Tiberias ( ; he, טְבֶרְיָה, ; ar, طبريا, Ṭabariyyā) is an Israeli city on the western shore of the
Sea of Galilee
The Sea of Galilee ( he, יָם כִּנֶּרֶת, Judeo-Aramaic: יַמּא דטבריא, גִּנֵּיסַר, ar, بحيرة طبريا), also called Lake Tiberias, Kinneret or Kinnereth, is a freshwater lake in Israel. It is the lowest ...
. A major Jewish center during
Late Antiquity
Late antiquity is the time of transition from classical antiquity to the Middle Ages, generally spanning the 3rd–7th century in Europe and adjacent areas bordering the Mediterranean Basin. The popularization of this periodization in English ha ...
, it has been considered since the 16th century one of
Judaism
Judaism ( he, ''Yahăḏūṯ'') is an Abrahamic, monotheistic, and ethnic religion comprising the collective religious, cultural, and legal tradition and civilization of the Jewish people. It has its roots as an organized religion in the ...
's
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 ...
, along with
Jerusalem
Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...
,
Hebron
Hebron ( ar, الخليل or ; he, חֶבְרוֹן ) is a Palestinian. city in the southern West Bank, south of Jerusalem. Nestled in the Judaean Mountains, it lies above sea level. The second-largest city in the West Bank (after East J ...
, and
Safed
Safed (known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as Tzfat; Sephardi Hebrew, Sephardic Hebrew & Modern Hebrew: צְפַת ''Tsfat'', Ashkenazi Hebrew pronunciation, Ashkenazi Hebrew: ''Tzfas'', Biblical Hebrew: ''Ṣǝp̄aṯ''; ar, صفد, ''Ṣafad''), i ...
. In , it had a population of .
Tiberias was founded circa 20 CE by
Herod Antipas
Herod Antipas ( el, Ἡρῴδης Ἀντίπας, ''Hērǭdēs Antipas''; born before 20 BC – died after 39 AD), was a 1st-century ruler of Galilee and Perea, who bore the title of tetrarch ("ruler of a quarter") and is referred to as both "H ...
and was named after
Roman emperor Tiberius
Tiberius Julius Caesar Augustus (; 16 November 42 BC – 16 March AD 37) was the second Roman emperor. He reigned from AD 14 until 37, succeeding his stepfather, the first Roman emperor Augustus. Tiberius was born in Rome in 42 BC. His father ...
.
It became a major political and religious hub of the Jews in the
Land of Israel
The Land of Israel () is the traditional Jewish name for an area of the Southern Levant. Related biblical, religious and historical English terms include the Land of Canaan, the Promised Land, the Holy Land, and Palestine (see also Isra ...
after the
destruction of Jerusalem
The siege of Jerusalem of 70 CE was the decisive event of the First Jewish–Roman War (66–73 CE), in which the Roman army led by future emperor Titus besieged Jerusalem, the center of Jewish rebel resistance in the Roman province of Jud ...
and the desolation of Judea during the
Jewish–Roman wars
The Jewish–Roman wars were a series of large-scale revolts by the Jews of the Eastern Mediterranean against the Roman Empire between 66 and 135 CE. The First Jewish–Roman War (66–73 CE) and the Bar Kokhba revolt (132–136 CE) were nati ...
.
From the time of the second through the tenth centuries CE, Tiberias was the largest Jewish 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 much of the
Mishna
The Mishnah or the Mishna (; he, מִשְׁנָה, "study by repetition", from the verb ''shanah'' , or "to study and review", also "secondary") is the first major written collection of the Jewish oral traditions which is known as the Oral Torah ...
and 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 ...
were compiled there.
Tiberias flourished during the
early Islamic period, when it served as the capital of
Jund al-Urdunn
Jund al-Urdunn ( ar, جُـنْـد الْأُرْدُنّ, translation: "The military district of Jordan") was one of the five districts of Bilad al-Sham (Islamic Syria) during the early Islamic period. It was established under the Rashidun and ...
and became a multi-cultural trading center.
[Hirschfeld, Y. (2007). Post-Roman Tiberias: between East and West. ''Post-Roman Towns, Trade and Settlement in Europe and Byzantium: Byzantium, Pliska, and the Balkans'', ''5'', p. 193–204.] The city slipped in importance following several earthquakes, foreign incursions, and after 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 ...
turned
Safed
Safed (known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as Tzfat; Sephardi Hebrew, Sephardic Hebrew & Modern Hebrew: צְפַת ''Tsfat'', Ashkenazi Hebrew pronunciation, Ashkenazi Hebrew: ''Tzfas'', Biblical Hebrew: ''Ṣǝp̄aṯ''; ar, صفد, ''Ṣafad''), i ...
into the capital of
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 ...
.
The city was greatly damaged by an
earthquake in 1837, after which it was rebuilt, and it grew steadily following the
Zionist Aliyah in the 1880s.
In early modern times, Tiberias 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 ...
; under
British rule
The British Raj (; from Hindi ''rāj'': kingdom, realm, state, or empire) was the rule of the British Crown on the Indian subcontinent;
*
* it is also called Crown rule in India,
*
*
*
*
or Direct rule in India,
* Quote: "Mill, who was himsel ...
it had a majority Jewish population, but with a significant Arab community. During the
1947–1948 civil war in Mandatory Palestine
The 1947–1948 civil war in Mandatory Palestine was the first phase of the 1947–1949 Palestine war. It broke out after the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted a resolution on 29 November 1947 recommending the adoption of the Pa ...
, Palestinian Arab residents of Tiberias besieged its Jewish quarter. The city was then captured by the
Haganah
Haganah ( he, הַהֲגָנָה, lit. ''The Defence'') was the main Zionist paramilitary organization of the Jewish population ("Yishuv") in Mandatory Palestine between 1920 and its disestablishment in 1948, when it became the core of the ...
, and British troops evacuated the entire Palestinian Arab population.
After the war ended, the new Israeli authorities destroyed the Old City of Tiberias.
A large number of Jewish immigrants to Israel subsequently settled in Tiberias, such that today the city has an almost exclusively Jewish population.
Today, Tiberias is an important tourist center due to its proximity to the Sea of Galilee and religious sanctity to Judaism and
Christianity
Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global pop ...
. The city also serves as a regional industrial and commercial center. Its immediate neighbour to the south,
Hammat Tiberias
Hammath Tiberias or Hammat Tiberias is an ancient archaeological site and an Israeli national park known as Hamat Tverya National Park, which is located on the adjacent to Tiberias on the road to Samakh, Tiberias, Zemach that runs along the sho ...
, which is now part of modern Tiberias, has been known for its
hot springs
A hot spring, hydrothermal spring, or geothermal spring is a spring produced by the emergence of geothermally heated groundwater onto the surface of the Earth. The groundwater is heated either by shallow bodies of magma (molten rock) or by circ ...
, believed to cure skin and other
ailments
A disease is a particular abnormal condition that negatively affects the structure or function (biology), function of all or part of an organism, and that is not immediately due to any external injury. Diseases are often known to be medica ...
, for some two thousand years.
History
: ''See
Diocese of Tiberias for
ecclesiastical history
__NOTOC__
Church history or ecclesiastical history as an academic discipline studies the history of Christianity and the way the Christian Church has developed since its inception.
Henry Melvill Gwatkin defined church history as "the spiritual ...
''
Biblical era
Jewish tradition holds that Tiberias was built on the site of the ancient Israelite village of ''
Rakkath'' or ''Rakkat'', first mentioned in the
Book of Joshua
The Book of Joshua ( he, סֵפֶר יְהוֹשֻׁעַ ', Tiberian: ''Sēp̄er Yŏhōšūaʿ'') is the sixth book in the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament, and is the first book of the Deuteronomistic history, the story of Isra ...
.
In
Talmud
The Talmud (; he, , Talmūḏ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (''halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the cente ...
ic times, the Jews still referred to it by this name.
Roman period
Herodian period
Tiberias was founded sometime around 20 CE in the
Herodian Tetrarchy
The Herodian Tetrarchy was formed following the death of Herod the Great in 4 BCE, when his kingdom was divided between his sons Herod Archelaus as ethnarch, Herod Antipas and Philip as tetrarchs in inheritance, while Herod's sister Salome I brief ...
of Galilee and
Peraea
Peraia, and Peraea or Peræa (from grc, ἡ περαία, ''hē peraia'', "land across") in Classical Antiquity referred to "a community's territory lying 'opposite', predominantly (but not exclusively) a mainland possession of an island state" a ...
by the Roman
client king
A client state, in international relations, is a state that is economically, politically, and/or militarily subordinate to another more powerful state (called the "controlling state"). A client state may variously be described as satellite state, ...
Herod Antipas
Herod Antipas ( el, Ἡρῴδης Ἀντίπας, ''Hērǭdēs Antipas''; born before 20 BC – died after 39 AD), was a 1st-century ruler of Galilee and Perea, who bore the title of tetrarch ("ruler of a quarter") and is referred to as both "H ...
, son of
Herod the Great
Herod I (; ; grc-gre, ; c. 72 – 4 or 1 BCE), also known as Herod the Great, was a Roman Jewish client king of Judea, referred to as the Herodian kingdom. He is known for his colossal building projects throughout Judea, including his renov ...
. Herod Antipas made it the capital of his realm in the Galilee and named it after the
Roman Emperor Tiberius
Tiberius Julius Caesar Augustus (; 16 November 42 BC – 16 March AD 37) was the second Roman emperor. He reigned from AD 14 until 37, succeeding his stepfather, the first Roman emperor Augustus. Tiberius was born in Rome in 42 BC. His father ...
.
