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Safed (known in
Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
as Tzfat;
Sephardic Hebrew Sephardi Hebrew (or Sepharadi Hebrew; he, עברית ספרדית, Ivrit S'faradít, lad, Hebreo Sefardíes) is the pronunciation system for Biblical Hebrew favored for liturgical use by Sephardi Jewish practice. Its phonology was influenced by ...
&
Modern Hebrew Modern Hebrew ( he, עברית חדשה, ''ʿivrít ḥadašá ', , '' lit.'' "Modern Hebrew" or "New Hebrew"), also known as Israeli Hebrew or Israeli, and generally referred to by speakers simply as Hebrew ( ), is the standard form of the He ...
: צְפַת ''Tsfat'',
Ashkenazi Hebrew Ashkenazi Hebrew ( he, הגייה אשכנזית, Hagiyya Ashkenazit, yi, אַשכּנזישע הבֿרה, Ashkenazishe Havara) is the pronunciation system for Biblical and Mishnaic Hebrew favored for Jewish liturgical use and Torah study by Ashk ...
: ''Tzfas'',
Biblical Hebrew Biblical Hebrew (, or , ), also called Classical Hebrew, is an archaic form of the Hebrew language, a language in the Canaanite branch of Semitic languages spoken by the Israelites in the area known as the Land of Israel, roughly west of ...
: ''Ṣǝp̄aṯ''; ar, صفد, ''Ṣafad''), is a city in the Northern District of
Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
. Located at an elevation of , Safed is the highest city in the
Galilee Galilee (; he, הַגָּלִיל, hagGālīl; ar, الجليل, al-jalīl) is a region located in northern Israel and southern Lebanon. Galilee traditionally refers to the mountainous part, divided into Upper Galilee (, ; , ) and Lower Galil ...
and in Israel. Safed has been identified with ''Sepph,'' a fortified town in the
Upper Galilee The Upper Galilee ( he, הגליל העליון, ''HaGalil Ha'Elyon''; ar, الجليل الأعلى, ''Al Jaleel Al A'alaa'') is a geographical-political term in use since the end of the Second Temple period. It originally referred to a mountai ...
mentioned in the writings of the Roman Jewish historian
Josephus Flavius Josephus (; grc-gre, Ἰώσηπος, ; 37 – 100) was a first-century Romano-Jewish historian and military leader, best known for ''The Jewish War'', who was born in Jerusalem—then part of Roman Judea—to a father of priestly d ...
. The
Jerusalem Talmud The Jerusalem Talmud ( he, תַּלְמוּד יְרוּשַׁלְמִי, translit=Talmud Yerushalmi, often for short), also known as the Palestinian Talmud or Talmud of the Land of Israel, is a collection of rabbinic notes on the second-century ...
mentions Safed as one of five elevated spots where fires were lit to announce the
New Moon In astronomy, the new moon is the first lunar phase, when the Moon and Sun have the same ecliptic longitude. At this phase, the lunar disk is not visible to the naked eye, except when it is silhouetted against the Sun during a solar eclipse. ...
and festivals during the
Second Temple period The Second Temple period in Jewish history lasted approximately 600 years (516 BCE - 70 CE), during which the Second Temple existed. It started with the return to Zion and the construction of the Second Temple, while it ended with the First Jewis ...
. Safed attained local prominence under the
Crusaders The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and sometimes directed by the Latin Church in the medieval period. The best known of these Crusades are those to the Holy Land in the period between 1095 and 1291 that were in ...
, who built a large fortress there in 1168. It was conquered by
Saladin Yusuf ibn Ayyub ibn Shadi () ( – 4 March 1193), commonly known by the epithet Saladin,, ; ku, سه‌لاحه‌دین, ; was the founder of the Ayyubid dynasty. Hailing from an ethnic Kurdish family, he was the first of both Egypt and ...
20 years later, and demolished by his grandnephew
al-Mu'azzam Isa () (1176 – 1227) was the Ayyubid emir of Damascus from 1218 to 1227. The son of Sultan al-Adil I and nephew of Saladin, founder of the dynasty, al-Mu'azzam was installed by his father as governor of Damascus in 1198 or 1200. After his father's ...
in 1219. After reverting to the Crusaders in a treaty in 1240, a larger fortress was erected, which was expanded and reinforced in 1268 by the
Mamluk Mamluk ( ar, مملوك, mamlūk (singular), , ''mamālīk'' (plural), translated as "one who is owned", meaning " slave", also transliterated as ''Mameluke'', ''mamluq'', ''mamluke'', ''mameluk'', ''mameluke'', ''mamaluke'', or ''marmeluke'') ...
sultan
Baybars Al-Malik al-Zahir Rukn al-Din Baybars al-Bunduqdari ( ar, الملك الظاهر ركن الدين بيبرس البندقداري, ''al-Malik al-Ẓāhir Rukn al-Dīn Baybars al-Bunduqdārī'') (1223/1228 – 1 July 1277), of Turkic Kipchak ...
, who developed Safed into a major town and the capital of a new province spanning the Galilee. After a century of general decline, the stability brought by the Ottoman conquest in 1517 ushered in nearly a century of growth and prosperity in Safed, during which time Jewish immigrants from across Europe developed the city into a center for wool and textile production and the mystical
Kabbalah Kabbalah ( he, קַבָּלָה ''Qabbālā'', literally "reception, tradition") is an esoteric method, discipline and Jewish theology, school of thought in Jewish mysticism. A traditional Kabbalist is called a Mekubbal ( ''Məqūbbāl'' "rece ...
movement. It became known as one of the
Four Holy Cities The Four Holy Cities of Judaism are the cities of Jerusalem, Hebron, Safed and Tiberias which were the four main centers of Jewish life after the Ottoman conquest of Palestine. According to the 1906 Jewish Encyclopedia: "Since the sixteenth cen ...
of Judaism. As the capital of the
Safad Sanjak Safed Sanjak ( ar, سنجق صفد; tr, Safed Sancağı) was a ''sanjak'' (district) of Damascus Eyalet ( Ottoman province of Damascus) in 1517–1660, after which it became part of the Sidon Eyalet (Ottoman province of Sidon). The sanjak was cen ...
, it was the main population center of the Galilee, with large Muslim and Jewish communities. Besides the fortunate governorship of
Fakhr al-Din II Fakhr al-Din ibn Qurqumaz Ma'n ( ar, فَخْر ٱلدِّين بِن قُرْقُمَاز مَعْن, Fakhr al-Dīn ibn Qurqumaz Maʿn; – March or April 1635), commonly known as Fakhr al-Din II or Fakhreddine II ( ar, فخر الدين ال ...
in the early 17th century, the city underwent a general decline and was eclipsed by
Acre The acre is a unit of land area used in the imperial Imperial is that which relates to an empire, emperor, or imperialism. Imperial or The Imperial may also refer to: Places United States * Imperial, California * Imperial, Missouri * Imp ...
by the mid-18th century. Its Jewish residents were targeted in
Druze The Druze (; ar, دَرْزِيٌّ, ' or ', , ') are an Arabic-speaking esoteric ethnoreligious group from Western Asia who adhere to the Druze faith, an Abrahamic, monotheistic, syncretic, and ethnic religion based on the teachings of ...
and local Muslim raids in the 1830s, and most of them perished in an
earthquake An earthquake (also known as a quake, tremor or temblor) is the shaking of the surface of the Earth resulting from a sudden release of energy in the Earth's lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in intensity, from ...
in that same decade. Safed's conditions improved considerably in the late 19th century, with its municipal council founded along with a number of banks, though the city's jurisdiction was limited to the Upper Galilee. Its population reached 24,000 toward the end of the century; it was a
mixed city In Israel, the mixed cities ( he, ערים מעורבות, translit='arim me'oravot, ar, المدن المختلطة, translit=al-mudun al-mukhtalita) or mixed towns are the eight cities with a significant number of both Israeli Jews and Isra ...
, divided roughly equally between Jews and Muslims with a small Christian community. Its Muslim merchants played a key role as middlemen in the
grain trade The grain trade refers to the local and international trade in cereals and other food grains such as wheat, barley, maize, and rice. Grain is an important trade item because it is easily stored and transported with limited spoilage, unlike other ...
between the local farmers and the traders of Acre, while the Ottomans promoted the city as a center of
Sunni Sunni Islam () is the largest branch of Islam, followed by 85–90% of the world's Muslims. Its name comes from the word '' Sunnah'', referring to the tradition of Muhammad. The differences between Sunni and Shia Muslims arose from a disagr ...
jurisprudence Jurisprudence, or legal theory, is the theoretical study of the propriety of law. Scholars of jurisprudence seek to explain the nature of law in its most general form and they also seek to achieve a deeper understanding of legal reasoning a ...
. Through the philanthropy of
Moses Montefiore Sir Moses Haim Montefiore, 1st Baronet, (24 October 1784 – 28 July 1885) was a British financier and banker, activist, philanthropist and Sheriff of London. Born to an Italian Sephardic Jewish family based in London, afte ...
, its Jewish synagogues and homes were rebuilt. Around the start of British Mandatory rule, in 1922, Safed's population had dropped to around 8,700, roughly 60% Muslim, 33% Jewish and the remainder Christians. Amid rising ethnic tension throughout Palestine, Safed's Jews were attacked in an Arab riot in 1929. The city's population had risen to 13,700 by 1948, overwhelmingly Arab, though the city was proposed to be part of a Jewish state in the
1947 UN Partition Plan The United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine was a proposal by the United Nations, which recommended a partition of Mandatory Palestine at the end of the British Mandate. On 29 November 1947, the UN General Assembly adopted the Plan as Re ...
. During the
1948 war The 1948 Palestine war was fought in the territory of what had been, at the start of the war, British-ruled Mandatory Palestine. It is known in Israel as the War of Independence ( he, מלחמת העצמאות, ''Milkhemet Ha'Atzma'ut'') and ...
, Jewish paramilitary forces captured the city after heavy fighting, precipitating the flight of all of Safed's Palestinian Arabs, such that today the city has an almost exclusively Jewish population. Safed has a large
Haredi Haredi Judaism ( he, ', ; also spelled ''Charedi'' in English; plural ''Haredim'' or ''Charedim'') consists of groups within Orthodox Judaism that are characterized by their strict adherence to ''halakha'' (Jewish law) and traditions, in oppos ...
community and remains a center for Jewish religious studies. Due to its high elevation, the city has warm summers and cold, often snowy, winters. Its mild climate and scenic views have made Safed a popular holiday resort frequented by Israelis and foreign visitors. In it had a population of .


