Tiberias

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Tiberias (Template:IPAc-en Template:Respell; Template:Langx, {{#if:Tverya.ogg|{{#ifexist:Media:Tverya.ogg|<phonos file="Tverya.ogg">Ṭəveryā</phonos>|{{errorTemplate:Main other|Audio file "Tverya.ogg" not found}}Template:Category handler}}}}; Template:Langx)<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> is a city on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee in northern Israel. A major Jewish center during Late Antiquity, it has been considered since the 16th century one of Judaism's Four Holy Cities, along with Jerusalem, Hebron, and Safed.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In Template:Israel populations, it had a population of Template:Israel populations.Template:Israel populations

Tiberias was founded around 20 CE by Herod Antipas and was named after Roman emperor Tiberius.<ref name=":1" /> It became a major political and religious hub of the Jews in the Land of Israel after the destruction of Jerusalem and the desolation of Judea during the Jewish–Roman wars. From the time of the second through the tenth centuries CE, Tiberias was the largest Jewish city in Galilee, and much of the Mishna and the Jerusalem Talmud were compiled there.<ref>Conder and Kitchener (1881), SWP I, p. 419-420 "The Sanhedrin, after several removes, came to Tiberias about the middle of the second century, under the celebrated Rabbi Judah Hakkodesh, and from this time Tiberias became the central point of Jewish learning for several centuries. It was here that both the Mishna and the Gemara were compiled."</ref> Tiberias flourished during the Early Muslim period, when it served as the capital of Jund al-Urdunn and became a multi-cultural trading center.<ref name=":1">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.</ref> The city declined in importance over time due to earthquake damage and foreign incursions.<ref name=":1" /> After the Galilee earthquake of 1837 the city was rebuilt and grew steadily following the First Jewish Aliyah in the 1880s.

In early modern times, Tiberias was a mixed city; under British rule it had a majority Jewish population, but with a significant Arab community. During the 1947–1948 civil war in Mandatory Palestine, fighting broke out between the Jewish residents of Tiberias and its Palestinian Arab minority. As the Haganah took over, British troops evacuated the entire Palestinian Arab population; they were refused reentry after the war, such that today the city has an almost exclusively Jewish population.<ref name=Abbasi>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name="Rabinowitz Monterescu 2008 pp. 195–226">Template:Cite journal</ref> After the war ended, the new Israeli authorities destroyed the Old City of Tiberias.<ref name="Abbasi 2008 pp. 45–80">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name="Rabinowitz Monterescu 2008 pp. 195–226" /> A large number of Jewish immigrants to Israel subsequently settled in Tiberias.

Today, Tiberias is an important tourist center due to its proximity to the Sea of Galilee and religious sanctity to Judaism and Christianity. The city also serves as a regional industrial and commercial center. Its immediate neighbour to the south, Hammat Tiberias, which is now part of modern Tiberias, has been known for its hot springs, believed to cure skin and other ailments, for some two thousand years.<ref name="Erfurt-CooperCooper20092">Template:Cite book</ref>

Etymology

The city of Tiberias was named after the Roman Emperor Tiberius.<ref name=":1" />

A Midrash regarding the city's name appears in the Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Megillah 6A:

"Rabbi Yirmiya said: [...] And why is it called Tiberias? Because it sits at the navel (tabur) of the Land of Israel".

Rashi, in his commentary, provides two interpretations of the Midrash. The first explains the word "navel" (tabur) as referring to the lowest point in the Land of Israel. The second interpretation suggests that Tiberias is situated at the geographical center of the Land of Israel. Ishtori Haparchi later substantiated this claim through measurements of the entire land, demonstrating its accuracy.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

History

See Diocese of Tiberias for ecclesiastical history

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.<ref name=thedate /> <ref name="JewishEnc2">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Template:Bibleverse</ref> In Talmudic times, the Jews still referred to it by this name.<ref>Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Megillah 5b</ref>

