The Night Before

A brief update on our status before the hike. Includes a beautiful view from atop Tzfat.



Antiquity and Middle Ages

Safed is not mentioned in the Bible. The Canaanite city of Zephath (Judges 1:17) is located in southern, rather than northern, Israel. There is a legend that Safed was founded by a son of Noah after the great flood. Safed is sometimes identified with Sepph, a fortified Jewish town in the Upper Galilee mentioned in the writings of the Roman Jewish historian Josephus (Wars 2:573). It was mentioned in the Jerusalem Talmud as one of five elevated spots where fires were lit to announce the New Moon and festivals during the period of the Second Temple. [2]

In 1289, it is said that the chief rabbi of Safed, Moses ben Judah ha-Cohen, went to Tiberias to pay homage to Rambam.

In the early 16th century, the Ottoman Empire under Selim I conquered Palestine. Under the Ottomans, Safed was part of the vilayet of Sidon.

In 1491, mention is made that the rabbi in the town had to supplement his income through a grocery market. After the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492, many prominent rabbis found their way to Safed, which became the key center for Jewish mysticism, known as Kabbalah. Among the prominent kabbalists who made their home in Safed were Isaac Luria (Arizal) and Moshe Kordovero. Besides the kabbalists, Safed also attracted numerous other Jewish scholars and spirtualists, including Joseph Caro, the author of the Shulchan Aruch and Shlomo Halevi Alkabetz, composer of the Sabbath hymn Lecha Dodi. The influx of Sephardi Jews made Safed a global center for Jewish learning and a regional center for trade throughout 15th and 16th centuries.

A Hebrew printing press is established in Safed in 1577 by Eliezer Ashkenazi and his son, Isaac of Prague. [3] It was the first press in Palestine and the whole of the Ottoman Empire.[4] It was also the first printing press of any kind in Asia.

The 8,000 or 10,000 Jews in Safed in 1555 grew to 20,000 or 30,000 by the end of the century

Modern era

Prior to 1948, about 10,000 of Safed's 12,000 residents were Arabs,[5] most of whom left in 1948. Among the residents who became refugees are Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and his family.[6][7]

In 1974, 102 teenagers from Safed on a school trip were taken hostage by Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine while sleeping in a school in Maalot. Twenty-one of the hostages were killed.