Israeli brethren. Attached are pictures of the cave prepared for that occasion.’

Having written about lodges that meet in caves previously, this was an event that particular interested me, and the special location certainly makes this lodge meeting a historical occasion.