|• Hebrew||טְבֶרְיָה (help·info)|
|• ISO 259||Ṭberya|
|• Also spelled||Tveria (official)|
|Founded||c. 20 CE|
|• Type||City (from 1948)|
|• Mayor||Yosef Ben David|
|• Total||10,872 dunams (10.872 km2 or 4.198 sq mi)|
|Name meaning||City of Tiberius|
Tiberias (//; Hebrew: טְבֶרְיָה, Tveria, Tiveria (audio) (help·info); Arabic: طبرية, Ṭabariyyah; Greek:Τιβεριάς Tiberiás, Modern Greek:Τιβεριάδα Tiveriáda ) is a city on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee (also called the Kinneret), Lower Galilee, Israel. Established in 20 CE, it was named in honour of the emperor Tiberius.
Tiberias has been venerated in Judaism since the middle of the 2nd century CE and since the 16th century has been considered one of Judaism's Four Holy Cities, along with Jerusalem, Hebron and Safed. In the 2nd–10th centuries, Tiberias was the largest Jewish city in the Galilee and the political and religious hub of the Jews of Palestine. It has historically been known for its hot springs, believed to cure skin and other ailments, for thousands of years.
- 1 History
- 2 Demography
- 3 Infrastructure
- 4 Geography and climate
- 5 Sports
- 6 Twin towns — sister cities
- 7 Notable residents
- 8 See also
- 9 References
- 10 External links
Tiberias was founded sometime around 20 CE in Herodian Tetrarchy of Galilee and Peraea by the Roman client king Herod Antipas, son of Herod the Great. Herod Antipas made it the capital of his realm in the Galilee. Tiberias had a Jewish majority, living alongside a heterogeneous population. It was named in honor of the Roman Emperor Tiberius. The Jewish oral tradition holds that Tiberias was built on the site of the Israelite and later Jewish village of Rakkat, first mentioned in the Book of Joshua. By the time the Talmud was written the Jewish People were still referring to modern Tiberias colloquially as Rakkat. Conversely, in The Antiquities of the Jews, the Roman-Jewish historian Josephus calls the village with hot springs Emmaus, located near Tiberias. This location is repeated in The Wars of the Jews.
In the days of Antipas, some of the most religious (as opposed to Hellenized, including Cohanic) Jews refused to settle there; the presence of a cemetery rendered the site ritually unclean for the priestly caste to live in. Antipas settled many non-Jews there from rural Galilee and other parts of his domains in order to populate his new capital, in an early recorded case of forced gentrification, and built a palace on the acropolis. The prestige of Tiberias was so great that the sea of Galilee soon came to be named the sea of Tiberias; however, what would now be called Jewish zealots continued to call it 'Yam Ha-Kinerett', 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.
Under the Roman Empire, the city was known by its Greek name Τιβεριάς (Tiberiás, Modern Greek Τιβεριάδα Tiveriáda), an adaptation of the taw-suffixed Semitic form that preserved its feminine grammatical gender. In 61 CE Herod Agrippa II annexed the city to his kingdom whose capital was Caesarea Phillippi. During the First Jewish–Roman War Josephus Flavius took control of the city and destroyed Herod's palace, but was able to stop the city from being pillaged by his (loyal to Rome) Jewish army. Where most other cities in the Provinces of Iudaea, Galilee and Iudemea were razed, Tiberias was spared because its inhabitants remained loyal to Rome, after Josephus Flavius had surrendered the city to the Roman emperor Vespasian. It became a mixed city after the fall of Jerusalem in 70 CE; with Judea subdued, the southern Jewish population migrated to the Galilee.
There is no direct indication Tiberias, as well as the rest of Galilee, took part in the Bar Kokhba revolt of 132-136 CE, thus allowing it to exist, despite a heavy economic decline due to the war. Following the legal expulsion of all Jews from Jerusalem after 135 CE, Tiberias and its neighbor Sepphoris became the major Jewish cultural centres, competing for status with Babylon, Alexandria, Alleppo and the Persian Empire.