The city was built in immediate proximity to a spa which had developed around 17 natural mineral hot springs,
Hammat Tiberias
Hammath Tiberias or Hammat Tiberias is an ancient archaeological site and an Israeli national park known as Hamat Tverya National Park, which is located on the adjacent to Tiberias on the road to Samakh, Tiberias, Zemach that runs along the sho ...
. Tiberias was at first a strictly pagan city, but later became populated mainly by Jews, with its growing spiritual and religious status exerting a strong influence on
balneological
Balneotherapy ( la, balneum "bath") is a method of treating diseases by bathing, a traditional medicine technique usually practiced at spas. Since ancient times, humans have used hot springs, public baths and thermal medicine for therapeutic ef ...
practices.
Conversely, in ''
The Antiquities of the Jews
''Antiquities of the Jews'' ( la, Antiquitates Iudaicae; el, Ἰουδαϊκὴ ἀρχαιολογία, ''Ioudaikē archaiologia'') is a 20-volume historiographical work, written in Greek, by historian Flavius Josephus in the 13th year of the re ...
'', 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 ...
calls the village with hot springs
Emmaus
Emmaus (; Greek: Ἐμμαούς, ''Emmaous''; la, Emmaus; , ''Emmaom''; ar, عمواس, ''ʻImwas'') is a town mentioned in the Gospel of Luke of the New Testament. Luke reports that Jesus appeared, after his death and resurrection, before tw ...
, today's Hammat Tiberias, located near Tiberias.
[Josephus, ''Antiquities of the Jews'' XVIII.2.3] This name also appears in his work ''
The Wars of the Jews
''The Jewish War'' or ''Judean War'' (in full ''Flavius Josephus' Books of the History of the Jewish War against the Romans'', el, Φλαυίου Ἰωσήπου ἱστορία Ἰουδαϊκοῦ πολέμου πρὸς Ῥωμαίους ...
''.
Under the
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post-Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings around the Mediterr ...
, the city was known by its
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
name Τιβεριάς (''Tiberiás'',
Modern Greek
Modern Greek (, , or , ''Kiní Neoellinikí Glóssa''), generally referred to by speakers simply as Greek (, ), refers collectively to the dialects of the Greek language spoken in the modern era, including the official standardized form of the ...
Τιβεριάδα ''Tiveriáda'').
In the days of Herod Antipas, some of the most religiously orthodox
Jews
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
, who were struggling against the process of
Hellenisation
Hellenization (other British spelling Hellenisation) or Hellenism is the adoption of Greek culture, religion, language and identity by non-Greeks. In the ancient period, colonization often led to the Hellenization of indigenous peoples; in the ...
, which had affected even some
priestly groups, refused to settle there: the presence of a
cemetery
A cemetery, burial ground, gravesite or graveyard is a place where the remains of dead people are buried or otherwise interred. The word ''cemetery'' (from Greek , "sleeping place") implies that the land is specifically designated as a buri ...
rendered the site ritually unclean for the Jews and particularly for the priestly
caste
Caste is a form of social stratification characterised by endogamy, hereditary transmission of a style of life which often includes an occupation, ritual status in a hierarchy, and customary social interaction and exclusion based on cultura ...
. Antipas settled many non-Jews there from rural Galilee and other parts of his domains in order to populate his new capital, and built a palace on the
acropolis
An acropolis was the settlement of an upper part of an ancient Greek city, especially a citadel, and frequently a hill with precipitous sides, mainly chosen for purposes of defense. The term is typically used to refer to the Acropolis of Athens, ...
.
The prestige of Tiberias was so great that the Sea of Galilee soon came to be named the Sea of Tiberias; however, the Jewish population continued to call it 'Yam Ha-Kineret', its traditional name.
The city was governed by a city council of 600 with a committee of 10 until
44 CE when a
Roman procurator was set over the city after the death of
Herod Agrippa I
Herod Agrippa (Roman name Marcus Julius Agrippa; born around 11–10 BC – in Caesarea), also known as Herod II or Agrippa I (), was a grandson of Herod the Great and King of Judea from AD 41 to 44. He was the father of Herod Agrippa II, the l ...
.
Tiberias is mentioned in as the location from which boats had sailed to the opposite, eastern side of the Sea of Galilee. The crowd seeking
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 ...
after the miraculous
feeding of the 5000 used these boats to travel back to
Capernaum
Capernaum ( ; he, כְּפַר נַחוּם, Kfar Naḥum, Nahum's village; ar, كفر ناحوم, Kafr Nāḥūm) was a fishing village established during the time of the Hasmoneans, located on the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee. It ...
on the north-western part of the lake.
In
61 CE Herod Agrippa II
Herod Agrippa II (; AD 27/28 – or 100), officially named Marcus Julius Agrippa and sometimes shortened to Agrippa, was the last ruler from the Herodian dynasty, reigning over territories outside of Judea as a Roman client. Agrippa II fled ...
annexed the city to his kingdom whose capital was
Caesarea Philippi
Banias or Banyas ( ar, بانياس الحولة; he, בניאס, label=Modern Hebrew; Judeo-Aramaic, Medieval Hebrew: פמייס, etc.; grc, Πανεάς) is a site in the Golan Heights near a natural spring, once associated with the Greek ...
.
Great Revolt and Bar Kokhba revolt
During the
First Jewish–Roman War
The First Jewish–Roman War (66–73 CE), sometimes called the Great Jewish Revolt ( he, המרד הגדול '), or The Jewish War, was the first of three major rebellions by the Jews against the Roman Empire, fought in Roman-controlled ...
, the Jewish rebels took control of the city and destroyed Herod's palace, and were able to prevent the city from being pillaged by the army of
Agrippa II, the Jewish ruler who had remained loyal to Rome.
Eventually, the rebels were expelled from Tiberias, and while most other cities in the provinces of Judaea, Galilee and
Idumea
Edom (; Edomite: ; he, אֱדוֹם , lit.: "red"; Akkadian: , ; Ancient Egyptian: ) was an ancient kingdom in Transjordan, located between Moab to the northeast, the Arabah to the west, and the Arabian Desert to the south and east. ...
were razed, Tiberias was spared this fate because its inhabitants had decided not to fight against Rome.
It became a mixed city after the fall of Jerusalem in 70 CE; with Judea subdued, the surviving southern Jewish population migrated to the Galilee.
[Robinson and Smith, 1841, vol. 3, p]
269
/ref>
There is no direct indication that Tiberias, as well as the rest of Galilee, took part in the Bar Kokhba revolt
The Bar Kokhba revolt ( he, , links=yes, ''Mereḏ Bar Kōḵḇāʾ''), or the 'Jewish Expedition' as the Romans named it ( la, Expeditio Judaica), was a rebellion by the Jews of the Judea (Roman province), Roman province of Judea, led b ...
of 132–136 CE, thus allowing it to exist, despite a heavy economic decline due to the war. Following the expulsion of Jews from Judea after 135 CE, Tiberias and its neighbour Sepphoris
Sepphoris (; grc, Σέπφωρις, Séphōris), called Tzipori in Hebrew ( he, צִפּוֹרִי, Tzipori),Palmer (1881), p115/ref> and known in Arabic as Saffuriya ( ar, صفورية, Ṣaffūriya) since the 7th century, is an archaeolog ...
(Hebrew name: Tzippori) became the major Jewish cultural centres.
Late Roman period
According to the Talmud, in 145 CE, Rabbi
A rabbi () is a spiritual leader or religious teacher in Judaism. One becomes a rabbi by being ordained by another rabbi – known as ''semikha'' – following a course of study of Jewish history and texts such as the Talmud. The basic form of ...
Simeon bar Yochai
Shimon bar Yochai ( Zoharic Aramaic: שמעון בר יוחאי, ''Shim'on bar Yoḥai'') or Shimon ben Yochai (Mishnaic Hebrew: שמעון בן יוחאי, ''Shim'on ben Yoḥai''), also known by the acronym Rashbi, was a 2nd-century ''tannaiti ...
, who was very familiar with the Galilee, hiding there for over a decade, "cleansed the city of ritual impurity", allowing the Jewish leadership to resettle there from the Judea, which they were forced to leave as fugitives. The Sanhedrin
The Sanhedrin (Hebrew and Aramaic: סַנְהֶדְרִין; Greek: , ''synedrion'', 'sitting together,' hence 'assembly' or 'council') was an assembly of either 23 or 71 elders (known as "rabbis" after the destruction of the Second Temple), ap ...
, the Jewish court, also fled from Jerusalem during the Great Jewish Revolt against Rome, and after several attempted moves, in search of stability, eventually settled in Tiberias in about 220 CE.[''Mercer Dictionary of the Bible'' Edited by Watson E. Mills, Roger Aubrey Bullard, Mercer University Press, (1998) p 917] It was to be its final meeting place before its disbanding in 425 CE. When Johanan bar Nappaha
:''See Johanan (name) for more rabbis by this name''.
Johanan bar Nappaha ( he, יוחנן בר נפחא Yoḥanan bar Nafḥa; alt. sp. Napaḥa) (also known simply as Rabbi Yochanan, or as Johanan bar Nafcha) (lived 180-279 CE) was a leading r ...
(d. 279) settled in Tiberias, the city became the focus of Jewish religious scholarship in the land and the so-named 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 ...
was compiled by his school in Tiberias between 230–270 CE. Tiberias' 13 synagogues served the spiritual needs of a growing Jewish population. Tombs of famous rabbis Yohanan ben Zakkai
:''See Yohanan for more rabbis by this name''.
Yohanan ben Zakkai ( he, יוֹחָנָן בֶּן זַכַּאי, ''Yōḥānān ben Zakkaʾy''; 1st century CE), sometimes abbreviated as Ribaz () for Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai, was one of the Tan ...