Roman period

Herodian period

Tiberias was founded sometime around 18–20 CE in the Herodian Tetrarchy of Galilee and Perea by the Roman client king Herod Antipas, son of Herod the Great.<ref name=thedate>John Everett Heath, The Concise Dictionary of World Place-Names (Oxford 2017) gives the date 18 CE in the entry for Tiberias. Geoffrey Bromiley in the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia Vol 2, 1979 gives the date 20 CE. They both say it was built where the village of Rakkat used to be.</ref> Herod Antipas made it the capital of his realm in Galilee and named it after the Roman emperor Tiberius.<ref name="JewishEnc2" /> The city was built in immediate proximity to a spa which had developed around seventeen natural mineral hot springs, Hammat Tiberias. 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 practices.<ref name="Erfurt-CooperCooper20092" />{{ safesubst:#invoke:Unsubst||date=__DATE__ |$B= Template:Fix }} Conversely, in Antiquities of the Jews, the Roman-Jewish historian Josephus calls the village with hot springs Emmaus, today's Hammat Tiberias, located near Tiberias.<ref name="JAoJ2">Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews XVIII.2.3</ref>Template:Citation needed This name also appears in his work The Jewish War.<ref>Josephus, Flavius, The Jewish Wars, translated by William Whiston, Book 4, chapter 1, paragraph 3</ref>

Under the Roman Empire, the city was known by its Koine Greek name Τιβεριάς (Tiberiás, Template:Langx).Template:Citation needed

In the days of Herod Antipas, some of the most religiously orthodox Jews, who were struggling against the process of Hellenisation, which had affected even some priestly groups, refused to settle there: the presence of a cemetery rendered the site ritually unclean for the Jews and particularly for the priestly caste. 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.<ref name="MDotB2" />{{ safesubst:#invoke:Unsubst||date=__DATE__ |$B= Template:Fix }} 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 HaKineret, its traditional name.<ref name="MDotB2" /> The city was governed by a city council of 600 with a committee of ten until 44 CE, when a Roman procurator was set over the city after the death of Herod Agrippa I.<ref name="MDotB2" /> The city is estimated to have had a population between 4,500 and 15,000 during the first century CE.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Tiberias is mentioned in Template:Bibleverse as the location from which boats had sailed to the opposite, eastern side of the Sea of Galilee. The crowd seeking Jesus after the miraculous feeding of the 5000 used these boats to travel back to Capernaum on the north-western part of the lake.

In 61 CE Herod Agrippa II annexed the city to his kingdom whose capital was Caesarea Philippi.Template:Citation needed

Great Revolt and Bar Kokhba revolt

During the First Jewish–Roman War, 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.<ref name="MDotB2" /><ref>Crossan, John Dominic (1999) Birth of Christianity: Discovering What Happened in the Years Immediately After the Execution of Christ. Continuum International Publishing Group, Template:ISBN, p 232</ref> Eventually, the rebels were expelled from Tiberias, and while most other cities in the provinces of Judaea, Galilee and Idumea were razed, Tiberias was spared this fate because its inhabitants had decided not to fight against Rome.<ref name="MDotB2" /><ref>Thomson, 1859, vol 2, p. 72</ref> It became a mixed city after the fall of Jerusalem in 70 CE; with Judea subdued, the surviving southern Jewish population migrated to Galilee.<ref>Safrai Zeev (1994) The Economy of Roman Palestine Routledge, Template:ISBN, p 199</ref><ref name="ERBRiP2">Robinson and Smith, 1841, vol. 3, p. 269</ref>

File:The Roman Gate - Tiberias (3).jpg

The Roman-Byzantine southern city gate

File:Tiberias-S-506.jpg

Remains of Crusader fortress gate with ancient lintel in secondary use

There is no direct indication that Tiberias, as well as the rest of Galilee, took part in the Bar Kokhba revolt of 132–136 CE, thus allowing it to continue 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 (Hebrew name: Tzippori) became the major Jewish cultural centres.

Late Roman period

According to the Talmud, in 145 CE, Rabbi Simeon bar Yochai, who was very familiar with Galilee, hiding there for over a decade, "cleansed the city of ritual impurity",Template:Citation needed allowing the Jewish leadership to resettle there from the Judea, which they were forced to leave as fugitives. The Sanhedrin, 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.<ref name="MDotB2">Mercer Dictionary of the Bible Edited by Watson E. Mills, Roger Aubrey Bullard, Mercer University Press, (1998) Template:ISBN p 917</ref><ref name="ERBRiP2" /> It was to be its final meeting place before its disbanding in 425 CE. When Johanan bar Nappaha (d. 279) settled in Tiberias, the city became the focus of Jewish religious scholarship in the land and the so-named Jerusalem Talmud was compiled by his school in Tiberias between 230–270 CE.<ref name="ERBRiP2" /> Tiberias' 13 synagogues served the spiritual needs of a growing Jewish population.<ref name="MDotB2" /> Tombs of famous rabbis Yohanan ben Zakkai, Akiva and Maimonides 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, the Letter of Simeon of Beth Arsham 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, to desist from persecuting the Christians in Najran.<ref name="Jewish Encyclopedia: Tiberias2">Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref>