Biblical reference

Legend has it that Safed was founded by a son of
Noah Noah ''Nukh''; am, ኖህ, ''Noḥ''; ar, نُوح '; grc, Νῶε ''Nôe'' () is the tenth and last of the pre-Flood patriarchs in the traditions of Abrahamic religions. His story appears in the Hebrew Bible (Book of Genesis, chapters 5– ...
after the
Great Flood A flood myth or a deluge myth is a myth in which a great flood, usually sent by a deity or deities, destroys civilization, often in an act of divine retribution. Parallels are often drawn between the flood waters of these myths and the primaeval ...
. According to the
Book of Judges The Book of Judges (, ') is the seventh book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament. In the narrative of the Hebrew Bible, it covers the time between the conquest described in the Book of Joshua and the establishment of a kingdom i ...
(), the area where Safed is located was assigned to the
tribe of Naphtali The Tribe of Naphtali () was one of the northernmost of the twelve tribes of Israel. It is one of the ten lost tribes. Biblical narratives In the biblical account, following the completion of the conquest of Canaan by the Israelites, Joshua al ...
. It has been suggested that
Jesus Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religious ...
' assertion that "a city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden" may have referred to Safed.


History


Antiquity

Safed has been identified with ''Sepph,'' a fortified town in the
Upper Galilee The Upper Galilee ( he, הגליל העליון, ''HaGalil Ha'Elyon''; ar, الجليل الأعلى, ''Al Jaleel Al A'alaa'') is a geographical-political term in use since the end of the Second Temple period. It originally referred to a mountai ...
mentioned in the writings of the Roman-Jewish historian
Josephus Flavius Josephus (; grc-gre, Ἰώσηπος, ; 37 – 100) was a first-century Romano-Jewish historian and military leader, best known for ''The Jewish War'', who was born in Jerusalem—then part of Roman Judea—to a father of priestly d ...
.Geography of Israel: Safed
accessed 9 December 2016
Safed is mentioned in the
Jerusalem Talmud The Jerusalem Talmud ( he, תַּלְמוּד יְרוּשַׁלְמִי, translit=Talmud Yerushalmi, often for short), also known as the Palestinian Talmud or Talmud of the Land of Israel, is a collection of rabbinic notes on the second-century ...
as one of five elevated spots where fires were lit to announce the New Moon and festivals during the
Second Temple The Second Temple (, , ), later known as Herod's Temple, was the reconstructed Temple in Jerusalem between and 70 CE. It replaced Solomon's Temple, which had been built at the same location in the United Kingdom of Israel before being inherited ...
period.


Crusader era


Pre-Crusader village and tower

There is scarce information about Safed before the Crusader conquest.Drory 2004, p. 163. A document from the
Cairo Geniza The Cairo Geniza, alternatively spelled Genizah, is a collection of some 400,000 Jewish manuscript fragments and Fatimid administrative documents that were kept in the '' genizah'' or storeroom of the Ben Ezra Synagogue in Fustat or Old Cairo, Eg ...
, composed in 1034, mentions a transaction made in Tiberias in 1023 by a certain Jew, Musa ben Hiba ben Salmun with the ''
nisba The Arabic word nisba (; also transcribed as ''nisbah'' or ''nisbat'') may refer to: * Nisba, a suffix used to form adjectives in Arabic grammar, or the adjective resulting from this formation **comparatively, in Afro-Asiatic: see Afroasiatic_lang ...
'' (Arabic descriptive suffix) "al-Safati" (of Safed), indicating the presence of a Jewish community living alongside Muslims in Safed in the 11th century.Barbé 2016, p. 63. According to the Muslim historian Ibn Shaddad (d. 1285), at the beginning of the 12th century, a "flourishing village" beneath a tower called Burj Yatim had existed at the site of Safed on the eve of the Crusaders' capture of the area in 1101–1102 and that "nothing" about the village was mentioned in "the early Islamic history books".Ellenblum 2007, p. 179, note 15. Although Ibn Shaddad mistakenly attributes the tower's construction to the
Knights Templar , colors = White mantle with a red cross , colors_label = Attire , march = , mascot = Two knights riding a single horse , equipment ...
, the modern historian
Ronnie Ellenblum Ronnie Ellenblum (born June 21, 1952, Haifa, Israel; died January 7, 2021, Jerusalem, Israel) was an Israeli professor at the department of geography at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and a member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humaniti ...
asserts that the tower was likely built during the early Muslim period (mid-7th–11th centuries).


