Legend has it that Safed was founded by a son of Noah after the Great Flood. According to the Book of Judges (Judges 1:17), the area where Safed is located was assigned to the tribe of Naphtali who was Jacob's 6th son but his 2nd by Bilhah, Egyptian handmaiden of his wife, Rachel, his true love. The history of Safed connects to our Chanukah Story. The tribe was active in the war against Sisera and
Gideon's campaign against the Midianites. Here is Gideon having to choose the men he needs in the next fight, those who lap or those who cup their hands and drink.
Naphtali belonged to the northern kingdom of Israel and it was overrun by Arameans in the time of King Baasha, who reigned from 908 to 885 BCE, before a large section of its inhabitants was exiled by Tiglath-Pileser, king of Assyria and taken away in 721 BCE. Baasha was the son of Ahijah who was the son of Ahitub, priest (Cohen) in the reign of Saul who accompanied the Ark into battle against the Philistines. He had declared himself king after killing Nadah, son of Jeroboam who became king of the northern tribes and had been the superintendent for Solomon when Solomon died, and exterminating Nadah's family. He waged war on King Asa of Judah(reigned 915-875 BCE) in alliance with Ben-Hadad of Aram (Syria), who changed sides, so that Baasha was defeated and had to cede some territory.
From the survivors were derived many of the Jews living in Galilee in the 2nd Temple times. These were the ones who had escaped the Assyrians, who remained on top of the mountain. They are the proof that there were Jews who were able to remain, and so they remained out of the limelight.
(My preoccupation is simple: Judah Maccabee led the first revolt for religious freedom in recorded history, and he is without parallel as a guerrilla fighter and as a man of faith. And he also bequeathed us a pretty excellent holiday.) Jeffrey Goldberg.
Remember that Judah the Maccabee (the Hammerer), a patriot, died in 160 BCE. He was the eldest son of Mattathias the Hasmonean. He succeeded his father as leader of the revolt against Antiochus Epiphanes (167/6 BCE). He inflicted successive defeats on the Syrian armies by his exploitation of ambush, rapid movement, and night attacks. After taking back Jerusalem in 164 BCE, he purified the Temple by taking out the idols of these Greek-Syrians and he brought in assistance to the Jewish communities in Transjordan and Galilee.
Safed's history went back as a Jewish city before the days of King Alexander Yannai as a Jewish city since Alexander Yannai was the king and high priest in Judea who reigned from 103 to 76 BCE. In those days it was called Sepph, and later Sepphoris. Alexander Yannai was the son of John Hyrcanus.
John Hyrcanus was the son and successor of Simon the Hasmonean who ruled from 135 to 104 BCE. During Simon's lifetime, John was governor of Gezer, but after the murder of his father and 2 brothers by his brother-in-law, Ptolemy, escaped to Jerusalem, where he seized power before Ptolemy could gain control. He besieged Ptolemy in the fortress of Dok, but had to desist on account of the sabbatical year. Ptolemy escaped after murdering John Hyrcanaus's mother whom he had been holding as hostage.
He turned out to be a despotic, and violent ruler who maintained his authority with the aid of foreign mercinaries.
He had set about annexing those Greek cities of Palestine whose inhabitant still refused to acknowledge Hasmonean rule. After suffering some setbacks, he succeeded in adding the entire coastal region to his kingdom.
His political aspirations ran counter to the religious outlook of a large section of the Judean population. During his reign, therefore, occurred the final break between the Crown and the Pharisees, apparently as a result of Alexander's flouting their susceptibilities while officiating in the Temple. The Pharisees were a political and religious party during the 2nd Temple period. They were probably an outgrowth of the Hasideans who made up the backbone of the Hasmonean revolt. It was a relatively narrow group, closed to the masses, probably made up of the Cohens. Their goal was to instill the masses with a spirit of holiness by propagating traditional religious teaching. (This was the direction from Moses for the Levites who were Cohens, men who were the descendants of Levi.) The gulf between the Pharisees and those ignorant of the Law or not practicing it was complete. Actually, this was the fault of the Pharisees in not setting up schools at this time, which was done later. Chabad is doing a lot of this. They are rabbis, teachers of the faith.
