Safad

Safed (known in Hebrew as Tzfat; Sephardic Hebrew & Modern Hebrew: צְפַת ''Tsfat'', Ashkenazi Hebrew: ''Tzfas'', Biblical Hebrew: ''Ṣǝp̄aṯ''; ar, صفد, ''Ṣafad''), is a city in the Northern District of Israel. Located at an elevation of , Safed is the highest city in the Galilee and in Israel.

Safed has been identified with ''Sepph,'' a fortified town in the Upper Galilee mentioned in the writings of the Roman Jewish historian Josephus. The Jerusalem Talmud mentions Safed as one of five elevated spots where fires were lit to announce the New Moon and festivals during the Second Temple period. Safed attained local prominence under the Crusaders, who built a large fortress there in 1168. It was conquered by Saladin 20 years later, and demolished by his grandnephew al-Mu'azzam Isa in 1219. After reverting to the Crusaders in a treaty in 1240, a larger fortress was erected, which was expanded and reinforced in 1268 by the Mamluk sultan Baybars, who developed Safed into a major town and the capital of a new province spanning the Galilee. After a century of general decline, the stability brought by the Ottoman conquest in 1517 ushered in nearly a century of growth and prosperity in Safed, during which time Jewish immigrants from across Europe developed the city into a center for wool and textile production and the mystical Kabbalah movement. It became known as one of the Four Holy Cities of Judaism. As the capital of the Safad Sanjak, it was the main population center of the Galilee, with large Muslim and Jewish communities.

Besides the fortunate governorship of Fakhr al-Din II in the early 17th century, the city underwent a general decline and was eclipsed by Acre by the mid-18th century. Its Jewish residents were targeted in Druze and local Muslim raids in the 1830s, and most of them perished in an earthquake in that same decade. Safed's conditions improved considerably in the late 19th century, with its municipal council founded along with a number of banks, though the city's jurisdiction was limited to the Upper Galilee. Its population reached 24,000 toward the end of the century; it was a mixed city, divided roughly equally between Jews and Muslims with a small Christian community. Its Muslim merchants played a key role as middlemen in the grain trade between the local farmers and the traders of Acre, while the Ottomans promoted the city as a center of Sunni jurisprudence. Through the philanthropy of Moses Montefiore, its Jewish synagogues and homes were rebuilt. Around the start of British Mandatory rule, in 1922, Safed's population had dropped to around 8,700, roughly 60% Muslim, 33% Jewish and the remainder Christians. Amid rising ethnic tension throughout Palestine, Safed's Jews were attacked in an Arab riot in 1929. The city's population had risen to 13,700 by 1948, overwhelmingly Arab, though the city was proposed to be part of a Jewish state in the 1947 UN Partition Plan. During the 1948 war, Jewish paramilitary forces captured the city after heavy fighting, precipitating the flight of all of Safed's Palestinian Arabs, such that today the city has an almost exclusively Jewish population.

Safed has a large Haredi community and remains a center for Jewish religious studies. Due to its high elevation, the city has warm summers and cold, often snowy, winters. Its mild climate and scenic views have made Safed a popular holiday resort frequented by Israelis and foreign visitors. In it had a population of .

Biblical reference

Legend has it that Safed was founded by a son of Noah after the Great Flood. According to the Book of Judges (), the area where Safed is located was assigned to the tribe of Naphtali.

It has been suggested that Jesus' assertion that "a city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden" may have referred to Safed.

History

Antiquity

Safed has been identified with ''Sepph,'' a fortified town in the Upper Galilee mentioned in the writings of the Roman-Jewish historian Josephus.Geography of Israel: Safed
accessed 9 December 2016 Safed is mentioned in the Jerusalem Talmud as one of five elevated spots where fires were lit to announce the New Moon and festivals during the Second Temple period.