First Crusader period

The Frankish chronicler
William of Tyre William of Tyre ( la, Willelmus Tyrensis; 113029 September 1186) was a medieval prelate and chronicler. As archbishop of Tyre, he is sometimes known as William II to distinguish him from his predecessor, William I, the Englishman, a former ...
noted the presence of a ''
burgus A ''burgus'' (Latin, plural ''burgi '') or ''turris'' ("tower") is a small, tower-like fort of the Late Antiquity, which was sometimes protected by an outwork and surrounding ditches. Darvill defines it as "a small fortified position or wa ...
'' (tower) in Safed, which he called "Castrum Saphet" or "Sephet", in 1157.Ellenblum 2007, p. 179, note 16. Safed was the seat of a ''
castellan A castellan is the title used in Medieval Europe for an appointed official, a governor of a castle and its surrounding territory referred to as the castellany. The title of ''governor'' is retained in the English prison system, as a remnant o ...
y'' (area governed by a castle) by at least 1165, when its ''castellan'' (appointed castle governor) was Fulk, constable of
Tiberias Tiberias ( ; he, טְבֶרְיָה, ; ar, طبريا, Ṭabariyyā) is an Israeli city on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee. A major Jewish center during Late Antiquity, it has been considered since the 16th century one of Judaism's Fo ...
. The castle of Safed was purchased from Fulk by King
Amalric of Jerusalem Amalric or Amaury I ( la, Amalricus; french: Amaury; 113611 July 1174) was King of Jerusalem from 1163, and Count of Jaffa and Ascalon before his accession. He was the second son of Melisende and Fulk of Jerusalem, and succeeded his older broth ...
in 1168. He subsequently reinforced the castle and transferred it to the Templars in the same year. Theoderich the Monk, describing his visit to the area in 1172, noted that the expanded fortification of the castle of Safed was meant to check the raids of the Turks (the Turkic
Zengid dynasty The Zengid dynasty was a Muslim dynasty of Oghuz Turkic origin, which ruled parts of the Levant and Upper Mesopotamia on behalf of the Seljuk Empire and eventually seized control of Egypt in 1169. In 1174 the Zengid state extended from Tripoli to ...
ruled the area east of the Kingdom). Testifying to the considerable expansion of the castle, the chronicler
Jacques de Vitry Jacques de Vitry (''Jacobus de Vitriaco'', c. 1160/70 – 1 May 1240) was a French canon regular who was a noted theologian and chronicler of his era. He was elected bishop of Acre in 1214 and made cardinal in 1229. His ''Historia Oriental ...
(d. 1240) wrote that it was practically built anew. The remains of Fulk's castle can now be found under the citadel excavations, on a hill above the old city.Howard M. Sacha
''Farewell Espana: The World of the Sephardim Remembered,''
Random House, 2013 p. 190.
In the estimation of modern historian Havré Barbé, the ''castellany'' of Safed comprised approximately . According to Barbé, its western boundary straddled the domains of Acre, including the fief of St. George de la Beyne, which included
Sajur Sajur (; ) is a Druze town ( local council) in the Galilee region of northern Israel, with an area of 3,000 dunams (3 km²). It achieved recognition as an independent local council in 1992. In it had a population of . History Excavations in ...
and
Beit Jann Beit Jann ( ar, بيت جن; he, בֵּיתּ גַ'ן) is a Druze village on Mount Meron in northern Israel. At 940 meters above sea level, Beit Jann is one of the highest inhabited locations in the country. In it had a population of . Etymol ...
, and the fief of Geoffrey le Tor, which included
Akbara Akbara ( ar, عكبرة) is an Arab village in the Israel, Israeli municipality of Safed, which included in 2010 more than 200 families. It is 2.5 km south of Safed City. The village was rebuilt in 1977, close to the old village destroyed i ...
and
Hurfeish Hurfeish ( ar, حرفيش; he, חֻרְפֵישׁ; lit. "milk thistle"Vilnay, 1964, p501/ref> or possibly from "snake" Palmer, 1881, p72/ref>) is a Druze town in the Northern District of Israel. In it had a population of . History The town i ...
, and in the southwest ran north of Maghar and
Sallama Sallama ( ar, سلامة; he, סלאמה) is a Bedouin village in northern Israel. Located in the Galilee near the Tzalmon Stream, it falls under the jurisdiction of Misgav Regional Council. In its population was . The village was recognized by ...
. Its northern boundary was marked by the Nahal Dishon (Wadi al-Hindaj) stream, its southern boundary was likely formed near Wadi al-Amud, separating it from the fief of Tiberias, while its eastern limits were the marshes of the
Hula Valley The Hula Valley ( he, עמק החולה, translit. ''Emek Ha-Ḥula''; also transliterated as Huleh Valley, ar, سهل الحولة) is an agricultural region in northern Israel with abundant fresh water, which used to be Lake Hula, prior t ...
and upper
Jordan Valley The Jordan Valley ( ar, غور الأردن, ''Ghor al-Urdun''; he, עֵמֶק הַיַרְדֵּן, ''Emek HaYarden'') forms part of the larger Jordan Rift Valley. Unlike most other river valleys, the term "Jordan Valley" often applies just to ...
. There were several Jewish communities in the ''castellany'' of Safed, as testified in the accounts of Jewish pilgrims and chroniclers between 1120 and 1293.
Benjamin of Tudela Benjamin of Tudela ( he, בִּנְיָמִין מִטּוּדֶלָה, ; ar, بنيامين التطيلي ''Binyamin al-Tutayli'';‎ Tudela, Kingdom of Navarre, 1130 Castile, 1173) was a medieval Jewish traveler who visited Europe, Asia, an ...
, who visited the town in 1170, does not record any Jews living in Safed proper.


Ayyubid interregnum

Safed was captured by the
Ayyubids The Ayyubid dynasty ( ar, الأيوبيون '; ) was the founding dynasty of the medieval Sultanate of Egypt established by Saladin in 1171, following his abolition of the Fatimid Caliphate of Egypt. A Sunni Muslim of Kurdish origin, Saladin h ...
led by Sultan
Saladin Yusuf ibn Ayyub ibn Shadi () ( – 4 March 1193), commonly known by the epithet Saladin,, ; ku, سه‌لاحه‌دین, ; was the founder of the Ayyubid dynasty. Hailing from an ethnic Kurdish family, he was the first of both Egypt and ...
in 1188 after a month-long siege, following the
Battle of Hattin The Battle of Hattin took place on 4 July 1187, between the Crusader states of the Levant and the forces of the Ayyubid sultan Saladin. It is also known as the Battle of the Horns of Hattin, due to the shape of the nearby extinct volcano of t ...
in 1187.Sharon 2007, p
152
/ref> Saladin ultimately allowed its residents to relocate to Tyre. He granted Safed and Tiberias as an ''
iqta An iqta ( ar, اقطاع, iqṭāʿ) and occasionally iqtaʿa ( ar, اقطاعة) was an Islamic practice of tax farming that became common in Muslim Asia during the Buyid dynasty. Iqta has been defined in Nizam-al-Mulk's Siyasatnama. Administrato ...
'' (akin to a fief) to Sa'd al-Din Mas'ud ibn Mubarak (d. 1211), the son of his niece, after which it was bequeathed to Sa'd al-Din's son Ahmad.Drory 2004, p. 164.
Samuel ben Samson Samuel ben Samson (also Samuel ben Shimshon) was a rabbi who lived in France and made a pilgrimage to Israel in 1210, visiting a number of villages and cities there, including Jerusalem. Amongst his companions were Jonathan ben David ha-Cohen, and i ...
, who visited the town in 1210, mentions the existence of a Jewish community of at least fifty there. He also noted that two Muslims guarded and maintained the cave tomb of a rabbi, Hanina ben Horqano, in Safed. The ''iqta'' of Safed was taken from the family of Sa'd al-Din by the Ayyubid emir of
Damascus )), is an adjective which means "spacious". , motto = , image_flag = Flag of Damascus.svg , image_seal = Emblem of Damascus.svg , seal_type = Seal , map_caption = , ...
,
al-Mu'azzam Isa () (1176 – 1227) was the Ayyubid emir of Damascus from 1218 to 1227. The son of Sultan al-Adil I and nephew of Saladin, founder of the dynasty, al-Mu'azzam was installed by his father as governor of Damascus in 1198 or 1200. After his father's ...
, in 1217.Luz 2014, p. 34. Two years later, during the Crusader siege of Damietta, al-Mu'azzam Isa had the Safed castle demolished to prevent its capture and reuse by potential future Crusaders.


Second Crusader period

As an outcome of the treaty negotiations between the Crusader leader
Theobald I of Navarre Theobald I (french: Thibaut, es, Teobaldo; 30 May 1201 – 8 July 1253), also called the Troubadour and the Posthumous, was Count of Champagne (as Theobald IV) from birth and King of Navarre from 1234. He initiated the Barons' Crusade, was famous ...
and the Ayyubid emir of Damascus, al-Salih Isma'il, in 1240 Safed once again passed to Crusader control. Afterward, the Templars were tasked with rebuilding the town's fortress, with efforts spearheaded by Benoît d'Alignan, Bishop of Marseille. The rebuilding is recorded in a short treatise, ''
De constructione castri Saphet ''De constructione castri Saphet'' ("On the Construction of the Castle of Ṣafad") is a short anonymous Latin account of the re-building of the fortress of Ṣafad by the Knights Templar between 1241 and 1244. There is no other account of its k ...
'', from the early 1260s. The reconstruction was completed at the considerable expense of 40,000
bezant In the Middle Ages, the term bezant (Old French ''besant'', from Latin ''bizantius aureus'') was used in Western Europe to describe several gold coins of the east, all derived ultimately from the Roman ''solidus''. The word itself comes from th ...
s in 1243.Amitai-Preiss 1995, p. 757. The new fortress was larger than the original, with a capacity for 2,200 soldiers in time of war, and with a resident force of 1,700 in peacetime. The garrison's goods and services were provided by the town or large village growing rapidly beneath the fortress, which, according to Benoit's account, contained a market, "numerous inhabitants" and was protected by the fortress. The settlement also benefited from trade with travelers on the route between
Acre The acre is a unit of land area used in the imperial Imperial is that which relates to an empire, emperor, or imperialism. Imperial or The Imperial may also refer to: Places United States * Imperial, California * Imperial, Missouri * Imp ...
and the Jordan Valley, which passed through Safed.