In 614, Tiberias was the site where, during the final Jewish revolt against the Byzantine Empire, parts of the Jewish population supported the Persian invaders; the Jewish rebels were financed by Benjamin of Tiberias, 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 instigated a wide-scale slaughter of the Jews, which practically emptied Galilee of most its Jewish population, with survivors fleeing to Egypt.Template:Citation needed

Early Muslim period

Tiberias, or Tabariyyah in Arab transcription, was "conquered by (the Arab commander) Shurahbil in the year 634/15 [CE/AH] by capitulation; one half of the houses and churches were to belong to the Muslims, the other half to the Christians."<ref>Le Strange, 1890, p. 340, quoting Yakut</ref> Since 636 CE, Tiberias served as the regional capital, until Beit She'an took its place, following the Rashidun conquest.Template:Clarify 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.Template:Citation needed The caliphs of the Umayyad Dynasty built one of its square-plan palaces on the waterfront to the north of Tiberias, at Khirbat al-Minya. Tiberias was revitalised in 749, after Bet Shean was destroyed in an earthquake.Template:Citation needed An imposing mosque, Template:Convert long by Template:Convert wide, resembling the Great Mosque of Damascus, 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.<ref name="Hasson2">Nir Hasson, 'In excavation of ancient mosque, volunteers dig up Israeli city's Golden Age,' Template:Webarchive at Haaretz, 17 August 2012.</ref> 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, who refined the oral tradition now known as Tiberian Hebrew. Both the Codex Cairensis and the Aleppo Codex were written in Tiberias as well as the Tiberian vocalization was devised here.

File:Tiberias-2-073.jpg

Remains of Roman theatre

File:Hamat-Tiberias-119.jpg

Hammat Tiberias synagogue floor

The Arab geographer al-Muqaddasi 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."<ref name="Hasson2" /> 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 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."<ref>Muk. p.161 and 185, quoted in Le Strange, 1890, pp. 334- 337</ref>

Tiberias was plagued by incursions by the radical Shi'ite Qarmatians 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.<ref name=":1" /> By this time, Tiberias had experienced its last period of prosperity; dried fruit, oil, and wine had been exported to Cairo via the Via Maris, and the city was also known for its mat industry.<ref name=":1" />

In 1033 Tiberias was again destroyed by an earthquake.Template:Citation needed A further earthquake in 1066 toppled the great mosque.<ref name="Hasson2" /> 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, 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 mihrabs (or prayer-niches). All round those they have set jasmine-shrubs, from which the mosque derives its name.<ref>Le Strange, 1890, pp. 336-7</ref>

Crusader period

File:Keverambam.jpg

The tomb of Maimonides

During the First Crusade Tiberias was occupied by the Franks soon after the capture of Jerusalem. The city was given in fief to Tancred, who made it his capital of the Principality of Galilee in the Kingdom of Jerusalem; the region was sometimes called the Principality of Tiberias, or the Tiberiad.<ref>Richard, Jean (1999) The Crusades c. 1071-c 1291, Cambridge University Press, Template:ISBN p 71</ref> In 1099 the original site of the city was abandoned, and settlement shifted north to the present location.Template:Citation needed 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,<ref>"Journey of Benjamin of Tudela in Palestine and Syria, Template:Circa" in Yaari, p.44 Template:Webarchive</ref> and at that time the best manuscripts of the Torah were said to be found there.<ref name="Jewish Encyclopedia: Tiberias2" /> In the 12th-century, the city was the subject of negative undertones in Islamic tradition. A hadith recorded by Ibn Asakir of Damascus (d. 1176) names Tiberias as one of the "four cities of hell."<ref name="LaiouMottahedeh20012">Template:Cite book</ref> This could have been reflecting the fact that at the time, the town had a notable non-Muslim population.<ref name="Gil19972">Template:Cite book</ref>

In 1187, Saladin 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 to engage the fighting force of the Knights Templar. The Templar force was destroyed in the encounter. Saladin then besieged Tiberias; after six days the town fell. On 4 July 1187 Saladin defeated the Crusaders coming to relieve Tiberias at the Battle of Hattin, Template:Convert outside the city.<ref>Wilson, John Francis. (2004) Caesarea Philippi: Banias, the Lost City of Pan I.B.Tauris, Template:ISBN p 148</ref> However, during the Third Crusade, the Crusaders drove the Muslims out of the city and reoccupied it.

Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, (Maimonides) also known as Rambam, a leading Jewish legal scholar, philosopher and physician of his period, died in 1204 in Egypt 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 were driven from the city by the Egyptian Mamluks, who ruled Tiberias until the Ottoman conquest in 1516.Template:Citation needed

Ottoman period

File:1822 Burckhardt sketch of Tiberias.png

Johann Ludwig Burckhardt's sketch of Tiberias, published in 1822. Burckhardt noted that the a quarter of the population was Jewish, and had originated in Poland, Spain, North Africa and other parts of Syria.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

File:Francis Frith. Tiberias, from the South.jpg

Tiberas, 1862

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.<ref>Yaari, pp.[1] Template:Webarchive–156</ref>

As the Ottoman Empire expanded along the southern Mediterranean coast under Sultan Selim I, the Reyes Católicos (Catholic Monarchs) began establishing Inquisition commissions. Many Conversos, (Marranos and Moriscos) and Sephardi Jews fled in fear to the Ottoman provinces, settling at first in Constantinople, Salonika, Sarajevo, Sofia and Anatolia. The Sultan encouraged them to settle in Palestine.<ref>Toby Green (2007). Inquisition; The Reign of Fear. Macmillan Press Template:ISBN pp. xv–xix.</ref><ref name= alfassa2>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In 1558, a Portuguese-born marrano, Doña Gracia, was granted tax collecting rights in Tiberias and its surrounding villages by Suleiman the Magnificent. She envisaged the town becoming a refuge for Jews and obtained a permit to establish Jewish autonomy there.<ref>Schaick, Tzvi. Who is Dona Gracia? Template:Webarchive, The House of Dona Gracia Museum.</ref> In 1561 her nephew Joseph Nasi, Lord of Tiberias,<ref>Naomi E. Pasachoff, Robert J. Littman, A Concise History of the Jewish People, Lanham, Rowman & Littlefield, 2005, p.163</ref> encouraged Jews to settle in Tiberias and rebuild the city.<ref name="Gordon2">Benjamin Lee Gordon, New Judea: Jewish Life in Modern Palestine and Egypt, Manchester, New Hampshire, Ayer Publishing, 1977, p.209</ref> Securing a firman from the Sultan, he and Joseph ben Adruth rebuilt the city walls and lay the groundwork for a textile (silk) industry, planting mulberry trees and urging craftsmen to move there.<ref name="Gordon2" /> Plans were made for Jews to move from the Papal States, but when the Ottomans and the Republic of Venice went to war, the plan was abandoned.<ref name="Gordon2" />

At the end of the century (1596), the village of Tiberias had 54 households: 50 families and 4 bachelors. All were Muslims. 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.<ref>Hütteroth and Abdulfattah, 1977, p. 188</ref>

In 1624, when the Sultan recognized Fakhr-al-Din II as Lord of Arabistan (from Aleppo to the borders of Egypt),<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The 1660 destruction of Tiberias by the Druze resulted in abandonment of the city by its Jewish community,<ref>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..."</ref><ref>Barnay, Y. The Jews in Palestine in the eighteenth century: under the patronage of the Istanbul Committee of Officials for Palestine (University of Alabama Press 1992) Template:ISBN p. 149</ref> Unlike Tiberias, the nearby city of Safed recovered from its destruction,<ref>Sidney Mendelssohn. The Jews of Asia: Especially in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century. (1920) p.241. "Long before the culmination of Sabbathai's mad career, Safed had been destroyed by the Arabs and the Jews had suffered severely, while in the same year (1660) there was a great fire in Constantinople in which they endured heavy losses ..."</ref> and was not entirely abandoned,<ref>Gershom Gerhard Scholem (1976-01-01). Sabbatai Sevi: The Mystical Messiah, 1626–1676. Princeton University Press. p. 368. Template:ISBN. "In Safed, too, the [Sabbatai] movement gathered strength during the autumn of 1665. The reports about the utter destruction, in 1662 Template:Sic, of the Jewish settlement there seem greatly exaggerated, and the conclusions based on them are false. ... Rosanes' account of the destruction of the Safed community is based on a misunderstanding of his sources; the community declined in numbers but continued to exist."</ref> remaining an important Jewish center in Galilee.