Demetrius III of Syria or Theos
In the year 94 BCE, civil war broke out with the Pharisees soliciting the aid of Demetrius III of Syria who defeated Alexander near Shechem in 88 BCE. 6,000 Jews who served in Demetrius' army, realized the implications of the situation, and went over to Alexander who succeeded in regaining his hold upon the country and took a ferocious vengeance on his former opponents. At the end of his reign, Alexander tried to complete his conquests in Transjordan, and died while besieging Ragaba.
Let's remember that Mohammad was born in 570 and died in 632. A lot of Jewish history has been happening in Eretz Yisrael.
Tzephat (Hebrew) for Safed, identical with the fortified village of Sepph in Upper Galilee, was mentioned by the General-turned-writer for the Romans, Josephus. Safed is mentioned also in the Talmud as one of the places where beacons were lit to mark the New Year. It first appears to be of importance in crusading times. Fulk of Anjou, King of Jerusalem, built a fortress there in 1140 CE. It became Templar property in 1168 and was destroyed by Baybars in 1266.
included Rabbi Joseph Caro. Rabbi Yosef (Joseph) Caro, 5248-5335 (1488-1575 CE), is most famous as the author of the Shulchan Aruch, the Code of Jewish Law. He was born in Toledo, Spain during the Inquisition years and fled from that country at the age of 4, with his family together with myriads of Jews who were banished from Spain in the year 5252 (1492 CE). His family wandered from city to city, from country to country, not finding a safe haven until they settled in Constantinople (Kushta), Turkey. He went to Palestine, founding a yeshivah at Safed. Here he wrote his code Bet Yoseph (House of Joseph) from 1550-1559.
A Hebrew press was established in Safed in 1588.
The Turkish empire (Ottoman Empire) led to an administrative decay which caused Safed's administrative decline which was greatly affected by the wars between the Bedouin tribes. Epidemics and earthquakes, especially the great earthquake of 1837 brought about the ruin of the community, which in 1845, numbered only 400.
In later times, the population fluctuated and in 1948, Safed was inhabited by 12,000 Arabs and 1,800 Jews. Despite their numerical superiority and better strategic position, the Arabs fled from Safed after some bitter fighting.
The population by 1990 was 16,400. In 2008, the population of Safed was 32,000. According to CBS figures in 2001, the ethnic makeup of the city was 99.2% Jewish and non-Arab, with no significant Arab population. 43.2% of the residents were 19 years of age or younger, 13.5% between 20 and 29, 17.1% between 30 and 44, 12.5% from 45 to 59, 3.1% from 60 to 64, and 10.5% 65 years of age or older.
The city is home to a relatively large community of Haredi or orthodox religious Jews.
The village of Akbara in the city's southwestern outskirts, which had a population of about 500 Arab Muslims, most of whom belonged to a single clan, the Halihal, is under Safed's municipal jurisdiction. I know of an Arab family who lived in my apartment which was right across the street from the junior high where I taught English. She helped me bail out water from my apartment when the water main broke. That was in 1981.
Safed sits on top of a mountain of 2,720 in height. It has a splendid panorama and is a summer resort. The development of the city made it a center of art, especially painting. it was an art colony. There were many art galleries when I lived there from 1980 to the end of 1985.
This painting is the one I did of my husband in about 1975 in Oregon. Notice that he is wearing a Conservative sized prayer shawl.
The oil painting I did of my husband when in Safed in about 1982 is on the right. It's looser, done faster. He's wearing an Israeli prayer shawl, much bigger than the American style. They really wear it as a tent to pray under. I saw that from the balcony in the shul in Safed. Danny was a Levite, 2nd to be called up on a Saturday morning to read from the Torah.
Resource:
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safed
https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/380611/jewish/Rabbi-Yosef-Joseph-Caro-The-Master.htm
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