Mamluk period

The Ayyubids of Egypt had been supplanted by the
Mamluks Mamluk ( ar, مملوك, mamlūk (singular), , ''mamālīk'' (plural), translated as "one who is owned", meaning "slave", also transliterated as ''Mameluke'', ''mamluq'', ''mamluke'', ''mameluk'', ''mameluke'', ''mamaluke'', or ''marmeluke'') i ...
in 1250 and the Mamluk sultan
Baybars Al-Malik al-Zahir Rukn al-Din Baybars al-Bunduqdari ( ar, الملك الظاهر ركن الدين بيبرس البندقداري, ''al-Malik al-Ẓāhir Rukn al-Dīn Baybars al-Bunduqdārī'') (1223/1228 – 1 July 1277), of Turkic Kipchak ...
entered
Syria Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...
with his army in 1261. Thereafter, he led a series of campaigns over several years against Crusader strongholds across the Syrian coastal mountains. Safed, with its position overlooking the Jordan River and allowing the Crusaders early warnings of Muslim troop movements in the area, had been a consistent aggravation for the Muslim regional powers. After a six-week siege,Luz 2014, p. 35. Baybars captured Safed in July 1266, after which he had nearly the entire garrison killed.Amitai-Preiss 1995, p. 758. The siege occurred during a Mamluk military campaign to subdue Crusader strongholds in
Palestine __NOTOC__ Palestine may refer to: * State of Palestine, a state in Western Asia * Palestine (region), a geographic region in Western Asia * Palestinian territories, territories occupied by Israel since 1967, namely the West Bank (including East ...
and followed a failed attempt to capture the Crusaders' coastal stronghold of Acre. Unlike the Crusader fortresses along the coastline, which were demolished upon their capture by the Mamluks, Baybars spared the fortress of Safed.Drory 2004, p. 165. He likely preserved it because of the strategic value stemming from its location on a high mountain and its isolation from other Crusader fortresses. Moreover, Baybars determined that in the event of a renewed Crusader invasion of the coastal region, a strongly fortified Safed could serve as an ideal headquarters to confront the Crusader threat. In 1268, he had the fortress repaired, expanded and strengthened. He commissioned numerous building works in the town of Safed, including
caravanserai A caravanserai (or caravansary; ) was a roadside inn where travelers ( caravaners) could rest and recover from the day's journey. Caravanserais supported the flow of commerce, information and people across the network of trade routes covering ...
s,
markets Market is a term used to describe concepts such as: * Market (economics), system in which parties engage in transactions according to supply and demand * Market economy *Marketplace, a physical marketplace or public market Geography *Märket, a ...
and baths, and converted the town's church into a mosque.Drory 2004, p. 166. The mosque, called Jami al-Ahmar (the Red Mosque), was completed in 1275. By the end of Baybars's reign, Safed had developed into a prosperous town and fortress. Baybars assigned fifty-four
mamluk Mamluk ( ar, مملوك, mamlūk (singular), , ''mamālīk'' (plural), translated as "one who is owned", meaning " slave", also transliterated as ''Mameluke'', ''mamluq'', ''mamluke'', ''mameluk'', ''mameluke'', ''mamaluke'', or ''marmeluke'') ...
s, at the head of whom was Emir Ala al-Din Kandaghani, to oversee the management of Safed and its dependencies.Barbé 2016, pp. 71–72. From the time of its capture, the city was made the administrative center of Mamlakat Safad,Sharon, 1997, p
xii
/ref> one of seven ''mamlakas'' (provinces), whose governors were typically appointed from
Cairo Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world and the Middle East: The Greater Cairo metro ...
, which made up Mamluk Syria. Initially, its jurisdiction corresponded roughly with the Crusader ''castellany''. After the fall of the
Montfort Castle Montfort ( he, מבצר מונפור, Mivtzar Monfor; ar, قلعة القرين, ''Qal'at al-Qurain'' or ''Qal'at al-Qarn'' - "Castle of the Little Horn" or "Castle of the Horn") is a ruined Crusader castle in the Upper Galilee region in north ...
to the Mamluks in 1271, the castle and its dependency, the Shaghur district, were incorporated into Mamlakat Safad. The territorial jurisdiction of the ''mamlaka'' eventually spanned the entire Galilee and the lands further south down to
Jenin Jenin (; ar, ') is a Palestinian city in the northern West Bank. It serves as the administrative center of the Jenin Governorate of the State of Palestine and is a major center for the surrounding towns. In 2007, Jenin had a population of app ...
. The geographer
al-Dimashqi The Arabic '' nisbah'' (attributive title) Al-Dimashqi ( ar, الدمشقي) denotes an origin from Damascus, Syria. Al-Dimashqi may refer to: * Al-Dimashqi (geographer): a medieval Arab geographer. * Abu al-Fadl Ja'far ibn 'Ali al-Dimashqi: 12th- ...
, who died in Safed in 1327, wrote around 1300 that Baybars built a "round tower and called it Kullah ..." after leveling the old fortress. The tower was built in three stories, and provided with provisions, halls, and
magazine A magazine is a periodical publication, generally published on a regular schedule (often weekly or monthly), containing a variety of content. They are generally financed by advertising, purchase price, prepaid subscriptions, or by a combinatio ...
s. Under the structure, a
cistern A cistern (Middle English ', from Latin ', from ', "box", from Greek ', "basket") is a waterproof receptacle for holding liquids, usually water. Cisterns are often built to catch and store rainwater. Cisterns are distinguished from wells by t ...
collected enough rainwater to regularly supply the garrison. The governor of Safed, Emir Baktamur al-Jukandar (the Polomaster; ), built a mosque later called after him in the northeastern section of the city. The geographer
Abu'l Fida Ismāʿīl b. ʿAlī b. Maḥmūd b. Muḥammad b. ʿUmar b. Shāhanshāh b. Ayyūb b. Shādī b. Marwān ( ar, إسماعيل بن علي بن محمود بن محمد بن عمر بن شاهنشاه بن أيوب بن شادي بن مروان ...
(1273–1331), the ruler of
Hama , timezone = EET , utc_offset = +2 , timezone_DST = EEST , utc_offset_DST = +3 , postal_code_type = , postal_code = , ar ...
, described Safed as follows:
afedwas a town of medium size. It has a very strongly built castle, which dominates the Lake of Tabariyyah
ea of Galilee Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) is an American video game company headquartered in Redwood City, California. Founded in May 1982 by Apple employee Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer game industry and promoted the ...
There are underground watercourses, which bring drinking-water up to the castle-gate...Its suburbs cover three hills... Since the place was conquered by Al Malik Adh Dhahir aybarsfrom the Franks rusaders it has been made the central station for the troops who guard all the coast-towns of that district."
The native ''
qadi A qāḍī ( ar, قاضي, Qāḍī; otherwise transliterated as qazi, cadi, kadi, or kazi) is the magistrate or judge of a '' sharīʿa'' court, who also exercises extrajudicial functions such as mediation, guardianship over orphans and mino ...
'' (Islamic head judge) of Safed, Shams al-Din al-Uthmani, composed a text about Safed called ''Ta'rikh Safad'' (the History of Safed) during the rule of its governor Emir Alamdar (). The extant parts of the work consisted of ten folios largely devoted to Safed's distinguishing qualities, its dependent villages, agriculture, trade and geography, with no information about its history. His account reveals the city's dominant features were its citadel, the Red Mosque and its towering position over the surrounding landscape. He noted Safed lacked "regular urban planning", ''
madrasa Madrasa (, also , ; Arabic: مدرسة , pl. , ) is the Arabic word for any type of educational institution, secular or religious (of any religion), whether for elementary instruction or higher learning. The word is variously transliterated '' ...
s'' (schools of Islamic law), ''
ribat A ribāṭ ( ar, رِبَـاط; hospice, hostel, base or retreat) is an Arabic term for a small fortification built along a frontier during the first years of the Muslim conquest of the Maghreb to house military volunteers, called ''murabitun'' ...
s'' (hostels for military volunteers) and defensive walls, and that its houses were clustered in disarray and its streets were not distinguishable from its squares. He attributed the city's shortcomings to the dearth of generous patrons.Luz 2014, p. 180. A device for transporting buckets of water called the ''satura'' existed in the city mainly to supply the soldiers of the citadel; surplus water was distributed to the city's residents. Al-Uthmani praised the natural beauty of Safed, its therapeutic air, and noted that its residents took strolls in the surrounding gorges and ravines. The
Black Death The Black Death (also known as the Pestilence, the Great Mortality or the Plague) was a bubonic plague pandemic occurring in Western Eurasia and North Africa from 1346 to 1353. It is the most fatal pandemic recorded in human history, causi ...
brought about a decline in the population in Safed from 1348 onward. There is little available information about the city and its dependencies during the last century of Mamluk rule (), though travelers' accounts describe a general decline precipitated by famine, plagues, natural disasters and political instability.