File:PikiWiki Israel 11910 leaning tower in tiberias.jpg

"Leaning tower" at SE corner of Zahir al-Umar's walls, part of Greek Orthodox Monastery of the Twelve Apostles

In the 1720s, the Arab ruler Zahir al-Umar, of the Zaydani clan, fortified the town and made an agreement with the leader Nasif al-Nassar of the Al Saghir clan 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, 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.<ref>Pococke, 1745, pp. 68–70</ref> Under instructions from the Ottoman Porte, 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.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

File:Jewish House In Tiberias, 1893.jpg

Jewish house in Tiberias, 1893

Under Zahir's patronage, Jewish families were encouraged to settle in Tiberias.<ref>Moammar, Tawfiq (1990), Zahir Al Omar, Al Hakim Printing Press, Nazareth, p. 70.</ref> He invited Rabbi Chaim Abulafia of Smyrna to rebuild the Jewish community.<ref name="JS2">Joseph Schwarz. Descriptive Geography and Brief Historical Sketch of Palestine Template:Webarchive, 1850</ref> The synagogue he built still stands today, located in the Court of the Jews.<ref>The Jews in Palestine in the Eighteenth Century: Under the Patronage of the Istanbul Committee of Officials for Palestine, Y. Barnay, translated by Naomi Goldblum, University of Alabama Press, 1992, p. 15, 16</ref><ref>The Jews: Their History, Culture, and Religion, Louis Finkelstein, Edition: 3 Harper, New York, 1960, p. 659</ref>

In 1775, Ahmed el-Jazzar "the Butcher" brought peace to the region with an iron fist.Template:Citation needed In 1780, many Polish Jews settled in the town.<ref name="JS2" /> During the 18th and 19th centuries it received an influx of rabbis who re-established it as a center for Jewish learning.<ref>Parfitt, Tudor (1987) The Jews in Palestine, 1800–1882. Royal Historical Society studies in history (52). Woodbridge: Published for the Royal Historical Society by Boydell</ref> 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.<ref name="JS2" /> Around 600 people, including nearly 500 Jews,<ref name="JS2" /> died when the town was devastated by the 1837 Galilee earthquake.Template:Citation needed An American expedition reported that Tiberias was still in a state of disrepair in 1847/1848.<ref>Lynch, 1850, p. 154</ref> 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.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

File:Zoltan Kluger. Tiberias.jpg

Tiberias 1937, Dr. Torrance's hospital centre of photograph

British Mandate

File:Abbud26C.jpg

Postcard of Tiberias, by Karimeh Abbud, ca 1925

File:חמי טבריה 1924.jpg

Hot springs in Tiberias 1924, Younes & Soraya Nazrian library, University of Haifa digital collections

File:1928הרחוב הראשי של טבריה. אוסף קרוזו מתוך האוספים הדיגיטליים של ספריית יונס וסוראיה נזריאן, אוניברסיטת חיפה.jpg

Tiberias main road, 1925, Younes & Soraya Library digital collections, University of Haifa

In the 1922 census of Palestine 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.<ref name=Barronp6>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 in 1920 and the Arab riots throughout Palestine in 1929.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> The first modern spa was built in 1929.<ref name="Erfurt-CooperCooper20092" />

The landscape of the modern town was shaped by the great flood of 11 November 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 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.<ref>Mandated landscape: British imperial rule in Palestine, 1929–1948, Roza El-Eini, (Routledge, 2006) p. 250</ref><ref>The Changing Land: Between the Jordan and the Sea: Aerial Photographs from 1917 to the Present, Benjamin Z. Kedar, Wayne State University Press, 2000, p. 198</ref> In October 1938, Arab militants murdered 19 Jews in Tiberias during the 1936–39 Arab revolt in Palestine.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Between 8–9 April 1948, sporadic shooting broke out between the Jewish and Arab neighborhoods of Tiberias. Arab Liberation Army and irregular forces attacked and closed the Rosh Pinnah road, isolating the northern Jewish settlements.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> On 10 April, the Haganah launched a mortar barrage, killing some Arab residents.<ref name="morris1832">Morris, 2004, pp. 183–185</ref> The local National Committee refused the offer of the Arab Liberation Army to take over defense of the city, but a small contingent of outside irregulars moved in.<ref name="morris1832" />

During 10–17 April, 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.<ref name="morris1832" /> The Arab population of Tiberias (6,000 residents or 47.5% of the population) was evacuated by the British forces on 18 April 1948.<ref>Harry Levin, Jerusalem Embattled – A diary of a city under siege. Cassel, 1997. Template:ISBN., p.81: 'Extraordinary news from Tiberias. The whole Arab population has fled. Last night the Haganah blew up the Arab bands' headquarters there; this morning the Jews woke up to see a panic flight in progress. By tonight not one of the 6,000 Arabs remained.' (19 April).</ref>