, Akiva and Maimonides
Musa ibn Maimon (1138–1204), commonly known as Maimonides (); la, Moses Maimonides and also referred to by the acronym Rambam ( he, רמב״ם), was a Sephardic Jewish philosopher who became one of the most prolific and influential Torah ...
are also located in the city.
Byzantine period
In the 6th century Tiberias was still the seat of Jewish religious learning. In light of this, a letter
Letter, letters, or literature may refer to:
Characters typeface
* Letter (alphabet), a character representing one or more of the sounds used in speech; any of the symbols of an alphabet.
* Letterform, the graphic form of a letter of the alphabe ...
of Syriac bishop Simeon of Beth Arsham
Beth may refer to:
Letter and number
*Bet (letter), or beth, the second letter of the Semitic abjads (writing systems)
*Hebrew word for "house", often used in the name of synagogues and schools (e.g. Beth Israel)
Name
*Beth (given name) lists p ...
urged the Christians of Palaestina to seize the leaders of Judaism in Tiberias, to put them to the rack, and to compel them to command the Jewish king, Dhu Nuwas
Dhū Nuwās, ( ar, ذُو نُوَاس), real name "Yūsuf Asʾar Yathʾar" ( Musnad: 𐩺𐩥𐩪𐩰 𐩱𐩪𐩱𐩧 𐩺𐩻𐩱𐩧, ''Yws¹f ʾs¹ʾr Yṯʾr''), "Yosef Nu'as" ( he, יוסף נואס), or "Yūsuf ibn Sharhabīl" ( ar, يُ ...
, to desist from persecuting the Christians in Najran
Najran ( ar, نجران '), is a city in southwestern Saudi Arabia near the border with Yemen. It is the capital of Najran Province. Designated as a new town, Najran is one of the fastest-growing cities in the kingdom; its population has risen fr ...
.
In 614, Tiberias was the site where, during the final Jewish revolt against the Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...
, parts of the Jewish population supported the Persian
Persian may refer to:
* People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language
** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples
** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...
invaders; the Jewish rebels were financed by Benjamin of Tiberias
Benjamin of Tiberias was a man of immense wealth, who enlisted and armed many soldiers during the Jewish revolt against Heraclius in the 7th century Palaestina province of the Byzantine Empire. The Persian force was joined by Benjamin of Tiberi ...
, a man of immense wealth; according to Christian sources, during the revolt Christians were massacred and churches destroyed. In 628, the Byzantine army returned to Tiberias upon the surrender of Jewish rebels and the end of the Persian occupation after they were defeated in the battle of Nineveh. A year later, influenced by radical Christian monks, Emperor Heraclius
Heraclius ( grc-gre, Ἡράκλειος, Hērákleios; c. 575 – 11 February 641), was List of Byzantine emperors, Eastern Roman emperor from 610 to 641. His rise to power began in 608, when he and his father, Heraclius the Elder, the Exa ...
instigated a wide-scale slaughter of the Jews, which practically emptied Galilee of most its Jewish population, with survivors fleeing to Egypt.
Early Muslim period
Tiberias, or Tabariyyah in Arab transcription, was "conquered by (the Arab commander) Shurahbil in the year 634/15 E/AHby capitulation; one half of the houses and churches were to belong to the Muslims, the other half to the Christians." Since 636 CE, Tiberias served as the regional capital, until Beit She'an
Beit She'an ( he, בֵּית שְׁאָן '), also Beth-shean, formerly Beisan ( ar, بيسان ), is a town in the Northern District (Israel), Northern District of Israel. The town lies at the Beit She'an Valley about 120 m (394 feet) below se ...
took its place, following the Rashidun
, image = تخطيط كلمة الخلفاء الراشدون.png
, caption = Calligraphic representation of Rashidun Caliphs
, birth_place = Mecca, Hejaz, Arabia present-day Saudi Arabia
, known_for = Companions of t ...
conquest. The Caliphate allowed 70 Jewish families from Tiberias to form the core of a renewed Jewish presence in Jerusalem and the importance of Tiberias to Jewish life declined. The caliphs of the Umayyad
The Umayyad Caliphate (661–750 CE; , ; ar, ٱلْخِلَافَة ٱلْأُمَوِيَّة, al-Khilāfah al-ʾUmawīyah) was the second of the four major caliphates established after the death of Muhammad. The caliphate was ruled by the ...
Dynasty built one of its square-plan palaces on the waterfront to the north of Tiberias, at Khirbat al-Minya
Khirbat al-Minya ( ar, قصر المنية), also known as Ayn Minyat Hisham (Arabic) or Horvat Minnim (Hebrew) is an Umayyad-built palace in the eastern Galilee, Israel, located about west of the northern end of Lake Tiberias. It was erected as ...
. Tiberias was revitalised in 749, after Bet Shean was destroyed in an earthquake. An imposing mosque, long by wide, resembling the Great Mosque 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 =
, ...
, was raised at the foot of Mount Berenice next to a Byzantine church, to the south of the city, as the eighth century ushered in Tiberias's golden age, when the multicultural city may have been the most tolerant of the Middle East.[Nir Hasson]
'In excavation of ancient mosque, volunteers dig up Israeli city's Golden Age,'
at ''Haaretz'', 17 August 2012. Jewish scholarship flourished from the beginning of the 8th century to the end of the 10th, when the oral traditions of ancient Hebrew, still in use today, were codified. One of the leading members of the Tiberian Masoretic community was Aaron ben Moses ben Asher
Aaron ben Moses ben Asher (Hebrew: ; Tiberian Hebrew: ''ʾAhărōn ben Mōše ben ʾĀšēr''; 10th century, died c.960) was a Jewish scribe who lived in Tiberias in northern Israel and refined the Tiberian system of writing vowel sounds in Hebr ...
, who refined the oral tradition now known as Tiberian Hebrew
Tiberian Hebrew is the canonical pronunciation of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) committed to writing by Masoretic scholars living in the Jewish community of Tiberias in ancient Galilee under the Abbasid Caliphate. They wrote in the form of Tiberian ...
. Both the Codex Cairensis
The Codex Cairensis (also: ''Codex Prophetarum Cairensis'', ''Cairo Codex of the Prophets'') is a Hebrew manuscript containing the complete text of the Hebrew Bible's Nevi'im (Prophets). It has traditionally been described as "the oldest dated He ...
and the Aleppo Codex
The Aleppo Codex ( he, כֶּתֶר אֲרָם צוֹבָא, romanized: , lit. 'Crown of Aleppo') is a medieval bound manuscript of the Hebrew Bible. The codex was written in the city of Tiberias in the tenth century CE (circa 920) under the ...
were written in Tiberias as well as the Tiberian vocalization
The Tiberian vocalization, Tiberian pointing, or Tiberian niqqud (Hebrew: ''haNīqqūḏ haṬəḇērīyānī'') is a system of diacritics (''niqqud'') devised by the Masoretes of Tiberias to add to the consonantal text of the Hebrew Bible to p ...
was devised here.
The Arab geographer al-Muqaddasi
Shams al-Dīn Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Abī Bakr al-Maqdisī ( ar, شَمْس ٱلدِّيْن أَبُو عَبْد ٱلله مُحَمَّد ابْن أَحْمَد ابْن أَبِي بَكْر ٱلْمَقْدِسِي), ...
writing in 985, describes Tiberias as a hedonistic city afflicted by heat:-'For two months they dance; for two months they gobble; for two months they swat; for two months they go about naked; for two months they play the reed flute; and for two months they wallow in the mud. As "the capital of Jordan Province, and a city in the Valley of Canaan. ... The town is narrow, hot in summer and unhealthy...There are here eight natural hot baths, where no fuel need be used, and numberless basins besides of boiling water. The mosque
A mosque (; from ar, مَسْجِد, masjid, ; literally "place of ritual prostration"), also called masjid, is a place of prayer for Muslims. Mosques are usually covered buildings, but can be any place where prayers ( sujud) are performed, ...
is large and fine, and stands in the market-place. Its floor is laid in pebbles, set on stone drums, placed close one to another." According to Muqaddasi, those who suffered from scab or ulcers, and other such diseases came to Tiberias to bathe in the hot springs for three days. "Afterwards they dip in another spring which is cold, whereupon ... they become cured."
Tiberias was plagued by incursions by the radical Shi'ite
Shīʿa Islam or Shīʿīsm is the second-largest branch of Islam. It holds that the Islamic prophet Muhammad designated ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib as his successor (''khalīfa'') and the Imam (spiritual and political leader) after him, most n ...
Qarmatians
The Qarmatians ( ar, قرامطة, Qarāmiṭa; ) were a militant Isma'ilism, Isma'ili Shia Islam, Shia movement centred in Al-Ahsa Oasis, al-Hasa in Eastern Arabia, where they established a Utopia#Religious utopias, religious-utopian Socialis ...
at the beginning of the tenth century. During that period, the Academy of Eretz Israel left Tiberias for Jerusalem. Later in the same century, the region came under the control by the Fatimid Caliphate
The Fatimid Caliphate was an Isma'ilism, Ismaili Shia Islam, Shi'a caliphate extant from the tenth to the twelfth centuries AD. Spanning a large area of North Africa, it ranged from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Red Sea in the ea ...
. By this time, Tiberias had experienced its last period of prosperity; dried fruit, oil, and wine had been exported to 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 ...
via the Via Maris
Via Maris is one modern name for an ancient trade route, dating from the early Bronze Age, linking Egypt with the northern empires of Syria, Anatolia and Mesopotamia — along the Mediterranean coast of modern-day Egypt, Israel, Turkey and Syr ...
, and the city was also known for its mat industry.