Ottoman era


Sixteenth-century prosperity

The Ottomans conquered Mamluk Syria following their victory at the
Battle of Marj Dabiq The Battle of Marj Dābiq ( ar, مرج دابق, meaning "the meadow of Dābiq"; tr, Mercidabık Muharebesi), a decisive military engagement in Middle Eastern history, was fought on 24 August 1516, near the town of Dabiq, 44 km north of ...
in northern Syria in 1516.Rhode 1979, p. 18. Safed's inhabitants sent the keys of the town citadel to Sultan
Selim I Selim I ( ota, سليم الأول; tr, I. Selim; 10 October 1470 – 22 September 1520), known as Selim the Grim or Selim the Resolute ( tr, links=no, Yavuz Sultan Selim), was the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1512 to 1520. Despite last ...
after he captured Damascus.Layish 1987, p. 67. No fighting was recorded around Safed, which was bypassed by Selim's army on the way to Mamluk Egypt. The sultan had placed the district of Safed under the jurisdiction of the Mamluk governor of Damascus,
Janbirdi al-Ghazali Janbirdi al-Ghazali ( ar, جان بردي الغزالي; ''Jān-Birdi al-Ghazāli''; died 1521) was the first governor of Damascus Province under the Ottoman Empire from February 1519 until his death in February 1521. Career Viceroy of Hama and ...
, who defected to the Ottomans. Rumors in 1517 that Selim was slain by the Mamluks precipitated a revolt against the newly-appointed Ottoman governor by the townspeople of Safed, which resulted in wide-scale killings, many of which targeted the city's Jews, who were viewed as sympathizers of the Ottomans. Safed became the capital of the
Safed Sanjak Safed Sanjak ( ar, سنجق صفد; tr, Safed Sancağı) was a ''sanjak'' (district) of Damascus Eyalet ( Ottoman province of Damascus) in 1517–1660, after which it became part of the Sidon Eyalet (Ottoman province of Sidon). The sanjak was cen ...
, roughly corresponding with Mamlakat Safad but excluding most of the Jezreel Valley and the area of
Atlit Atlit ( he, עַתְלִית, ar, عتليت) is a coastal town located south of Haifa, Israel. The community is in the Hof HaCarmel Regional Council in the Haifa District of Israel. Off the coast of Atlit is a submerged Neolithic village. Atli ...
, part of the larger province of
Damascus Eyalet ota, ایالت شام , conventional_long_name = Damascus Eyalet , common_name = Damascus Eyalet , subdivision = Eyalet , nation = the Ottoman Empire , year_start = 1516 , year_end ...
.Abbasi 2003, p. 50. In 1525/26, the population of Safed consisted of 633 Muslim families, 40 Muslim bachelors, 26 Muslim religious persons, nine Muslim disabled, 232 Jewish families, and 60 military families. In 1549, under Sultan
Suleiman the Magnificent Suleiman I ( ota, سليمان اول, Süleyman-ı Evvel; tr, I. Süleyman; 6 November 14946 September 1566), commonly known as Suleiman the Magnificent in the West and Suleiman the Lawgiver ( ota, قانونى سلطان سليمان, Ḳ ...
, a wall was constructed and troops were garrisoned to protect the city.Abraham David, 2010
pp. 95–96
/ref> In 1553/54, the population consisted of 1,121 Muslim households, 222 Muslim bachelors, 54 Muslim religious leaders, 716 Jewish households, 56 Jewish bachelors, and 9 disabled persons. At least in the 16th century, Safed was the only ''kasaba'' (city) in the sanjak and in 1555 was divided into nineteen ''mahallas'' (quarters), seven Muslim and twelve Jewish.Rhode 1979, p. 34. The total population of Safed rose from 926 households in 1525–26 to 1,931 households in 1567–1568. Among these, the Jewish population rose from a mere 233 households in 1525 to 945 households in 1567–1568.Petersen (2001), Gazetteer 6, s,v
Ṣafad
/ref> The Muslim quarters were Sawawin, located west of the fortress; Khandaq (the moat); Ghazzawiyah, which had likely been settled by Gazans; Jami' al-Ahmar (the Red Mosque), located south of the fortress and named for the local mosque; al-Akrad, which dated to the Middle Ages and continued to exist through the 19th century,Ebied and Young 1976, p. 7. and whose inhabitants were mostly
Kurds ug:كۇردلار Kurds ( ku, کورد ,Kurd, italic=yes, rtl=yes) or Kurdish people are an Iranian ethnic group native to the mountainous region of Kurdistan in Western Asia, which spans southeastern Turkey, northwestern Iran, northern Ir ...
; al-Wata (the lower), the southernmost quarter of Safed and situated below the city; and al-Suq, named after the market or mosque located within the quarter.Rhode 1979, pp. 34–35. The Jewish quarters were all situated west of the fortress. Each quarter was named for the place of origin of its inhabitants: Purtuqal (Portugal), Qurtubah ( Cordoba), Qastiliyah ( Castille), Musta'rib (Jews of local, Arabic-speaking origin), Magharibah (northwestern Africa), Araghun ma' Qatalan (
Aragon Aragon ( , ; Spanish and an, Aragón ; ca, Aragó ) is an autonomous community in Spain, coextensive with the medieval Kingdom of Aragon. In northeastern Spain, the Aragonese autonomous community comprises three provinces (from north to sou ...
and
Catalonia Catalonia (; ca, Catalunya ; Aranese Occitan: ''Catalonha'' ; es, Cataluña ) is an autonomous community of Spain, designated as a ''nationality'' by its Statute of Autonomy. Most of the territory (except the Val d'Aran) lies on the north ...
), Majar (Hungary), Puliah (
Apulia it, Pugliese , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = , demographics1_info1 = , demographic ...
), Qalabriyah (
Calabria , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = , demographics1_info1 = , demographics1_title2 ...
), Sibiliyah (Seville), Taliyan (Italian) and Alaman (German). In the 15th and 16th centuries there were a number of well-known Sufi (Muslim mysticism) followers of Ibn Arabi living in Safed. The Sufi sage Ahmad al-Asadi (1537–1601) established a ''zaouia, zawiya'' (Sufi lodge) called Sadr Mosque in the city. Safed became a center of
Kabbalah Kabbalah ( he, קַבָּלָה ''Qabbālā'', literally "reception, tradition") is an esoteric method, discipline and Jewish theology, school of thought in Jewish mysticism. A traditional Kabbalist is called a Mekubbal ( ''Məqūbbāl'' "rece ...
(Jewish mysticism) during the 16th century. After the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492, many prominent rabbis found their way to Safed, among them the Kabbalists Isaac Luria and Moshe Cordovero, Moshe Kordovero; Joseph Caro, the author of the Shulchan Aruch and Shlomo Halevi Alkabetz, composer of the Shabbat, Sabbath hymn "Lecha Dodi". The influx of Sephardi Jews—reaching its peak under the rule of Sultans Suleiman the Magnificent and Selim II—made Safed a global center for Jewish learning and a regional center for trade throughout the 15th and 16th centuries. Sephardi Jews and other Jewish immigrants by then outnumbered the indigenous (Musta'rib) Jews in the city. During this period, the Jews Jewish textile industry in 16th-century Safed, developed the textile industry in Safed, transforming the town into an important and lucrative centre for wool production and textile manufacturing. There were more than 7,000 Jews in Safed in 1576 when Murad III issued an edict for the forced deportation of 1,000 wealthy Jewish families to Cyprus to boost the island's economy. There is no evidence that the edict, or a second one issued the following year for the removal of 500 families, was enforced. A Hebrew printing press, the first in Western Asia, was established in Safed in 1577 by Eliezer Ashkenazi and his son, Isaac of Prague. In 1584, there were 32 synagogues registered in the town.