The Jewish population looted the Arab areas and had to be suppressed by force by the Haganah and Jewish police, who killed or injured several looters.<ref>M Gilbert, p. 172</ref> On 30 December 1948, when David Ben-Gurion was staying in Tiberias, James Grover McDonald, the United States ambassador to Israel, requested to meet with him. McDonald presented a British ultimatum for Israeli troops to leave the Sinai peninsula, Egyptian territory. Israel rejected the ultimatum, but Tiberias became famous.<ref>Gilbert, p. 245</ref>

Destruction of the old city

During the months after the occupation of the city, a large part of the buildings of the old city in Tiberias was destroyed, and this for various reasons - problems of hygiene, rickety construction, and the fear that the Arabs would return to the city, when it became known that this was a requirement of Jordan as part of the negotiations conducted in Rhodes. Finally, the authorities acceded to the initiative of the Jewish National Fund, Yosef Nahmani, who argued that the houses of the Old City should be demolished, despite the opposition of Mayor Shimon Dahan.

The destruction began in the summer of 1948 and continued until the first months of 1949.<ref name=abasi>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> A visit by David Ben-Gurion to the city brought an end to the destruction, after 477 out of 696 houses were destroyed according to official estimates.<ref name=ypaz>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> After the destruction remained the remains of the wall and the citadel, several houses on the outskirts of the city, as well as the two mosques that operated in the city. The area stood abandoned for decades, until operations began to restore it in the 1970s.<ref name=ypaz2>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

State of Israel

File:Dover tverya17.jpg

Tiberias and the Sea of Galilee

File:PikiWiki Israel 69028 the tomb of rabbi meir the miracle owner.jpg

Tomb of Rabbi Meir Baal HaNes

File:PikiWiki Israel 11886 house in galilee street tiberias.jpg

Black basalt buildings in Tiberias

The city of Tiberias has been almost entirely Jewish since 1948. Many Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews settled in the city, following the Jewish exodus from Arab countries in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Over time, government housing was built to accommodate much of the new population, like in many other development towns.

In 1959, during Wadi Salib riots, the "Union des Nords-africains led by David Ben Haroush, organised a large-scale procession walking towards the nice suburbs of Haifa 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".<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Over time, the city came to rely on tourism, becoming a major Galilean center for Christian pilgrims and internal Israeli tourism. The ancient cemetery of Tiberias and its old synagogues are also drawing religious Jewish pilgrims during religious holidays.<ref>M.Gilbert, p.566, 578</ref>

Tiberias consists of a small port on the shores of 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 was expected that the lake of Tiberias will regain its original level (almost Template:Convert higher than today), with the full operational capacity of Israeli desalination facilities by 2014. In 2020, the lake raised above the level it was in 1990.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

In 2012, plans were announced for a new ultra-Orthodox neighborhood, Kiryat Sanz, on a slope on the western side of the Kinneret.<ref>New ultra-Orthodox neighborhood to be built in Israel's north Template:Webarchive, Apr. 3, 2012, Haaretz</ref>

Demographics

According to the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), as of August 2023, 49,876 inhabitants lived in Tiberias. According to CBS, as of December 2019 the city was rated 4 out of 10 on the socio-economic scale. The average monthly salary of an employee for the year 2019 was 7,508 NIS.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Among today's population of Jews, many are Mizrahi and Sephardic. The yearly growth rate of its population is 3.9%.

Following Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000 many ex-South Lebanon Army soldiers and officers who fled from Lebanon settled in Tiberias with their families.<ref name="Shachmon 2019">Template:Cite journal</ref>

In the Ottoman registers of 1525, 1533, 1548, 1553, and 1572 all the residents were Muslims.<ref>Lewis, Bernard (1954), Studies in the Ottoman archives—I, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Vol. 16, pp 469–501.</ref> The registers in 1596 recorded the population to consist of 50 families and four bachelors, all Muslim.<ref>Hütteroth and Abdulfattah, 1977, p. 188</ref> In 1780, there were about 4,000 inhabitants, two thirds being Jews.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>Template:Citation needed In 1842, there were about 3,900 inhabitants, around a third of whom were Jews, the rest being Muslims and a few Christians.<ref>The Penny cyclopædia of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge: v. 1–27, Volume 23 Template:Webarchive, C. Knight, 1842.</ref> In 1850, Tiberias contained three synagogues which served the Sephardi community, which consisted of 80 families, and the Ashkenazim, numbering about 100 families. It was reported that the Jewish inhabitants of Tiberias enjoyed more peace and security than those of Safed to the north.<ref>M.Gilbert, Israel: A History (1998), p.3</ref> In 1863, it was recorded that the Christian and Muslim elements made up three-quarters of the population (2,000 to 4,000).<ref>Smith, William (1863) A Dictionary of the Bible: Comprising Its Antiquities, Biography, and Natural History Little, Brown, p 149</ref> 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.<ref>Schumacher, 1888, p. 185</ref> In 1901, the Jews of Tiberias numbered about 2,000 in a total population of 3,600.<ref name="Jewish Encyclopedia: Tiberias2" /> By 1912, the population reached 6,500. This included 4,500 Jews, 1,600 Muslims and 400 Christians.<ref name="CE2">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