In 1033 Tiberias was again destroyed by an earthquake. A further earthquake in 1066 toppled the great mosque. Nasir-i Khusrou visited Tiberias in 1047, and describes a city with a "strong wall" which begins at the border of the lake and goes all around the town except on the water-side. Furthermore, he describes
: numberless buildings erected in the very water, for the bed of the lake in this part is rock; and they have built pleasure houses that are supported on columns of marble
Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or Dolomite (mineral), dolomite. Marble is typically not Foliation (geology), foliated (layered), although there are exceptions. In geology, the ...
, rising up out of the water. The lake is very full of fish. [] The Friday Mosque is in the midst of the town. At the gate of the mosque is a spring, over which they have built a hot bath. [] On the western side of the town is a mosque known as the Jasmine Mosque (Masjid-i-Yasmin). It is a fine building and in the middle part rises a great platform (dukkan), where they have their mihrab
Mihrab ( ar, محراب, ', pl. ') is a niche in the wall of a mosque that indicates the ''qibla'', the direction of the Kaaba in Mecca towards which Muslims should face when praying. The wall in which a ''mihrab'' appears is thus the "qibla w ...
s (or prayer-niches). All round those they have set jasmine
Jasmine ( taxonomic name: ''Jasminum''; , ) is a genus of shrubs and vines in the olive family (Oleaceae). It contains around 200 species native to tropical and warm temperate regions of Eurasia, Africa, and Oceania. Jasmines are widely cultiva ...
-shrubs, from which the mosque derives its name.
Crusader period
During the First Crusade
The First Crusade (1096–1099) was the first of a series of religious wars, or Crusades, initiated, supported and at times directed by the Latin Church in the medieval period. The objective was the recovery of the Holy Land from Islamic ru ...
Tiberias was occupied by the Franks
The Franks ( la, Franci or ) were a group of Germanic peoples whose name was first mentioned in 3rd-century Roman sources, and associated with tribes between the Lower Rhine and the Ems River, on the edge of the Roman Empire.H. Schutz: Tools, ...
soon after the capture of Jerusalem
Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...
. The city was given in fief to Tancred
Tancred or Tankred is a masculine given name of Germanic origin that comes from ''thank-'' (thought) and ''-rath'' (counsel), meaning "well-thought advice". It was used in the High Middle Ages mainly by the Normans (see French Tancrède) and espe ...
, who made it his capital of the Principality of Galilee
The principality of Galilee was one of the four major seigneuries of the crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, according to 13th-century commentator John of Ibelin, grandson of Balian. The direct holdings of the principality centred around Tiberias, i ...
in the Kingdom of Jerusalem
The Kingdom of Jerusalem ( la, Regnum Hierosolymitanum; fro, Roiaume de Jherusalem), officially known as the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem or the Frankish Kingdom of Palestine,Example (title of works): was a Crusader state that was establishe ...
; the region was sometimes called the Principality of Tiberias, or the Tiberiad. In 1099 the original site of the city was abandoned, and settlement shifted north to the present location. St. Peter's Church, originally built by the Crusaders, is still standing today, although the building has been altered and reconstructed over the years.
In the late 12th century Tiberias' Jewish community numbered 50 Jewish families, headed by rabbis, and at that time the best manuscripts of the Torah
The Torah (; hbo, ''Tōrā'', "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. In that sense, Torah means the s ...
were said to be found there. In the 12th-century, the city was the subject of negative undertones in Islamic tradition. A ''hadith
Ḥadīth ( or ; ar, حديث, , , , , , , literally "talk" or "discourse") or Athar ( ar, أثر, , literally "remnant"/"effect") refers to what the majority of Muslims believe to be a record of the words, actions, and the silent approval ...
'' recorded by Ibn Asakir of Damascus (d. 1176) names Tiberias as one of the "four cities of hell." This could have been reflecting the fact that at the time, the town had a notable non-Muslim population.
In 1187, 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 ...
ordered his son al-Afdal to send an envoy to Count Raymond of Tripoli requesting safe passage through his fiefdom of Galilee and Tiberias. Raymond was obliged to grant the request under the terms of his treaty with Saladin. Saladin's force left Caesarea Philippi
Banias or Banyas ( ar, بانياس الحولة; he, בניאס, label=Modern Hebrew; Judeo-Aramaic, Medieval Hebrew: פמייס, etc.; grc, Πανεάς) is a site in the Golan Heights near a natural spring, once associated with the Greek ...
to engage the fighting force of the Knights Templar
, colors = White mantle with a red cross
, colors_label = Attire
, march =
, mascot = Two knights riding a single horse
, equipment ...
. The Templar force was destroyed in the encounter. Saladin then besieged
Besieged may refer to:
* the state of being under siege
* ''Besieged'' (film), a 1998 film by Bernardo Bertolucci
{{disambiguation ...
Tiberias; after six days the town fell. On July 4, 1187 Saladin defeated the Crusaders coming to relieve Tiberias at 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 ...
, outside the city. However, during the Third Crusade
The Third Crusade (1189–1192) was an attempt by three European monarchs of Western Christianity (Philip II of France, Richard I of England and Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor) to reconquer the Holy Land following the capture of Jerusalem by ...
, the Crusaders drove the Muslims out of the city and reoccupied it.
Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, (Maimonides
Musa ibn Maimon (1138–1204), commonly known as Maimonides (); la, Moses Maimonides and also referred to by the acronym Rambam ( he, רמב״ם), was a Sephardic Jewish philosopher who became one of the most prolific and influential Torah ...
) also known as Rambam, a leading Jewish legal scholar, philosopher and physician of his period, died in 1204 in Egypt
Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...
and was later buried in Tiberias. His tomb is one of the city's important pilgrimage sites. Yakut, writing in the 1220s, described Tiberias as a small town, long and narrow. He also describes the "hot salt springs, over which they have built Hammams which use no fuel."
Mamluk period
In 1265 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 ...
were driven from the city by the Egyptian Mamluks
The Mamluk Sultanate ( ar, سلطنة المماليك, translit=Salṭanat al-Mamālīk), also known as Mamluk Egypt or the Mamluk Empire, was a state that ruled Egypt, the Levant and the Hejaz (western Arabia) from the mid-13th to early 16th ...
, who ruled Tiberias until the Ottoman conquest in 1516.
Ottoman period
During the 16th century, Tiberias was a small village. Italian Rabbi Moses Bassola visited Tiberias during his trip to Palestine in 1522. He said on Tiberias that "it was a big city ... and now it is ruined and desolate". He described the village there, in which he said there were "ten or twelve" Muslim households. The area, according to Bassola, was dangerous "because of the Arabs", and in order to stay there, he had to pay the local governor for his protection.
As the Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...
expanded along the southern Mediterranean coast under 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 ...
, the ''Reyes Católicos'' (Catholic Monarchs
The Catholic Monarchs were Queen Isabella I of Castile and King Ferdinand II of Aragon, whose marriage and joint rule marked the ''de facto'' unification of Spain. They were both from the House of Trastámara and were second cousins, being bot ...
) began establishing Inquisition
The Inquisition was a group of institutions within the Catholic Church whose aim was to combat heresy, conducting trials of suspected heretics. Studies of the records have found that the overwhelming majority of sentences consisted of penances, ...
commissions. Many ''Conversos'', ( ''Marranos'' and ''Moriscos'') and Sephardi Jews
Sephardic (or Sephardi) Jews (, ; lad, Djudíos Sefardíes), also ''Sepharadim'' , Modern Hebrew: ''Sfaradim'', Tiberian: Səp̄āraddîm, also , ''Ye'hude Sepharad'', lit. "The Jews of Spain", es, Judíos sefardíes (or ), pt, Judeus sefar ...
fled in fear to the Ottoman provinces, settling at first in Constantinople
la, Constantinopolis ota, قسطنطينيه
, alternate_name = Byzantion (earlier Greek name), Nova Roma ("New Rome"), Miklagard/Miklagarth (Old Norse), Tsargrad ( Slavic), Qustantiniya (Arabic), Basileuousa ("Queen of Cities"), Megalopolis (" ...
, Salonika
Thessaloniki (; el, Θεσσαλονίκη, , also known as Thessalonica (), Saloniki, or Salonica (), is the second-largest city in Greece, with over one million inhabitants in its metropolitan area, and the capital of the geographic region of ...
, Sarajevo
Sarajevo ( ; cyrl, Сарајево, ; ''see Names of European cities in different languages (Q–T)#S, names in other languages'') is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with a population of 275,524 in its a ...
, Sofia
Sofia ( ; bg, София, Sofiya, ) is the capital and largest city of Bulgaria. It is situated in the Sofia Valley at the foot of the Vitosha mountain in the western parts of the country. The city is built west of the Iskar river, and ha ...
and Anatolia
Anatolia, tr, Anadolu Yarımadası), and the Anatolian plateau, also known as Asia Minor, is a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent. It constitutes the major part of modern-day Turkey. The re ...
. The Sultan encouraged them to settle in Palestine. In 1558, a Portuguese-born marrano
Marranos were Spanish and Portuguese Jews living in the Iberian Peninsula who converted or were Forced conversion#Spanish Inquisition, forced to convert to Christianity during the Middle Ages, but continued to Crypto-Judaism, practice Judaism i ...
, Doña Gracia, was granted tax collecting rights in Tiberias and its surrounding villages by 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 ...
. She envisaged the town becoming a refuge for Jews and obtained a permit to establish Jewish autonomy there. In 1561 her nephew Joseph Nasi
Joseph Nasi (1524, Portugal – 1579, Konstantiniyye), known in Portuguese as João Miques, was a Portuguese Sephardi diplomat and administrator, member of the House of Mendes/Benveniste, nephew of Dona Gracia Mendes Nasi, and an influential fi ...
, Lord of Tiberias, encouraged Jews to settle in Tiberias.[Benjamin Lee Gordon, ''New Judea: Jewish Life in Modern Palestine and Egypt'', ]Manchester, New Hampshire
Manchester is a city in Hillsborough County, New Hampshire, United States. It is the most populous city in New Hampshire. At the 2020 census, the city had a population of 115,644.