Political decline, attacks and natural disasters

By the early part of the 17th century, Safed was a small town. In 1602 the paramount chief of the
Druze The Druze (; ar, دَرْزِيٌّ, ' or ', , ') are an Arabic-speaking esoteric ethnoreligious group from Western Asia who adhere to the Druze faith, an Abrahamic, monotheistic, syncretic, and ethnic religion based on the teachings of ...
in Mount Lebanon, Fakhr al-Din II, Fakhr al-Din of the Ma'n dynasty, was appointed the sanjak-bey (district governor) of Safed, in addition to his governorship of neighboring Sidon-Beirut Sanjak to the north. In the preceding years, the Safed Sanjak had entered a state of ruin and desolation, and was often the scene of conflict between the local Druze and Shia Muslim peasants and the Ottoman authorities. By 1605 Fakhr al-Din had established peace and security in the sanjak, with highway brigandage and Bedouin raids having ceased under his watch. Trade and agriculture consequently thrived and the population prospered. He formed close relations with the city's Sunni Muslim ''ulema'' (religious scholars), particularly the mufti Ahmad al-Khalidi of the Hanafi ''fiqh'' (school of jurisprudence), who became his practical court historian. Fakhr al-Din was driven into European exile by the Ottomans in 1613, but his son Ali became governor in 1615. Fakhr al-Din returned to his domains in 1618 and five years later regained the governorship of Safed, which the Ma'ns had lost, after his victory against the governor of Damascus at the Battle of Anjar. In , the orientalist Franciscus Quaresmius, Quaresmius spoke of Safed being inhabited "chiefly by Hebrews, who had their synagogues and schools, and for whose sustenance contributions were made by the Jews in other parts of the world." According to the historian Louis Finkelstein, the Jewish community of Safed was plundered by the Druze under Mulhim ibn Yunus, nephew of Fakhr al-Din.Finkelstein 1960, p. 63. Five years later, Fakhr al-Din was routed by the Ottoman governor of Damascus, Mulhim abandoned Safed, and its Jewish residents returned. The Druze again attacked the Jews of Safed in 1656. During the Druze power struggle (1658–1667), power struggle between Fakhr al-Din's heirs (1658–1667), each faction attacked Safed. In 1660, in the turmoil following the death of Mulhim, the Druze 1660 destruction of Safed, destroyed Safed with only a few of the former Jewish residents returning to the city by 1662.Joel Rappel. ''History of Eretz Israel from Prehistory up to 1882'' (1980), Vol.2, p.531. "In 1662 Sabbathai Sevi arrived to Jerusalem. It was the time when the Jewish settlements of Galilee were destroyed by the Druze: Tiberias was completely desolate and only a few of former Safed residents had returned..."Barnai, Jacob. ''The Jews in Palestine in the Eighteenth Century: under the patronage of the Istanbul Committee of Officials for Palestine'' (University of Alabama Press 1992) ; p. 14 Safed Sanjak and the neighboring Sidon-Beirut Sanjak to the north were administratively separated from Damascus in 1660 to form the Sidon Eyalet, of which Safed was briefly the capital.Salibi 1988, p. 66. The province was created by the imperial government to check the power of the Druze of Mount Lebanon, as well as the Shia of Jabal Amil. As nearby
Tiberias Tiberias ( ; he, טְבֶרְיָה, ; ar, طبريا, Ṭabariyyā) is an Israeli city on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee. A major Jewish center during Late Antiquity, it has been considered since the 16th century one of Judaism's Fo ...
remained desolate for several decades, Safed gained the key position among Galilean Jewish communities. In 1665, the Sabbatai Sevi movement is said to have arrived in the town. In the 1670s, the account of the Turkish traveler Evliya Çelebi recorded that Safed contained three caravanserais, several mosques, seven Sufi lodges and six public Turkish bath, bathhouses. The Red Mosque was restored by Safed's governor Salih Bey in 1671/72, at which point it measured about , had all masonry interior, a cistern to collect rain water in the winter for drinking and a tall minaret over its southern entrance; the minaret had been destroyed before the end of the 17th century. The Tiberias-based sheikh Zahir al-Umar of the local Arab Al-Zayadina, Zaydan clan, whose father Umar al-Zaydani had been the governor and tax farmer of Safed in 1702–1706, wrested control of Safed and its iltizam, tax farm from its native strongman, Muhammad Naf'i, through military pressure and diplomacy by 1740. The Naf'i, Shahin, and Murad families continued to farm the taxes of Safed and its countryside into the 1760s as Zahir's subordinates. By the 1760s, Zahir entrusted Safed to his son Ali, who made the town his headquarters. After Zahir was killed by Ottoman imperial forces, the governor of Sidon, Jazzar Pasha, moved to oust Zahir's sons from their Galilee strongholds. Ali made a final, unsuccessful stand against Jazzar Pasha from Safed, which was afterward captured and garrisoned by the governor. The concomitant rise of Acre, established by Zahir as his capital in 1750 and which served as the capital of the Sidon Eyalet under Jazzar Pasha (1775–1804) and his successors, Sulayman Pasha al-Adil (1805–1819) and Abdullah Pasha ibn Ali, Abdullah Pasha (1820–1831), contributed to the political decline of Safed. It became a subdistrict center with limited local influence, belonging to the Acre Sanjak . Underdevelopment and a series of natural disasters further contributed to Safed's decline during the 17th–mid-19th centuries. An outbreak of plague decimated the population in 1742 and the Near East earthquakes of 1759 left the city in ruins, killing 200 residents. An influx of Russian Jews in 1776 and 1781, and of Lithuanian Jews of the Perushim movement in 1809 and 1810, reinvigorated the Jewish community. In 1812, another plague killed 80% of the Jewish population.Franco 1916, p. 633. Following Abdullah Pasha of Acre's ordered killing of his Jewish vizier Haim Farhi, who served the same post under Jazzar and Sulayman, the governor imprisoned the Jewish residents of Safed on 12 August 1820, accusing them of tax evasion under the concealment of Farhi; they were released upon paying a ransom. The war between Abdullah Pasha and the influential Farhi brothers in Constantinople and Damascus in 1822–1823 prompted Jewish flight from the Galilee in general, though by 1824 Jewish immigrants were steadily moving to the city. The Egypt Eyalet, Egyptian forces of Muhammad Ali of Egypt, Muhammad Ali wrested control of the Levant from the Ottomans in 1831 and in the same year many Jews who had fled the Galilee, including Safed, under Abdullah Pasha returned as a result of Muhammad Ali's liberal policies toward Jews. Safed was raided by Druze in 1833 at the approach of Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt, Ibrahim Pasha, the Egyptian governor of the Levant. In the following year, the Muslim notables of the city, led by Salih al-Tarshihi, opposed to the Egyptian policy of conscription, joined the peasants' revolt in Palestine. During the revolt, rebels 1834 looting of Safed, plundered the city for over thirty days. Emir Bashir Shihab II of Mount Lebanon and his Druze fighters entered its environs in support of the Egyptians and compelled Safed's leaders to surrender. The Galilee earthquake of 1837 killed about half of Safed's 4,000-strong Jewish community,Lieber 1992, p
256
destroyed all fourteen of its synagogues and prompted the flight of 600 Perushim for Jerusalem; the surviving Sephardic and Hasidic Jews mostly remained. Among the 2,158 residents of Safed who had died, 1,507 were Ottoman subjects, the rest foreign citizens. The Jewish community, whose quarter was situated on the hillside, had been particularly hard hit, the southern, Muslim section of the town experiencing considerably less damage. The following year, in 1838, Druze rebels and local Muslims 1838 Druze attack on Safed, raided Safed for three days.


