Adam's Rock

Adam's Rock (he: סלע אדם – Sela Adam; ar: حجر آدم) or Adam's Island (he: אי אדם – Ie Adam; ar: جزيرة آدم) is a tiny Israeli island about half a kilometer west of Bat Yam.[1] A smaller rock (island) is located 10 m west of Adam Rock.

Adam's Rock
Native name:
Sela Adam
Adam Rock, Bat Yam's Rock Beach and the breakwaters
Geography
LocationBat Yam, Israel
Administration
DistrictTel Aviv
CityBat Yam
Demographics
Populationnone

Geology and geomorphology

Adam's Rock is a protrusion in an abrasion platform, a remnant of an ancient kurkar ridge. This ridge was unevenly destroyed in abrasion, a process of grinding and erosion.[1]

History

The beach near the island is known as Rock Beach, after the tiny island opposite the beach. Until the breakwaters at the Rock Beach in Bat Yam were built in the late 1960s, the rock could only be reached swimming or sailing. Swimming there was and still is a common activity among bathers.

The nature researcher and tour guide Yehuda Ziv wrote about the island:

The southernmost of Jaffa's reefs, opposite the beach of Bat Yam, is known in Arabic as 'Hajar Adam' – Adam's Rock. The legend tells us that the fish in the Mediterranean come here in bands, kiss the rock, and continue on their way... The island was swallowed up among the large stone boulders that were piled up in front of Bat Yam's seashore to protect its beach, barely visible from the promenade".[2]

The legend and name were previously mentioned by Zev Vilnay, who dates these back to the Middle Ages.[3]

gollark: Personally, my suggested climate-change-handling policies:- massively scale up nuclear fission power, it's just great in most ways- invest in better rail infrastructure - maglevs are extremely cool™ and fast™ and could maybe partly replace planes?- electric cars could be rented from a local "pool" for intra-city transport, which would save a lot of cost on batteries- increase grid interconnectivity so renewables might be less spotty- impose taxes on particularly badly polluting things- do research into geoengineering things which can keep the temperature from going up as much- increase standards for reparability; we lose so many resources to randomly throwing stuff away because they're designed with planned obsolecence- a very specific thing related to that bit above there - PoE/other low-voltage power grids in homes, since centralizing all the AC→DC conversion circuitry could improve efficiency, lower costs of end-user devices, and make LED lightbulbs less likely to fail (currently some of them include dirt-cheap PSUs which have all *kinds* of problems)
gollark: You can get AR-ish things which just display notifications or something.
gollark: You can get limited AR glasses (nice ones you may want to actually wear as everyday ones) now, but it's expensive and not popular.
gollark: Yes, that might be interesting.
gollark: Probably more extreme weather and floods.

References
  1. Elazari, Yuval (2003). "בת ים" [Bat Yam]. ארץ ישראל - לקסיקון מפה [Land of Israel - Mapa Lexicon]. Tel Aviv: Mapa. p. 92.
  2. Ziv, Yehuda (1988). "הנסים שבים" [The Miracles Are Returning]. תרמיל־צד: אתרים ושבילים במבט שני [Handy Knapsack: A Second Glance at Sites and Footpaths]. Jerusalem: Keter. הדרומית בשוניות יפו, מול חוף בת־ים, מכונה בערבית 'חג'ר־אדם' -'סלע אדם' (הראשון). האגדה מספרת עליו כי הדגים בים התיכון באים לכאן להקות-להקות, נושקים לסלע וממשיכים בדרכם... היום נבלע 'סלע־אדם' בשוברי הגלים העשויים אבנים גדולות, שנערמו מול שפת-ימה של בת־ים כדי להגן על חוף הרחצה שלה. רק בקושי אפשר להבחין בו מן הטיילת - והרי זו דוגמה מובהקת של... 'אי'-הבנה!
  3. Vilnay, Zev (1981). אגדות ארץ ישראל [Legends of Eretz Israel]. Jerusalem: Kiryat Sefer. p. 38. סלע אדם הראשון בים יפו בחופו של ים יפו, אל מול הישוב היהודי בת־ים, נראה מתוך המים במרחק מה מההוף סלע הדומה לאי זעיר מאד. הערבים בימי־הביניים קראו לו חג׳ר אדם — אבן אדם הראשון. אגדה אחת בימי־הביניים ספרה על הדגים הנוהגים לבוא אל הסלע הזה ולנשקו.

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