Manchester is, along with Nashua, one of two seats of New Hamp ...
, Ayer Publishing, 1977, p.209 Securing a ''firman
A firman ( fa, , translit=farmân; ), at the constitutional level, was a royal mandate or decree issued by a sovereign in an Islamic state. During various periods they were collected and applied as traditional bodies of law. The word firman com ...
'' from the Sultan, he and Joseph ben Adruth rebuilt the city walls and lay the groundwork for a textile (silk
Silk is a natural protein fiber, some forms of which can be woven into textiles. The protein fiber of silk is composed mainly of fibroin and is produced by certain insect larvae to form cocoons. The best-known silk is obtained from the coc ...
) industry, planting mulberry trees
''Morus'', a genus of flowering plants in the family Moraceae, consists of diverse species of deciduous trees commonly known as mulberries, growing wild and under cultivation in many temperate world regions. Generally, the genus has 64 identif ...
and urging craftsmen to move there. Plans were made for Jews to move from the Papal States
The Papal States ( ; it, Stato Pontificio, ), officially the State of the Church ( it, Stato della Chiesa, ; la, Status Ecclesiasticus;), were a series of territories in the Italian Peninsula under the direct sovereign rule of the pope fro ...
, but when the Ottomans and the Republic of Venice went to war, the plan was abandoned.
At the end of the century (1596), the village of Tiberias had 54 households: 50 families and 4 bachelors. All were Muslim
Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...
s. The main product of the village at that time was wheat, while other products included barley, fruit, fish, goats and bee hives; the total revenue was 3,360 akçe
The ''akçe'' or ''akça'' (also spelled ''akche'', ''akcheh''; ota, آقچه; ) refers to a silver coin which was the chief monetary unit of the Ottoman Empire. The word itself evolved from the word "silver or silver money", this word is deri ...
.
In 1624, when the Sultan recognized 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 ...
as Lord of Arabistan (from Aleppo to the borders of Egypt), The 1660 destruction of Tiberias by 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 ...
resulted in abandonment of the city by its Jewish community, Unlike Tiberias, the nearby city of Safed
Safed (known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as Tzfat; Sephardi Hebrew, Sephardic Hebrew & Modern Hebrew: צְפַת ''Tsfat'', Ashkenazi Hebrew pronunciation, Ashkenazi Hebrew: ''Tzfas'', Biblical Hebrew: ''Ṣǝp̄aṯ''; ar, صفد, ''Ṣafad''), i ...
recovered from its destruction
Destruction may refer to:
Concepts
* Destruktion, a term from the philosophy of Martin Heidegger
* Destructive narcissism, a pathological form of narcissism
* Self-destructive behaviour, a widely used phrase that ''conceptualises'' certain kind ...
, and wasn't entirely abandoned, remaining an important Jewish center in the Galilee.
In the 1720s, the Arab ruler Zahir al-Umar
Zahir al-Umar al-Zaydani, alternatively spelled Daher al-Omar or Dahir al-Umar ( ar, ظاهر العمر الزيداني, translit=Ẓāhir al-ʿUmar az-Zaydānī, 1689/90 – 21 or 22 August 1775) was the autonomous Arab ruler of northern Ottom ...
, of the Zaydani clan, fortified the town and made an agreement with the neighboring Bedouin
The Bedouin, Beduin, or Bedu (; , singular ) are nomadic Arab tribes who have historically inhabited the desert regions in the Arabian Peninsula, North Africa, the Levant, and Mesopotamia. The Bedouin originated in the Syrian Desert and A ...
tribes to prevent looting. Accounts from that time tell of the great admiration people had for Zahir, especially his war against bandits on the roads. Richard Pococke
Richard Pococke (19 November 1704 – 25 September 1765)''Notes and Queries'', p. 129. was an English-born churchman, inveterate traveller and travel writer. He was the Bishop of Ossory (1756–65) and Meath (1765), both dioceses of the Church ...
, who visited Tiberias in 1727, witnessed the building of a fort to the north of the city, and the strengthening of the old walls, attributing it to a dispute with the Pasha of Damascus. Under instructions from the Ottoman Porte
The Sublime Porte, also known as the Ottoman Porte or High Porte ( ota, باب عالی, Bāb-ı Ālī or ''Babıali'', from ar, باب, bāb, gate and , , ), was a synecdoche for the central government of the Ottoman Empire.
History
The nam ...
, Sulayman Pasha al-Azm of Damascus besieged Tiberias in 1742, with the intention of eliminating Zahir, but his siege was unsuccessful. In the following year, Sulayman set out to repeat the attempt with even greater reinforcements, but he died en route.
Under Zahir's patronage, Jewish families were encouraged to settle in Tiberias. He invited Rabbi Chaim Abulafia of Smyrna
Smyrna ( ; grc, Σμύρνη, Smýrnē, or , ) was a Greek city located at a strategic point on the Aegean coast of Anatolia. Due to its advantageous port conditions, its ease of defence, and its good inland connections, Smyrna rose to promi ...
to rebuild the Jewish community.[Joseph Schwarz]
Descriptive Geography and Brief Historical Sketch of Palestine
, 1850 The synagogue he built still stands today, located in the Court of the Jews.
In 1775, Ahmed el-Jazzar "the Butcher" brought peace to the region with an iron fist. In 1780, many Polish Jews settled in the town. During the 18th and 19th centuries it received an influx of rabbis
A rabbi () is a spiritual leader or religious teacher in Judaism. One becomes a rabbi by being ordained by another rabbi – known as '' semikha'' – following a course of study of Jewish history and texts such as the Talmud. The basic form o ...
who re-established it as a center for Jewish learning. An essay written by Rabbi Joseph Schwarz in 1850 noted that "Tiberias Jews suffered the least" during an Arab rebellion which took place in 1834. Around 600 people, including nearly 500 Jews, died when the town was devastated by the 1837 Galilee earthquake. An American expedition reported that Tiberias was still in a state of disrepair in 1847/1848. Rabbi Haim Shmuel Hacohen Konorti, born in Spain in 1792, settled in Tiberias at the age of 45 and was a driving force in the restoration of the city.
British Mandate
In the 1922 census of Palestine
The 1922 census of Palestine was the first census carried out by the authorities of the British Mandate of Palestine, on 23 October 1922.
The reported population was 757,182, including the military and persons of foreign nationality. The divisi ...
conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Tiberias had a population of 6,950 inhabitants, consisting of 4,427 Jews, 2,096 Muslims, 422 Christians, and five others.[Barron, 1923, p]
6
/ref> Initially the relationship between Arabs and Jews in Tiberias was good, with few incidents occurring in the Nebi Musa riots and the disturbances throughout Palestine in 1929. The first modern spa was built in 1929.
The landscape of the modern town was shaped by the great flood of November 11, 1934. Deforestation on the slopes above the town combined with the fact that the city had been built as a series of closely packed houses and buildings – usually sharing walls – built in narrow roads paralleling and closely hugging the shore of the lake. Flood waters carrying mud, stones, and boulders rushed down the slopes and filled the streets and buildings with water so rapidly that many people did not have time to escape; the loss of life and property was great. The city rebuilt on the slopes and the British Mandatory government planted the Swiss Forest
The forests of Switzerland are located across much of the country, at elevations up to the tree line, which lies at about 2,000 metres above sea level. They cover 1.3 million hectares or 32% of Switzerland. The most wooded regions of the country a ...
on the slopes above the town to hold the soil and prevent similar disasters from recurring. A new seawall was constructed, moving the shoreline several yards out from the former shore. In October 1938, Arab militants murdered 19 Jews in Tiberias during the 1936–39 Arab revolt in Palestine. Between the April 8–9, 1948, sporadic shooting broke out between the Jewish and Arab neighborhoods of Tiberias. The Arab population of Tiberias cut the main road linking the Jewish settlements of Upper Galilee with those of the Jordan Valley and besieged the ancient Jewish quarter on the lakeshore within the walled city On April 10, the Haganah launched a mortar barrage, killing some Arab residents.[Morris, 2004, pp. 183–185] The local National Committee refused the offer of the Arab Liberation Army
The Arab Liberation Army (ALA; ar, جيش الإنقاذ العربي ''Jaysh al-Inqadh al-Arabi''), also translated as Arab Salvation Army, was an army of volunteers from Arab countries led by Fawzi al-Qawuqji. It fought on the Arab side in th ...
to take over defense of the city, but a small contingent of outside irregulars moved in.
During April 10–17, the Haganah attacked the city and refused to negotiate a truce, while the British refused to intervene. Newly arrived Arab refugees from Nasir ad-Din told of the civilians there being killed, news which brought panic to the residents of Tiberias. The Arab population of Tiberias (6,000 residents or 47.5% of the population) was evacuated under British military protection on 18 April 1948.
The Jewish population looted the Arab areas and had to be suppressed by force by the Haganah
Haganah ( he, הַהֲגָנָה, lit. ''The Defence'') was the main Zionist paramilitary organization of the Jewish population ("Yishuv") in Mandatory Palestine between 1920 and its disestablishment in 1948, when it became the core of the ...
and Jewish police, who killed or injured several looters. On 30 December 1948, when David Ben-Gurion
David Ben-Gurion ( ; he, דָּוִד בֶּן-גּוּרִיּוֹן ; born David Grün; 16 October 1886 – 1 December 1973) was the primary national founder of the State of Israel and the first prime minister of Israel. Adopting the name ...
was staying in Tiberias, James Grover McDonald
James Grover McDonald (November 29, 1886 – September 25, 1964) was a United States diplomat. He served as the first U.S. Ambassador to Israel.
Early life
McDonald was born in Coldwater, Ohio, on November 29, 1886. His parents operated a h ...