Tanzimat reforms and revival

Ottoman rule was restored across the Levant in 1840. The Empire-wide Tanzimat reforms, which were first adopted in the 1840s, brought about a steady rise in Safed's population and economy. In 1849 Safed had a total estimated population of 5,000, of whom 2,940-3,440 were Muslims, 1,500-2,000 were Jews and 60 were Christians.Abbasi 2003, p. 52. The population was estimated at 7,000 in 1850–1855, of whom 2,500-3,000 were Jews. The Jewish population increased in the last half of the 19th century by immigration from Qajar dynasty, Persia, Morocco, and Algeria.
Moses Montefiore Sir Moses Haim Montefiore, 1st Baronet, (24 October 1784 – 28 July 1885) was a British financier and banker, activist, philanthropist and Sheriff of London. Born to an Italian Sephardic Jewish family based in London, afte ...
(d. 1885) visited Safed seven times and financed much of the rebuilding of Safed's synagogues and Jewish houses. In 1864 the Sidon Eyalet was absorbed into the new province of Syria Vilayet. In the new province, Safed remained part of the Acre Sanjak and served as the center of a kaza (third-level subdivision), whose jurisdiction covered the villages around the city and the subdistrict of Mount Meron (Jabal Jarmaq). In the Ottoman survey of Syria in 1871, Safed had 1,395 Muslim households, 1,197 Jewish households and three Christian households. The survey recorded a relatively high number of businesses in the city, namely 227 shops, fifteen mills, fourteen bakeries and four olive oil factories, an indicator of Safed's long-established role as an economic hub for the people of the Upper Galilee, the
Hula Valley The Hula Valley ( he, עמק החולה, translit. ''Emek Ha-Ḥula''; also transliterated as Huleh Valley, ar, سهل الحولة) is an agricultural region in northern Israel with abundant fresh water, which used to be Lake Hula, prior t ...
, the Golan Heights and parts of modern-day South Lebanon.Abbasi 2003, p. 54. Through the late 19th century, Safed's merchants served as middlemen in the Galilee grain trade, selling the wheat, pulses and fruit grown by the peasants of the Galilee to the traders of Acre, who in turn exported at least part of the merchandise to Europe. Safed also maintained extensive trade with the port of Tyre. The bulk of trade in Safed, which was traditionally dominated by the city's Jews, largely passed to its Muslim merchants during the late 19th century, particularly trade with the local villagers; Muslim traders offered higher credit to the peasants and were able to obtain government assistance for debt repayments. The wealth of Safed's Muslims increased and a number of the city's leading Muslim families made an opportunity from the Ottoman Land Code of 1858 to purchase extensive tracts around Safed.Abbasi 2003, p. 56. The major Muslim landowning clans were the Soubeh, Murad and Qaddura. The latter owned about 50,000 dunams toward the end of the century, including eight villages around Safed. In 1878 the municipal council of Safed was established. In 1888 the Acre Sanjak, including the Safed Kaza, became part of the new province of Beirut Vilayet, an administrative state of affairs which persisted until the Empire's fall in 1918. The centralization and stability brought by the imperial reforms solidified the political status and practical influence of Safed in the Upper Galilee.Abbasi 2003, p. 51. The Ottomans developed Safed into a center for Sunni Islam to counterbalance the influence of non-Muslim communities in its environs and the Shia Muslims of Jabal Amil.Abbasi 2003, p. 53. Along with the three major landowning families, the Muslim ''ulema'' (religious scholarly) families of Nahawi, Qadi, Mufti and Naqib comprised the urban elite (''a'yan'') of the city. The Sunni courts of Safed arbitrated over cases in
Akbara Akbara ( ar, عكبرة) is an Arab village in the Israel, Israeli municipality of Safed, which included in 2010 more than 200 families. It is 2.5 km south of Safed City. The village was rebuilt in 1977, close to the old village destroyed i ...
, Ein al-Zeitun and as far away as Majdel Selm, Mejdel Islim. The government settled Algerian and Circassian exiles in the countryside of Safed in the 1860s and 1878, respectively, possibly in an effort to strengthen the Muslim character of the area. At least two Muslim families in the city itself, Arabi and Delasi, were of Algerian origin, though they accounted for a small proportion of the city's overall Muslim population. According to the late 19th-century account of British missionary E. W. G. Masterman, the Muslim families of Safed originated from Damascus, Transjordan (region), Transjordan and the villages around Safed. When Baybars conquered Safed in 1266 he settled many Damascenes in the city. Until the late 19th century the Muslims of Safed maintained strong social and cultural connections with Damascus. Masterman noted that the Muslims of Safed were conservative, "active and hardy", who "dress[ed] well and move[d] about more than the people from the region of southern Palestine". They lived mainly in three quarters of the city: al-Akrad, whose residents were mostly laborers, Sawawin, home to the Muslim ''a'yan'' households and the city's Catholic community, and al-Wata, whose inhabitants were largely shopkeepers and minor traders.Schumacher, 1888, p
188
/ref> The entire Jewish population lived in the Gharbieh (western) quarter. Safed's population reached over 15,000 in 1879, 8,000 of whom were Muslims and 7,000 Jews. A population list from about 1887 showed that Safad had 24,615 inhabitants; 2,650 Jewish households, 2,129 Muslim households and 144 Roman Catholic households. Arab families in Safed whose social status rose as a result of the Tanzimat reforms included the Deir al-Asad#Endowment to Muhammad al-Asad, Asadi, whose presence in Safed dated to the 16th century, Hajj Sa'id, Hijazi, Bisht, Hadid, Khouri, a Christian family whose progenitor moved to the city from Mount Lebanon during the 1860 Mount Lebanon civil war, 1860 civil war, and Sabbagh, a long-established Christian family in the city related to Zahir al-Umar's fiscal adviser Ibrahim al-Sabbagh; many members of these families became officials in the civil service, local administrations or businessmen. When the Ottomans established a branch of the Agricultural Bank in the city in 1897, all of its board members were resident Arabs, the most influential of whom were Husayn Abd al-Rahim Effendi, Hajj Ahmad al-Asadi, As'ad Khouri and Abd al-Latif al-Hajj Sa'id. The latter two also became board members of the Chamber of Commerce and Agriculture branch opened in Safed in 1900. In the last decade of the 19th century, Safed contained 2,000 houses, four mosques, three churches, two public bathhouses, one caravanserai, two public ''Sebil (fountain), sabils'', nineteen mills, seven olive oil presses, ten bakeries, fifteen coffeehouses, forty-five stalls and three shops.


British Mandate of Palestine

Safed was the centre of Safad Subdistrict, Mandatory Palestine, Safad Subdistrict. According to a 1922 census of Palestine, census conducted in 1922 by the Mandate for Palestine, British Mandate authorities, Safed had a population of 8,761 inhabitants, consisting of 5,431 Muslims, 2,986 Jews, 343 Christians and others.Barron, 1923, p
6
/ref> Safed remained a mixed city during the Mandatory Palestine, British Mandate for Palestine and ethnic tensions between Jews and Arabs rose during the 1920s. During the 1929 Palestine riots, Safed and Hebron became major clash points. In the 1929 Safed massacre, Safed massacre 20 Jewish residents were killed by local Arabs. Safed was included in the part of Palestine recommended to be included in the proposed Jewish state under the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine. By 1948 the city was home to about 12,000 Arabs and about 1,700 Jews, mostly religious and elderly. On 5 January 1948, Arabs attacked the Jewish Quarter. In February 1948, during the 1947–1948 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine, civil war, Muslim Arabs attacked a Jewish bus attempting to reach Safed, and the Jewish quarter of the town came under siege by the Muslims. British forces that were present did not intervene. According to Martin Gilbert, food supplies ran short. "Even water and flour were in desperately short supply. Each day, the Arab attackers drew closer to the heart of the Jewish quarter, systematically blowing up Jewish houses as they pressed in on the central area." On April 16, the same day that British forces evacuated Safed, 200 local Arab militiamen, supported by over 200 Arab Liberation Army soldiers, tried to take over the city's Jewish Quarter. They were repelled by the Jewish garrison, consisting of some 200 Haganah fighters, men and women, boosted by a Palmach platoon. The Palmach ground attack on the Arab section of Safed took place on 6 May, as a part of Operation Yiftah. The first phase of the Palmach plan to capture Safed, was to secure a corridor through the mountains by capturing the Arab village of Biriyya.Gilbert, 1998, p. 177 The Arab Liberation Army had plans to take over the whole city on May 10 and to slaughter all as cabled by the Syrian commander al-Hassan Kam al-Maz, and in the meantime placed artillery pieces on a hill adjacent to the Jewish quarter and started its shelling. The Palmach's Third Battalion failed to take the main objective, the "citadel", but "terrified" the Arab population sufficiently to prompt further flight, as well as urgent appeals for outside help and an effort to obtain a truce. The secretary-general of the Arab League Abdul Rahman Hassan Azzam stated that the goal of Plan Dalet was to drive out the inhabitants of Arab villages along the Syrian and Lebanese frontiers, particularly places on the roads by which Arab regular forces could enter the country. He noted that Acre and Safed were in particular danger. However, the appeals for help were ignored, and the British, now less than a week away from the end of the British Mandate of Palestine, also did not intervene against the second and final Haganah attack, which began on the evening of 9 May, with a mortar barrage on key sites in Safed. Following the barrage, Palmach infantry, in bitter fighting, took the citadel, Beit Shalva and the police fort, Safed's three dominant buildings. Through 10 May, Haganah mortars continued to pound the Arab neighbourhoods, causing fires in the marked area and in the fuel dumps, which exploded. "The Palmah 'intentionally left open the exit routes for the population to "facilitate" their exodus...' " According to Gilbert, "The Arabs of Safed began to leave, including the commander of the Arab forces, Adib Shishakli (later Prime Minister of Syria). With the Birya Fortress, police fort on Mount Canaan isolated, its defenders withdrew without fighting. The fall of Safed was a blow to Arab morale throughout the region... With the invasion of Palestine by regular Arab armies believed to be imminent – once the British had finally left in eleven or twelve days' time – many Arabs felt that prudence dictated their departure until the Jews had been defeated and they could return to their homes. Some 12,000 Arabs, with some estimates reaching 15,000, fled Safed and were a "heavy burden on the Arab war effort". Among them was the family of President of the Palestinian Authority, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. The city was fully under the control of Jewish paramilitary forces by May 11, 1948. Early in June, Jewish dignitaries from Safed journeyed to Tel Aviv to ask the government to block the return of Arabs to the city, threatening to abandon it if the latter were allowed back. They reasoned that since most of the Arabs' property had been seized or stolen in the meantime, the Jewish community would be unable to withstand the pressure of the returnees' demands for restitution. File:Zoltan Kluger. Safed.jpg, Safad 1937 File:Safed iv.jpg, Mandate Police station at Mount Canaan, above Safed (1948) File:Safed 1948.jpg, Safed (1948) File:Safed citadel.jpg, Safed Citadel (1948) File:Safad v.jpg, Safad Municipal Police Station after the battle (1948) File:Safad i.jpg, Bussel House, Safad, 11 April 1948: Yiftach Brigade headquarters File:Mount Canaan iv.jpg, View of Safed from Mount Canaan (1948) File:Mount Canaan Police station.jpg, Mandate administration building on the eastern outskirts of Safed (1948) File:Safed v.jpg, Yiftach Brigade, with their Hotchkiss M1929 machine gun, Hotchkiss machine guns, based at Bussel House, 1948 File:Druze in Safad.jpg, Druze parading in Safed after the Palmach victory in 1948


State of Israel

In 1974, 25 Israeli Jews (mainly school children) from Safed, were killed in the Ma'alot massacre. Over 1990s and early 2000s, the town accepted thousands of Russian Jewish immigrants and Ethiopian Beta Israel. In July 2006, BM-21 Grad, "Katyusha" rockets fired by Hezbollah from Southern Lebanon hit Safed, killing one man and injuring others. Many residents fled the town for the duration of the conflict. On July 22, four people were injured in a rocket attack. The town has retained its unique status as a Jewish studies centre, incorporating numerous facilities. In 2010, eighteen senior rabbis led by the chief rabbi of Safed, Shmuel Eliyahu, December 2010 Israeli rabbi letter controversy, issued an edict urging the city's residents not to rent or sell property to Arabs, warning of an "Arab takeover"; Arabs constitute a fractional proportion of the population, and the statement was generally perceived to be directed at the 1,300 Arab students enrolled at Zefat Academic College.