Crusader era

Pre-Crusader village and tower

There is scarce information about Safed before the Crusader conquest.Drory 2004, p. 163. A document from the Cairo Geniza, composed in 1034, mentions a transaction made in Tiberias in 1023 by a certain Jew, Musa ben Hiba ben Salmun with the '' nisba'' (Arabic descriptive suffix) "al-Safati" (of Safed), indicating the presence of a Jewish community living alongside Muslims in Safed in the 11th century.Barbé 2016, p. 63. According to the Muslim historian Ibn Shaddad (d. 1285), at the beginning of the 12th century, a "flourishing village" beneath a tower called Burj Yatim had existed at the site of Safed on the eve of the Crusaders' capture of the area in 1101–1102 and that "nothing" about the village was mentioned in "the early Islamic history books".Ellenblum 2007, p. 179, note 15. Although Ibn Shaddad mistakenly attributes the tower's construction to the Knights Templar, the modern historian Ronnie Ellenblum asserts that the tower was likely built during the early Muslim period (mid-7th–11th centuries).

First Crusader period

The Frankish chronicler William of Tyre noted the presence of a ''burgus'' (tower) in Safed, which he called "Castrum Saphet" or "Sephet", in 1157.Ellenblum 2007, p. 179, note 16. Safed was the seat of a ''castellany'' (area governed by a castle) by at least 1165, when its ''castellan'' (appointed castle governor) was Fulk, constable of Tiberias. The castle of Safed was purchased from Fulk by King Amalric of Jerusalem in 1168. He subsequently reinforced the castle and transferred it to the Templars in the same year. Theoderich the Monk, describing his visit to the area in 1172, noted that the expanded fortification of the castle of Safed was meant to check the raids of the Turks (the Turkic Zengid dynasty ruled the area east of the Kingdom). Testifying to the considerable expansion of the castle, the chronicler Jacques de Vitry (d. 1240) wrote that it was practically built anew. The remains of Fulk's castle can now be found under the citadel excavations, on a hill above the old city.Howard M. Sacha
''Farewell Espana: The World of the Sephardim Remembered,''
Random House, 2013 p. 190.

In the estimation of modern historian Havré Barbé, the ''castellany'' of Safed comprised approximately . According to Barbé, its western boundary straddled the domains of Acre, including the fief of St. George de la Beyne, which included Sajur and Beit Jann, and the fief of Geoffrey le Tor, which included Akbara and Hurfeish, and in the southwest ran north of Maghar and Sallama. Its northern boundary was marked by the Nahal Dishon (Wadi al-Hindaj) stream, its southern boundary was likely formed near Wadi al-Amud, separating it from the fief of Tiberias, while its eastern limits were the marshes of the Hula Valley and upper Jordan Valley. There were several Jewish communities in the ''castellany'' of Safed, as testified in the accounts of Jewish pilgrims and chroniclers between 1120 and 1293. Benjamin of Tudela, who visited the town in 1170, does not record any Jews living in Safed proper.

Ayyubid interregnum

Safed was captured by the Ayyubids led by Sultan Saladin in 1188 after a month-long siege, following the Battle of Hattin in 1187.Sharon 2007, p
152
/ref> Saladin ultimately allowed its residents to relocate to Tyre. He granted Safed and Tiberias as an '' iqta'' (akin to a fief) to Sa'd al-Din Mas'ud ibn Mubarak (d. 1211), the son of his niece, after which it was bequeathed to Sa'd al-Din's son Ahmad.Drory 2004, p. 164. Samuel ben Samson, who visited the town in 1210, mentions the existence of a Jewish community of at least fifty there. He also noted that two Muslims guarded and maintained the cave tomb of a rabbi, Hanina ben Horqano, in Safed. The ''iqta'' of Safed was taken from the family of Sa'd al-Din by the Ayyubid emir of Damascus, al-Mu'azzam Isa, in 1217.Luz 2014, p. 34. Two years later, during the Crusader siege of Damietta, al-Mu'azzam Isa had the Safed castle demolished to prevent its capture and reuse by potential future Crusaders.

Second Crusader period

As an outcome of the treaty negotiations between the Crusader leader Theobald I of Navarre and the Ayyubid emir of Damascus, al-Salih Isma'il, in 1240 Safed once again passed to Crusader control. Afterward, the Templars were tasked with rebuilding the town's fortress, with efforts spearheaded by Benoît d'Alignan, Bishop of Marseille

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