, the United States ambassador to Israel
The United States ambassador to Israel is the official representative of the president of the United States to the head of state of Israel.
Until 1948 the area that is now the state of Israel had been under British administration as part of the ...
, requested to meet with him. McDonald presented a British ultimatum for Israeli troops to leave the Sinai peninsula
The Sinai Peninsula, or simply Sinai (now usually ) (, , cop, Ⲥⲓⲛⲁ), is a peninsula in Egypt, and the only part of the country located in Asia. It is between the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Red Sea to the south, and is a l ...
, Egyptian territory. Israel rejected the ultimatum, but Tiberias became famous.
State of Israel
The city of Tiberias has been almost entirely Jewish since 1948. Many Sephardic
Sephardic (or Sephardi) Jews (, ; lad, Djudíos Sefardíes), also ''Sepharadim'' , Modern Hebrew: ''Sfaradim'', Tiberian Hebrew, Tiberian: Səp̄āraddîm, also , ''Ye'hude Sepharad'', lit. "The Jews of Spain", es, Judíos sefardíes (or ), ...
and Mizrahi
''Mizrachi'' or ''Mizrahi'' ( he, מזרחי) has two meanings.
In the literal Hebrew meaning ''Eastern'', it may refer to:
*Mizrahi Jews, Jews from the Middle East
* Mizrahi (surname), a Sephardic surname, given to Jews who got to the Iberian P ...
Jews settled in the city, following the Jewish exodus from Arab countries
The Jewish exodus from the Muslim world was the departure, flight, expulsion, evacuation and migration of around 900,000 Jews from Arab countries and Iran, mainly from 1948 to the early 1970s, though with one final exodus from Iran in 1979– ...
in late 1940s and the early 1950s. Over time, government housing was built to accommodate much of the new population, like in many other development town
Development towns ( he, עיירת פיתוח, ''Ayarat Pitu'ah'') were new settlements built in Israel during the 1950s in order to provide permanent housing for a large influx of Jewish immigrants from Arab countries, Holocaust survivors from E ...
s.
In 1959, during Wadi Salib riots The Wadi Salib riots were a series of street demonstrations and acts of vandalism in the Wadi Salib neighborhood of Haifa, Israel, in 1959, sparked by the shooting of a Moroccan Jewish immigrant by police officers. Demonstrators accused the police ...
, the "''Union des Nords-africains'' led by David Ben Haroush, organised a large-scale procession walking towards the nice suburbs of Haifa
Haifa ( he, חֵיפָה ' ; ar, حَيْفَا ') is the third-largest city in Israel—after Jerusalem and Tel Aviv—with a population of in . The city of Haifa forms part of the Haifa metropolitan area, the third-most populous metropol ...
creating little damage but a great fear within the population. This small incident was taken as an occasion to express the social malaise of the different Oriental communities in Israel and riots spread quickly to other parts of the country; mostly in towns with a high percentage of the population having North African origins like in Tiberias, in Beer-Sheva, in Migdal-Haemek".
Over time, the city came to rely on tourism, becoming a major Galilean center for Christian pilgrims
Christianity has a strong tradition of pilgrimages, both to sites relevant to the New Testament narrative (especially in the Holy Land) and to sites associated with later saints or miracles.
History
Christian pilgrimages were first made to sit ...
and internal Israeli tourism. The ancient cemetery of Tiberias and its old synagogues are also drawing religious Jewish pilgrims during religious holidays.
Tiberias consists of a small port on the shores of the Galilee lake for both fishing and tourist activities. Since the 1990s, the importance of the port for fishing was gradually decreasing, with the decline of the Tiberias lake level, due to continuing droughts and increased pumping of fresh water from the lake. It is expected that the lake of Tiberias will regain its original level (almost higher than today), with the full operational capacity of Israeli desalination facilities by 2014.
In 2012, plans were announced for a new ultra-Orthodox neighborhood, Kiryat Sanz, on a slope on the western side of the Kinneret.
Demographics
According to the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), as of December 2011, 41,700 inhabitants lived in Tiberias. According to CBS, as of December 2010 the city was rated 5 out of 10 on the socio-economic scale. The average monthly salary of an employee for the year 2009 was 4,845 NIS. Among today's population of Jews, many are Mizrahi
''Mizrachi'' or ''Mizrahi'' ( he, מזרחי) has two meanings.
In the literal Hebrew meaning ''Eastern'', it may refer to:
*Mizrahi Jews, Jews from the Middle East
* Mizrahi (surname), a Sephardic surname, given to Jews who got to the Iberian P ...
and Sephardic
Sephardic (or Sephardi) Jews (, ; lad, Djudíos Sefardíes), also ''Sepharadim'' , Modern Hebrew: ''Sfaradim'', Tiberian Hebrew, Tiberian: Səp̄āraddîm, also , ''Ye'hude Sepharad'', lit. "The Jews of Spain", es, Judíos sefardíes (or ), ...
.
Following Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000 many ex-South Lebanon Army
The South Lebanon Army or South Lebanese Army (SLA; ar, جيش لبنان الجنوبي, Jayš Lubnān al-Janūbiyy), also known as the Lahad Army ( ar, جيش لحد, label=none) and referred to as the De Facto Forces (DFF) by the United Nat ...
soldiers and officers who fled from Lebanon settled in Tiberias with their families.
In the Ottoman registers of 1525, 1533, 1548, 1553, and 1572 all the residents were Muslims
Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abraha ...
. The registers in 1596 recorded the population to consist of 50 families and 4 bachelors; all Muslim. In 1780, there were about 4,000 inhabitants, two thirds being Jews. In 1842, there were about 3,900 inhabitants, around a third of whom were Jews, the rest being Muslims and a few Christians. In 1850, Tiberias contained three synagogues which served the Sephardi
Sephardic (or Sephardi) Jews (, ; lad, Djudíos Sefardíes), also ''Sepharadim'' , Modern Hebrew: ''Sfaradim'', Tiberian Hebrew, Tiberian: Səp̄āraddîm, also , ''Ye'hude Sepharad'', lit. "The Jews of Spain", es, Judíos sefardíes (or ), ...
community, which consisted of 80 families, and the Ashkenazim
Ashkenazi Jews ( ; he, יְהוּדֵי אַשְׁכְּנַז, translit=Yehudei Ashkenaz, ; yi, אַשכּנזישע ייִדן, Ashkenazishe Yidn), also known as Ashkenazic Jews or ''Ashkenazim'',, Ashkenazi Hebrew pronunciation: , singu ...
, numbering about 100 families. It was reported that the Jewish inhabitants of Tiberias enjoyed more peace and security than those of Safed
Safed (known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as Tzfat; Sephardi Hebrew, Sephardic Hebrew & Modern Hebrew: צְפַת ''Tsfat'', Ashkenazi Hebrew pronunciation, Ashkenazi Hebrew: ''Tzfas'', Biblical Hebrew: ''Ṣǝp̄aṯ''; ar, صفد, ''Ṣafad''), i ...
to the north. In 1863, it was recorded that the Christian and Muslim elements made up three-quarters of the population (2,000 to 4,000). A population list from about 1887 showed that Tiberias had a population of about 3,640; 2,025 Jews, 30 Latins, 215 Catholics, 15 Greek Catholics, and 1,355 Muslims. In 1901, the Jews of Tiberias numbered about 2,000 in a total population of 3,600. By 1912, the population reached 6,500. This included 4,500 Jews, 1,600 Muslims and 400 Christians.
In the 1922 census of Palestine
The 1922 census of Palestine was the first census carried out by the authorities of the British Mandate of Palestine, on 23 October 1922.
The reported population was 757,182, including the military and persons of foreign nationality. The divisi ...
conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Tiberias had a population of 6,950 inhabitants, consisting of 4,427 Jews, 2,096 Muslims, 422 Christians, and five others. There were 5,381 Jews, 2,645 Muslims, 565 Christians and ten others in the 1931 census. By 1945, the population had increased to 6,000 Jews, 4,540 Muslims, 760 Christians with ten others.
During the 1948 Arab-Israeli War
Events January
* January 1
** The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) is inaugurated.
** The Constitution of New Jersey (later subject to amendment) goes into effect.
** The railways of Britain are nationalized, to form British ...
, Palestinian Arab residents of Tiberias besieged its Jewish quarter. Haganah
Haganah ( he, הַהֲגָנָה, lit. ''The Defence'') was the main Zionist paramilitary organization of the Jewish population ("Yishuv") in Mandatory Palestine between 1920 and its disestablishment in 1948, when it became the core of the ...
troops then successfully attacked the Arab section of the city, and British troops evacuated the Arab residents upon their request. Some fled in the wake of news of the Deir Yassin massacre
The Deir Yassin massacre took place on April 9, 1948, when around 130 fighters from the Zionist paramilitary groups Irgun and Lehi killed at least 107 Palestinian Arabs, including women and children, in Deir Yassin, a village of roughly 600 peopl ...
. The entire Arab population of the city was removed in 1948 by the British and partly because of Haganah
Haganah ( he, הַהֲגָנָה, lit. ''The Defence'') was the main Zionist paramilitary organization of the Jewish population ("Yishuv") in Mandatory Palestine between 1920 and its disestablishment in 1948, when it became the core of the ...
decision. After the war had ended, a large number of Jewish immigrants to Israel settled in Tiberias. Today almost all of the population is Jewish.