Demographics

In 2008, the population of Safed was 32,000. According to Israel Central Bureau of Statistics, CBS figures in 2001, the ethnic makeup of the city was 99.2% Jewish and non-Arab, with no significant Israeli Arab, Arab population. 43.2% of the residents were 19 years of age or younger, 13.5% between 20 and 29, 17.1% between 30 and 44, 12.5% from 45 to 59, 3.1% from 60 to 64, and 10.5% 65 years of age or older. The city is home to a relatively large community of Haredi Judaism, Haredi Jews. The village of
Akbara Akbara ( ar, عكبرة) is an Arab village in the Israel, Israeli municipality of Safed, which included in 2010 more than 200 families. It is 2.5 km south of Safed City. The village was rebuilt in 1977, close to the old village destroyed i ...
in the city's southwestern outskirts, which had a population of about 500 Arab Muslims, most of whom belonged to a single clan, the Halihal, is under Safed's municipal jurisdiction.


Seismology

The city is located above the Dead Sea Transform, and is one of the cities in Israel most at risk of earthquakes (along with Tiberias, Beit She'an, Kiryat Shmona, and Eilat).


Geography

Safed is east of Acre and north of Tiberias.


Climate

Safed has a Mediterranean climate (Köppen climate classification: ''Csa'') with hot, dry summers and cool, rainy and occasionally snowy winters. The city receives of precipitation per year. Summers are rainless and hot with an average high temperature of and an average low temperature of . Winters are cool and wet, and precipitation is occasionally in the form of snow. Winters have an average high temperature of and an average low temperature of .


Education

According to CBS, the city has 25 schools and 6,292 students. There are 18 elementary schools with a student population of 3,965, and 11 high schools with a student population of 2,327. 40.8% of Safed's 12th graders were eligible for a matriculation (bagrut) certificate in 2001. The Zefat Academic College, originally an extension of Bar-Ilan University, was granted independent accreditation by Israel's Council of Higher Education in 2007. For the 2011–2012 school year, the college began a program designed specifically for Haredi Judaism. It was created in order to allow haredi women living in the Upper Galilee access to higher education, while still maintaining strict religious practice. The program accomplishes this goal through separate classes for male and female students. The classes are also taught during certain hours as to allow women to fulfill other aspects of their religiosity. In October 2011, Israel's fifth medical school opened in Safed, housed in a renovated historic building in the centre of town that was once a branch of Hadassah Medical Center, Hadassah Hospital. The Azrieli Faculty of Medicine opened in 2011 as an extension of Bar-Ilan University, created to train physicians in the Upper Galilee region."About." About , The Azrieli Faculty of Medicine , Bar-Ilan University. Accessed December 02, 2018. http://medicine.biu.ac.il/en/node/3 The schools conducts clinical instructions in six hospitals in the region: *Baruch Padeh Medical Center *Ziv Medical Center *Western Galilee Hospital *EMMS Nazareth Hospital * The Holy Family Hospital *Mazra Mental Health Center The Livnot U'Lehibanot program in Safed provides an open, non-denominational atmosphere for young Jewish adults that combines volunteering, hiking and study with exploring Jewish heritage. Sharei Bina is a program for women who have just finished high school and want to study in a seminary in Safed for one year that teaches young women who want to experience Jewish spirituality in the mystical city of Safed. In comparison to other seminaries, Sharei Bina includes the study of the shekhinah and other Kabbalist rituals in the learning. On March 8, 2021, the Israeli Prime minister, Prime-Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that Israel is to establish its 10th university in Safed, after a growing need for a university in the Northern District (Israel), northern district of Israel. Plans have been in place to establish a University in the
Galilee Galilee (; he, הַגָּלִיל, hagGālīl; ar, الجليل, al-jalīl) is a region located in northern Israel and southern Lebanon. Galilee traditionally refers to the mountainous part, divided into Upper Galilee (, ; , ) and Lower Galil ...
since 2005, but no progress was made until 2015 when Netanyahu vowed to start working on the project during a Galilee Conference.


Culture

;Artists' colony In the 1950s and 1960s, Safed was known as Israel's art capital. An artists' colony established in the old Arab quarter was a hub of creativity that drew artists from around the country, among them Yitzhak Frenkel, Yosl Bergner, Moshe Castel, Menachem Shemi, Shimshon Holzman and Rolly Sheffer. In honor of the opening of the Glitzenstein Art Museum in 1953, the artist Mane Katz donated eight of his paintings to the city. Today the area contains a large number of galleries and workshops run by individual artists and art vendors. There are several museums and galleries that function in the historical homes of major Israeli artists such as the Frenkel Frenel Museum and the Beit Castel galleryIsrael Travel News, ''Spotlight – A Spiritual Journey of Safed'
access date: 24/1/2018
/ref> ;Music In the 1960s, Safed was home to the country's top nightclubs, hosting the debut performances of Naomi Shemer, Aris San, and other singers. Nowadays, Safed has been hailed as the klezmer capital of the world, hosting an annual Klezmer Festival that attracts top musicians from around the globe. ;Museums *The Beit Hameiri museum documents Safed's Jewish community over the past 200 years. *The Museum of the Art of Printing displays the first Hebrew printing press.


Historic sites

;Citadel Hill The Citadel Hill, in Hebrew HaMetzuda, rises east of the Old City and is named after the huge Crusader and then Mamluk castle built there during the 12th and 13th centuries, which continued in use until being totally destroyed by the 1837 earthquake. Its ruins are still visible. On the western slope beneath the ruins stands the former British police station, still pockmarked by bullet holes from the 1948 war. ;Old Jewish Quarter Before 1948, most of Safed's Jewish population used to live in the northern section of the old city. Currently home to 32 synagogues, it is also referred to as the synagogue quarter and includes synagogues named after prominent rabbis of the town: the Abuhav synagogue, Abuhav, Moshe Alshich, Alsheich, Joseph Karo, Karo and two named for Rabbi Isaac Luria: one Ari Ashkenazi Synagogue, Ashkenazi, the other Sephardi. ;Mamluk-period buildings Further south are two monumental Mamluk-period buildings: * the Red Mosque with a khan (1276) * the Mamluk mausoleum, now used by freemasons. The mausoleum was built for a Mamluk ''na'ib'' (governor) of Safed, Muzaffar ad-Din Musa ibn Hajj al-Ruqtay Musa Muzaffar al-Din ibn Ruqtay al-Hajj, who died in AH 762/AD 1360–61). Southeast of the Artists' Quarter is the Saray (building), Saraya, the fortified governor's residence built by Zahir al-Umar (1689/90–1775). A report about the "obliteration of non-Jewish historic sites in Safed" mentions a mausoleum, an ancient grave and an ancient mosque that was converted into a clubhouse.


Notable people


Twin towns — sister cities

Safed is Twin towns and sister cities, twinned with: * Erzsébetváros, Budapest, Hungary * Guarda, Portugal, Guarda, Portugal * Lille, France, Lille, France * Nikopol, Bulgaria, Nikopol, Bulgaria
* Palm Beach County, Florida, United States * Toledo, Spain, Toledo, Castile–La Mancha, Spain


Gallery

File:Meron 181.jpg, Monument to the Israeli soldiers who fought in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War File:Safed 2009.jpg, Safed in 2009 File:Safed view 02.JPG, View of Safed File:Safed view 01.jpg, View of Safed File:Safed 01.JPG, Houses in Safed File:SafedDSCN4022.JPG, Doorway in Beit Castel gallery, Safed


See also

*List of clock towers – Safed has its own, the Ottoman clock tower of the "Saraya" (government house), inaugurated in 1900


Notes


References


Bibliography

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External links


City Council websitezefat.net

Nefesh B' Nefesh Community Guide for Tzfat
* Survey of Western Palestine, Map 4
IAAWikimedia commons
Safed on the Palestine Exploration Fund, PEF Map {{Authority control Safed, Holy cities Cities in Northern District (Israel) Jewish pilgrimage sites Crusader castles Castles and fortifications of the Kingdom of Jerusalem Castles and fortifications of the Knights Templar Castles in Israel Ancient Jewish settlements of Galilee Ottoman clock towers Clock towers in Israel Holy cities of Judaism