In the 1922 census of Palestine 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.<ref name=Barronp6 /> There were 5,381 Jews, 2,645 Muslims, 565 Christians and ten others in the 1931 census.<ref>Mills, 1932, p. ?</ref> By 1945, the population had increased to 6,000 Jews, 4,540 Muslims, 760 Christians with ten others.<ref>Village Statistics, 1945</ref>

During the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Palestinian Arab residents of Tiberias besieged its Jewish quarter. Haganah troops then successfully attacked the Arab section of the city, and British troops evacuated the Arab residents upon their request.<ref name=":0">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Some fled in the wake of news of the Deir Yassin massacre.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> The entire Arab population of the city was removed in 1948 by the British and partly because of Haganah decision.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> After the war had ended, a large number of Jewish immigrants to Israel settled in Tiberias.<ref name=":0" /> Today almost all of the population is Jewish.

Urban renewal and preservation

File:Tiberias Genezareth Tverya Kinneret Israel datafox.JPG

Tiberias harbour

File:Tiberias hotels.JPG

Tiberias beachfront

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.<ref name="Golan2">Arnon Golan, The Politics of Wartime Demolition and Human Landscape Transformation, War in History, vol 9 (2002), pp 431–445.</ref> Wide-scale development began after the Six-Day War, 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.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> 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 Template:Convert under layers of debris and refuse at the foot of Mount Bernike south of modern Tiberias. It once seated over 7,000 people.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

In 2004, excavations in Tiberias conducted by the Israel Antiquities Authority uncovered a structure dating to the 3rd century CE that may have been the seat of the Sanhedrin. At the time it was called Beit Hava'ad.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In June 2018, an underground Jewish mausoleum was discovered. Archaeologists said that the mausoleum was between 1,900 to 2,000 years old as of 2018. The names of the dead were inscribed on the ossuaries in Greek.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In January 2021, the foundations of a mosque dating to the earliest years of Muslim rule was excavated just south of the Sea of Galilee by archaeologists led by Katia Cytryn-Silverman from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Built around 670 CE, it is considered to have been the first purpose-built mosque in the city.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Geography and climate

Tiberias is located on the shore of the Sea of Galilee and the western slopes of the Jordan Rift Valley overlooking the lake, in the elevation range of Template:Convert. Tiberias has a hot semi-arid climate (Köppen: BSh) that borders a hot-summer Mediterranean climate (Köppen: Csa), with an annual precipitation of Template:Convert. Summers in Tiberias average a maximum temperature of Template:Convert and a minimum temperature of Template:Convert in July and August. The winters are mild, with temperatures ranging from Template:Convert. Extremes have ranged from Template:Convert to Template:Convert. Template:Weather box

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, 1837, 1927 and 1943.<ref>Watzman, Haim (29 May 2007). A Crack in the Earth: A Journey Up Israel's Rift Valley. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Template:ISBN. p. 161.</ref>

The city is located above the Dead Sea Transform and is one of the cities in Israel that is most at risk to earthquakes (along with Safed, Beit She'an, Kiryat Shmona, and Eilat).<ref>Avraham, Rachel (22 October 2013). "Experts Warn: Major Earthquake Could Hit Israel Any Time Template:Webarchive". United With Israel.</ref>

Health care

File:The Doctor House - The Scots Hotel.JPG

The Scots Hotel in the restored former hospital of Dr Torrance

In 1885, a Scottish doctor and minister, David Watt Torrance, opened a mission hospital in Tiberias that accepted patients of all races and religions.<ref>Tiberias – Walking with the sages in Tiberias Template:Webarchive</ref> In 1894, it moved to larger premises at Beit abu Shamnel abu Hannah. David Watt Torrance died in Tiberias in 1923. The same year his son, Dr. Herbert Watt Torrance, was appointed head of the hospital. In 1949, following 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.<ref name="UoDArchiveMS38">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="Scots hotel2">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Poria hospital is located near Upper Tiberias neighborhood, and operates a hospitalization control center in the city itself.