Urban renewal and preservation
Ancient and medieval Tiberias was destroyed by a series of devastating earthquakes, and much of what was built after the major earthquake of 1837 was destroyed or badly damaged in the great flood of 1934. Houses in the newer parts of town, uphill from the waterfront, survived. In 1949, 606 houses, comprising almost all of the built-up area of the old quarter other than religious buildings, were demolished over the objections of local Jews who owned about half the houses.[Arnon Golan, The Politics of Wartime Demolition and Human Landscape Transformation, ''War in History'', vol 9 (2002), pp 431–445.] Wide-scale development began after the Six-Day War
The Six-Day War (, ; ar, النكسة, , or ) or June War, also known as the 1967 Arab–Israeli War or Third Arab–Israeli War, was fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab world, Arab states (primarily United Arab Republic, Egypt, S ...
, with the construction of a waterfront promenade, open parkland, shopping streets, restaurants and modern hotels. Carefully preserved were several churches, including one with foundations dating from the Crusader period, the city's two Ottoman-era mosques, and several ancient synagogues
Ancient history is a time period from the beginning of writing and recorded human history to as far as late antiquity. The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 years, beginning with the Sumerian cuneiform script. Ancient history cove ...
. The city's old masonry buildings constructed of local black basalt with white limestone windows and trim have been designated historic landmarks. Also preserved are parts of the ancient wall, the Ottoman-era citadel, historic hotels, Christian pilgrim hostels, convents and schools.
Archaeology
A 2,000 year-old Roman theatre was discovered under layers of debris and refuse at the foot of Mount Bernike south of modern Tiberias. It once seated over 7,000 people.
In 2004, excavations in Tiberias conducted by the Israel Antiquities Authority
The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA, he, רשות העתיקות ; ar, داﺌرة الآثار, before 1990, the Israel Department of Antiquities) is an independent Israeli governmental authority responsible for enforcing the 1978 Law of ...
uncovered a structure dating to the 3rd century CE that may have been the seat of the Sanhedrin
The Sanhedrin (Hebrew and Aramaic: סַנְהֶדְרִין; Greek: , ''synedrion'', 'sitting together,' hence 'assembly' or 'council') was an assembly of either 23 or 71 elders (known as "rabbis" after the destruction of the Second Temple), ap ...
. At the time it was called Beit Hava'ad.
In June 2018, an underground Jewish mausoleum has been discovered. Archaeologist said that the mausoleum is between 1,900 to 2,000 years old as of 2018. The names of the dead, carved onto the ossuaries in Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
.
In January 2021, the foundations of a mosque dating to the earliest years of Muslim rule have been excavated just south of the Sea of Galilee by archaeologists led by Katia Cytryn-Silverman from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI; he, הַאוּנִיבֶרְסִיטָה הַעִבְרִית בִּירוּשָׁלַיִם) is a public research university based in Jerusalem, Israel. Co-founded by Albert Einstein and Dr. Chaim Weiz ...
. Built around 670 CE, it is considered to have been the first purpose-built mosque in the city.
Geography and climate
Tiberias is located on the shore of the Sea of Galilee
The Sea of Galilee ( he, יָם כִּנֶּרֶת, Judeo-Aramaic: יַמּא דטבריא, גִּנֵּיסַר, ar, بحيرة طبريا), also called Lake Tiberias, Kinneret or Kinnereth, is a freshwater lake in Israel. It is the lowest ...
and the western slopes of the Jordan Rift Valley
The Jordan Rift Valley, also Jordan Valley ''Bīrʿāt haYardēn'', ar, الغور Al-Ghor or Al-Ghawr),, date=November 2022 also called the Syro-African Depression, is an elongated depression located in modern-day Israel, and Jordan. This g ...
overlooking the lake, in the elevation range of . Tiberias has a climate that borders a Hot-summer Mediterranean climate
A Mediterranean climate (also called a dry summer temperate climate ''Cs'') is a temperate climate sub-type, generally characterized by warm, dry summers and mild, fairly wet winters; these weather conditions are typically experienced in the ...
(koppen Csa) and a Hot Semi-arid climate
A semi-arid climate, semi-desert climate, or steppe climate is a dry climate sub-type. It is located on regions that receive precipitation below potential evapotranspiration, but not as low as a desert climate. There are different kinds of semi-ar ...
(koppen BSh), with an annual precipitation of about . Summers in Tiberias average a maximum temperature of and a minimum temperature of in July and August. The winters are mild, with temperatures ranging from . Extremes have ranged from to .
Tiberias has been severely damaged by earthquakes since antiquity. Earthquakes are known to have occurred in 30, 33, 115, 306, 363, 419, 447, 631–32 (aftershocks continued for a month), 1033, 1182, 1202, 1546, 1759
In Great Britain, this year was known as the ''Annus Mirabilis'', because of British victories in the Seven Years' War.
Events
January–March
* January 6 – George Washington marries Martha Dandridge Custis.
* January 11 &ndas ...
, 1837
Events
January–March
* January 1 – The destructive Galilee earthquake causes 6,000–7,000 casualties in Ottoman Syria.
* January 26 – Michigan becomes the 26th state admitted to the United States.
* February – Charles Dickens's ...
, 1927 and 1943.
The city is located above the Dead Sea Transform
The Dead Sea Transform (DST) fault system, also sometimes referred to as the Dead Sea Rift, is a series of faults that run from the Maras Triple Junction (a junction with the East Anatolian Fault in southeastern Turkey) to the northern end of the ...
and is one of the cities in Israel that is most at risk to 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 ...
s (along with Safed
Safed (known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as Tzfat; Sephardi Hebrew, Sephardic Hebrew & Modern Hebrew: צְפַת ''Tsfat'', Ashkenazi Hebrew pronunciation, Ashkenazi Hebrew: ''Tzfas'', Biblical Hebrew: ''Ṣǝp̄aṯ''; ar, صفد, ''Ṣafad''), i ...
, Beit She'an
Beit She'an ( he, בֵּית שְׁאָן '), also Beth-shean, formerly Beisan ( ar, بيسان ), is a town in the Northern District (Israel), Northern District of Israel. The town lies at the Beit She'an Valley about 120 m (394 feet) below se ...
, Kiryat Shmona
Kiryat Shmona ( he, קִרְיַת שְׁמוֹנָה, ''lit.'' Town of the Eight) is a city in the Northern District of Israel on the western slopes of the Hula Valley near the Lebanese border. The city was named after the eight people, includi ...
, and Eilat
Eilat ( , ; he, אֵילַת ; ar, إِيلَات, Īlāt) is Israel's southernmost city, with a population of , a busy port and popular resort at the northern tip of the Red Sea, on what is known in Israel as the Gulf of Eilat and in Jordan ...
).
Health care
In 1885, a Scottish doctor and minister, David Watt Torrance, opened a mission hospital in Tiberias that accepted patients of all races and religions. In 1894, it moved to larger premises at Beit abu Shamnel abu Hannah. In 1923 his son, Dr. Herbert Watt Torrance, was appointed head of the hospital. After the establishment of the State of Israel, it became a maternity hospital supervised by the Israeli Department of Health. After its closure in 1959, the building became a guesthouse until 1999, when it was renovated and reopened as the Scots Hotel.
Sports
Its first football
Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...
club established in 1925 was Maccabi Tiberias, but folded in the 1990s after financial difficulties.
Hapoel Tiberias represented the city in the top division of football for several seasons in the 1960s and 1980s, but eventually dropped into the regional leagues and folded due to financial difficulties.
Following Hapoel's demise, a new club, Ironi Tiberias, was established, which currently plays in Liga Alef
Liga Alef ( he, ליגה א', , League A) is the third tier of the Israeli football league system. It is divided into two regional divisions, north and south.
History
League football began in Israel in 1949–50, a year after the Israeli Declar ...
.
6 Nations Championship and Heineken Cup
The European Rugby Champions Cup (known as the Heineken Champions Cup for sponsorship reasons) is an annual rugby union tournament organised by European Professional Club Rugby (EPCR). It is the top-tier competition for clubs who compete in a pre ...
winner Jamie Heaslip
James Peter Richard Heaslip (born 15 December 1983) is an Irish rugby union former player who played for Leinster and Ireland. He played as a number 8. Heaslip earned 95 caps for Ireland during his international career from 2006 to 2017, makin ...
was born in Tiberias.
The Tiberias Marathon
The Tiberias Marathon is an annual marathon road race held along the Sea of Galilee in Israel. At approximately 200 meters below sea level, this is the lowest course in the world. The competition was first held in 1977, and also hosts the annual I ...
is an annual road race held along the Sea of Galilee in Israel with a field in recent years of approximately 1000 competitors. The course follows an out-and-back format around the southern tip of the sea, and was run concurrently with a 10k race along an abbreviated version of the same route. In 2010 the 10k race was moved to the afternoon before the marathon. At approximately below sea level
Mean sea level (MSL, often shortened to sea level) is an average surface level of one or more among Earth's coastal bodies of water from which heights such as elevation may be measured. The global MSL is a type of vertical datuma standardised g ...
, this is the lowest course in the world.
Twin towns – sister cities
Tiberias is twinned with:
* Great Neck
Great Neck is a region on Long Island, New York, that covers a peninsula on the North Shore and includes nine villages, among them Great Neck, Great Neck Estates, Great Neck Plaza, Kings Point, and Russell Gardens, and a number of unincor ...
, United States (2002)
* Milwaukee
Milwaukee ( ), officially the City of Milwaukee, is both the most populous and most densely populated city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Milwaukee County. With a population of 577,222 at the 2020 census, Milwaukee is ...
, United States (2000)
* Montecatini Terme
Montecatini Terme is an Italian municipality (''comune'') of c. 20,000 inhabitants in the province of Pistoia, Tuscany, central Italy. It is the most important center in Valdinievole. The town is located at the eastern end of Piana di Lucca ...
, Italy (1979)
* Montpellier
Montpellier (, , ; oc, Montpelhièr ) is a city in southern France near the Mediterranean Sea. One of the largest urban centres in the region of Occitania (administrative region), Occitania, Montpellier is the prefecture of the Departments of ...
, France (1983)
* Saint-Raphaël, France (2006)
* Tulsa
Tulsa () is the second-largest city in the U.S. state, state of Oklahoma and List of United States cities by population, 47th-most populous city in the United States. The population was 413,066 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. ...
, United States (1990)
* Worms Worms may refer to:
*Worm, an invertebrate animal with a tube-like body and no limbs
Places
*Worms, Germany, a city
**Worms (electoral district)
*Worms, Nebraska, U.S.
*Worms im Veltlintal, the German name for Bormio, Italy
Arts and entertainme ...
, Germany (1986)
* Wuxi
Wuxi (, ) is a city in southern Jiangsu province, eastern China, by car to the northwest of downtown Shanghai, between Changzhou and Suzhou. In 2017 it had a population of 3,542,319, with 6,553,000 living in the entire prefecture-level city ar ...
, China (2006)
Notable people
Historical figures predating the State of Israel, listed by year of birth:
* Rabbi Meir
Rabbi Meir ( he, רַבִּי מֵאִיר) was a Jewish sage who lived in the time of the Mishnah. He was considered one of the greatest of the Tannaim of the fourth generation (139-163). He is the third most frequently mentioned sage in the Mishn ...
Baal HaNes (Rabbi Meir the miracle maker), 2nd-century CE Jewish sage
* Johanan bar Nappaha
:''See Johanan (name) for more rabbis by this name''.
Johanan bar Nappaha ( he, יוחנן בר נפחא Yoḥanan bar Nafḥa; alt. sp. Napaḥa) (also known simply as Rabbi Yochanan, or as Johanan bar Nafcha) (lived 180-279 CE) was a leading r ...
(180–279), rabbi
* Sulayman ibn Ahmad at-Tabarani (874–971), Muslim hadith scholar and collector
* Zahir al-Umar
Zahir al-Umar al-Zaydani, alternatively spelled Daher al-Omar or Dahir al-Umar ( ar, ظاهر العمر الزيداني, translit=Ẓāhir al-ʿUmar az-Zaydānī, 1689/90 – 21 or 22 August 1775) was the autonomous Arab ruler of northern Ottom ...
(c. 1689–1775), virtually autonomous Arab ruler of northern Palestine in the mid-18th century
* Shemariah Catarivas Shemariah Catarivas was a Talmudic writer of the 18th century. He was originally from Tiberias, and went to Tunis in 1750 as alms-collector, settling there after a sojourn in Algiers. He gained a reputation for scholarship and piety. Catarivas was a ...
, 18th-century Talmudic writer
* Jacob ha-Cohen Sekili (1846–1918), rabbi
People of prominence in the State of Israel or born/active there, listed alphabetically:
* Yossi Abulafia
Yossi Abulafia ( he, יוסי אבולעפיה; born 1944) is an Israeli writer and illustrator of children's books, as well as a graphic artist, cartoonist, director and screenwriter of animation films.
Biography
Abulafia was born in Tibe ...
(born 1944), writer and graphic artist
* Gadi Eizenkot
Gadi Eisenkot or Eizenkot ( he, גדי איזנקוט; born 19 May 1960) was the 21st Chief of General Staff of the Israel Defense Forces (16 February 2015 – 15 January 2019). He is the originator of the so-called Dahiya doctrine.
Biography ...
(born 1960), IDF Chief of General Staff (Feb. 2015 – Jan. 2019)
* Sarai Givaty
Sarai Givaty-Luboschits ( he, שרי גבעתי; ) is an Israeli actress, singer-songwriter, and model As a musician, she is also known by her stage name ESH.
Early life
Born Sarai Givaty (or Givati) in Tiberias, Israel, to a family of Sephardic ...
(born 1982), actress, singer-songwriter, and model
* Menahem Golan
Menahem Golan ( he, מנחם גולן; May 31, 1929 – August 8, 2014, originally Menachem Globus) was an Israeli film producer, screenwriter, and director. He was best known for co-owning The Cannon Group with his cousin Yoram Globus. Cannon sp ...
(1929–2014), film producer, screenwriter and director
* Jamie Heaslip
James Peter Richard Heaslip (born 15 December 1983) is an Irish rugby union former player who played for Leinster and Ireland. He played as a number 8. Heaslip earned 95 caps for Ireland during his international career from 2006 to 2017, makin ...
(born 1983), Irish rugby union player, born in Tiberias
* Elad Levy
Elad I. Levy is an American neurosurgeon, researcher, and innovator who played a major role in the development and testing of thrombectomy, which improved quality of life and survival of stroke patients. He has focused his career and research on ...
(born 1972 in Tiberias), neurosurgeon known for his contributions in the management of stroke
* Shlomit Nir
Shlomit Nir (שלומית ניר; also "Nir-Toor"; born November 7, 1952) is an Israeli former Olympic swimmer.
Early and personal life
Nir was born and raised on a kibbutz in Tiberias, HaTzafon, Israel. Her grandparents left Ukraine to start a ...
(born 1952), Olympic swimmer
* Patrick Denis O'Donnell
Patrick Denis O'Donnell (9 January 1922 – 1 January 2005) was an Irish Military history, military historian, writer, former UN peace-keeper, and Commandant of the Irish Defence Forces.
Background
He was born in the Kerries Tralee, County Kerry ...
(1922–2005), Commandant of the Irish Defence Forces, military historian, UN peace-keeper stationed in Tiberias in the 1960s
* Yisroel Ber Odesser
Rabbi Yisroel Dov Ber Odesser ( he, ישראל דב בער אדסר) (approx. 1888 – 23 October 1994), also known as Reb Odesser or Sabba ("grandfather" in Hebrew language, Hebrew), was a Breslov (Hasidic group), Breslover Hasidic Judaism, ...
(born c. 1888 in Tiberias – 1994), Breslover Hasid and rabbi
* Moshe Peretz
Moshe Haim Peretz ( he, משה פרץ; born 10 May 1983) is an Israeli Mizrahi music pop singer-songwriter and composer. Beginning in 2013, Peretz acted as judge for the The X Factor Israel.
Early life
Peretz was born and raised in Tiberias, ...
(born 1983), Mizrahi pop singer-songwriter and composer
* Eldad Ronen
Elad Ronen ( he, אלעד רונן; born September 4, 1976) is an Israeli competitive sailor. He was born in Tiberias, Israel. When Ronen competed in the Olympics he was 6-1.5 (187 cm) tall, and weighed 168 lbs (76 kg).
Sailing ca ...
(born 1976), Olympic competitive sailor
* Shem-Tov Sabag
Shem-Tov Sabag (שם טוב סבג; nicknamed "Shemi"; born April 13, 1959) is an Israeli former Olympic marathoner. He won both the 1984 Lake County Marathon and the 1989 Vancouver Marathon.
Early life
Sabag was born in Israel, his hometown is ...
(born 1959), Olympic marathoner
* Bechor-Shalom Sheetrit
Bechor-Shalom Sheetrit ( he, בכור-שלום שטרית, 1895 – 28 January 1967) was an Israeli politician, minister and the only signatory of the Israeli declaration of independence to have been born in the country. He served as Minister o ...
(1895–1967), politician, government minister of Israel
* Shmuel Toledano (born 1921), former Mossad agent and member of the Knesset
* Ya'akov Moshe Toledano
Rabbi Ya'akov Moshe Toledano ( he, יעקב משה טולדאנו, 18 August 1880 – 15 October 1960) was an Israeli rabbi who served as Religious Services Minister of Israel, Minister of Religions for two brief periods between 1958 and 1960. He ...
(1880–1960), rabbi, Israeli Minister of Religions (1958–1960)
See also
* 1660 destruction of Tiberias
* Bethmaus
Bethmaus, ( gr, Βηθμαούς) or Beth Maʿon (), also called Maon, was a Jewish village during the late Second Temple and Mishnaic periods, and which was already a ruin (''Tell Maʿūn'') when Kitchener visited the site in 1877. It was situ ...
, ancient Jewish village next to Tiberias
* List of modern names for biblical place names
While a number of biblical place names like Jerusalem, Athens, Damascus, Alexandria, Babylon and Rome have been used for centuries, some have changed over the years. Many place names in the Land of Israel/Holy Land/ Palestine are Arabised forms of ...
* Old synagogues of Tiberias
* Baruch Padeh Medical Center
References
Bibliography
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* copied and uploaded at "hebrewbooks.org"
External links
*
City council website
Municipality Site in English
Place To Visit in Tiberias
(English)
Tiberias – City of Treasures: The official website of the Tiberias Excavation Project
Hamat Tiberias National Park
description, photo gallery
* Survey of Western Palestine, Map 6
IAA
Wikimedia commons
Wikimedia Commons (or simply Commons) is a media repository of free-to-use images, sounds, videos and other media. It is a project of the Wikimedia Foundation.
Files from Wikimedia Commons can be used across all of the Wikimedia projects in ...
Old maps and views of Tiberias (1493-1963)
- Eran Laor Cartographic Collection, The National Library of Israel
The National Library of Israel (NLI; he, הספרייה הלאומית, translit=HaSifria HaLeumit; ar, المكتبة الوطنية في إسرائيل), formerly Jewish National and University Library (JNUL; he, בית הספרים הלא ...
Ancient Tiberias
- a site dedicated to the preservation of Ancient Tiberias (Hebrew).
{{Authority control
Ancient Jewish settlements of Galilee
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 ...
Crusader castles
Castles and fortifications of the Kingdom of Jerusalem
Castles in Israel
Cities in Northern District (Israel)
Establishments in the Herodian Tetrarchy
Holy cities
Jewish pilgrimage sites
Roman towns and cities in Israel
Populated places established in the 1st century
Talmud places
Holy cities of Judaism
Sea of Galilee