Sports

File:Tiberias Stadium Bodek Architects 2023.jpg

Tiberias Football Stadium (under construction) designed by Moti Bodek Architects

Its first football 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 Leumit.

6 Nations Championship and Heineken Cup winner Jamie Heaslip was born in Tiberias.

The Tiberias Marathon 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 Template:Convert below sea level, this is the lowest course in the world.

Twin towns – sister cities

Template:See also Tiberias is twinned with:<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Template:Div col

• Template:Flagicon Great Neck, United States (2002)
• Template:Flagicon Milwaukee, United States (2000)
• Template:Flagicon Montecatini Terme, Italy (1979)
• Template:Flagicon Montpellier, France (1983)
• Template:Flagicon Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States
• Template:Flagicon Saint-Raphaël, France (2006)
• Template:Flagicon Tulsa, United States (1990)
• Template:Flagicon Worms, Germany (1986)
• Template:Flagicon Wuxi, China (2006)

Notable people

Prominent people predating the State of Israel, listed by year of birth:

• Rabbi Meir Baal HaNes (Rabbi Meir the miracle maker), 2nd-century CE Jewish sage
• Johanan bar Nappaha (180–279), rabbi
• Sulayman ibn Ahmad at-Tabarani (874–971), Muslim hadith scholar and collector
• Akhiyahu HaKohen (fl. 910 CE), rabbi and Hebrew-language grammarian
• Donna Gracia Mendes Nasi (1510–1569), Portuguese philanthropist and one of the wealthiest Jewish women of the Renaissance
• Zahir al-Umar (c. 1689–1775), virtually autonomous Arab ruler of northern Palestine in the mid-18th century
• Shemariah Catarivas, 18th-century Talmudic writer
• Jacob ha-Cohen Sekili (1846–1918), rabbi
• Hassib Sabbagh (1920–2010), Palestinian billionaire businessman, activist and philanthropist

Prominent people in the State of Israel or born/active there, listed alphabetically:

• Yossi Abulafia (born 1944), writer and graphic artist
• Gadi Eizenkot (born 1960), IDF Chief of General Staff (Feb. 2015 – Jan. 2019)
• Sarai Givaty (born 1982), actress, singer-songwriter, and model
• Menahem Golan (1929–2014), film producer, screenwriter and director
• Jamie Heaslip (born 1983), Irish rugby union player, born in Tiberias
• Elad Levy (born 1972 in Tiberias), neurosurgeon known for his contributions in the management of stroke
• Shlomit Nir (born 1952), Olympic swimmer
• Patrick Denis O'Donnell (1922–2005), Commandant of the Irish Defence Forces, military historian, UN peace-keeper stationed in Tiberias in the 1960s
• Yisroel Ber Odesser (born c. 1888 in Tiberias – 1994), Breslover Hasid and rabbi
• Moshe Peretz (born 1983), Mizrahi pop singer-songwriter and composer
• Eldad Ronen (born 1976), Olympic competitive sailor
• Shem-Tov Sabag (born 1959), Olympic marathoner
• Bechor-Shalom Sheetrit (1895–1967), politician, government minister of Israel
• Shmuel Toledano (1921-2022), former Mossad agent and member of the Knesset
• Ya'akov Moshe Toledano (1880–1960), rabbi, Israeli Minister of Religions (1958–1960)

See also

• 1660 destruction of Tiberias
• Bethmaus, ancient Jewish village next to Tiberias
• List of modern names for biblical place names
• Old synagogues of Tiberias
• Tzafon Medical Center, Poriya

Bibliography

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• Template:Cite book copied and uploaded at "hebrewbooks.org"

External links

• Template:Citation
• City council website Template:In lang Template:Usurped
• Tiberias Travel Guide (English)
• Tiberias – City of Treasures: The official website of the Tiberias Excavation Project
• Template:Usurped: description, photo gallery
• Nefesh B'Nefesh Community Guide for Tiveria-Tiberias, Israel
• Survey of Western Palestine, Map 6: IAA, Wikimedia commons
• Old maps and views of Tiberias (1493-1963) - Eran Laor Cartographic Collection, The National Library of Israel
• Ancient Tiberias - a site dedicated to the preservation of Ancient Tiberias (Hebrew).