In 145 CE, Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai who was very familiar with the Galilee hiding there for over a decade, "cleansed the city of ritual impurity", allowing the leadership of the people to resettle there, from Judea Province where they were fugitives. The Sanhedrin, the Jewish court, also fled from Jerusalem during the Great Jewish Revolt against the Roman Empire, and after several attempted moves, in search of stability, eventually settled in Tiberias in about 150 CE. It was to be its final meeting place before its disbanding in the early Byzantine period. From the time when Yochanan bar Nafcha (d. 279) settled in Tiberias, the city became the focus of Jewish religious scholarship in the land. The Mishnah along with the Jerusalem Talmud, (the written discussions of generations of rabbis in the Land of Israel – primarily in the academies of Tiberias and Caesarea), was probably compiled in Tiberias by Rabbi Judah haNasi in around 200 CE. The 13 synagogues served the spiritual needs of a growing Jewish population.
In the 6th century Tiberias was still the seat of Jewish religious learning. In light of this, Bishop 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.
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.
Tiberias, or Tabariyyah in Arab transcription, was conquered by (the Arab commander) Shurahbil in the "year 13" (634 CE) by 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 Bet Shean took its place, following the Rashidun 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 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. An imposing mosque, 90 metres long by 78 metres 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. 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. Ben Asher is also credited with putting the finishing touches on the Aleppo Codex, the oldest existing manuscript of the Hebrew scriptures.
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. 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 Muqaddesi, those who suffered from scab or ulcers, and other such diseases came to Tiberias to bath in the hot springs for three days. "Afterwards they dip in another spring which is cold, whereupon...they become cured."
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."
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. 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.
At the beginning of the 12th century the Jewish community of Tiberias numbered about 50 families; and at that time the best manuscripts of the Torah were said to be found there. 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." This could have been reflecting the fact that at the time, the town had a notable non-Muslim population.
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 July 4, 1187 Saladin defeated the Crusaders coming to relieve Tiberias at the Battle of Hattin, 10 kilometres (6 miles) outside the city. 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.
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. 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. In 1561 her nephew Joseph Nasi, Lord of Tiberias, encouraged Jews to settle in Tiberias. 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. 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. No Christians or Jews were mentioned in the Ottoman registers of 1525, 1533, 1548, 1553 and 1572. The registers in 1596 recorded the population to consist of 50 Muslim families and 4 bachelors.
In 1624, when the Sultan recognized Fakhr-al-Din II as Lord of Arabistan (from Aleppo to the borders of Egypt), the Druze leader made Tiberias his capital. The 1660 destruction of Tiberias by the Druze resulted in abandonment of the city by its Jewish community, Unlike Tiberias, the nearby city of Safed recovered its destruction in 1660, and wasn't entirely abandoned, remaining an important Jewish center in the Galilee.
In the 1720s, the Bedouin ruler Dhaher al-Omar, fortified the town and signed an agreement with the neighboring Bedouin tribes to prevent looting. Accounts from that time tell of the great admiration people had for Dhaher, 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 (ruler) of Damascus. In the 1740, Tiberias was under the autonomous rule of Dhaher. Under Dhaher's patronage, Jewish families were encouraged to settle in Tiberias. He invited Chaim Abulafia of Smyrna to rebuild the Jewish community. The synagogue he built still stands.
Under instructions from the Ottoman Porte, Suleyman Pasha of Damascus laid siege to Tiberias in 1742, with the intention of eliminating Dhaher. However, the siege was unsuccessful. In the following year, Suleyman set out to repeat the attempt with even greater reinforcements, but he died en route.
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 who re-established it as a center for Jewish learning.
Six hundred people, including nearly 500 Jews, died when the town was devastated by the 1837 Galilee earthquake. An American expedition found Tiberias still in a state of disrepair in 1847/1848.
In 1842 there were about 4,000 inhabitants, around a third of whom were Jews, the rest being Turks and a few Christians. In 1850 Tiberias contained three synagogues which served the Sephardi community, which consisted of 80 families, and the Ashkenazim, all Poles and Russians, numbering about 100 families. It was reported that the Jewish inhabitants of Tiberias enjoyed more peace and security than those of Safed.
In 1863 it is recorded that the Christian and Muslim elements made up three-quarters of the population (2,000 to 4,000). 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 the rest Christians.
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.
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 Scottish 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 form the former shore.
According to British census data, the population of Tiberias was 4427 Jews, 2096 Muslims, 422 Christians, 5 others in 1922; 5381 Jews, 2645 Muslims, 565 Christians, 10 others in 1931; and 6000 Jews, 4540 Muslims, 760 Christians, 10 others in 1945.
Between the April 8–9, 1948, sporadic shooting broke out between the Jewish and Arab neighborhoods of Tiberias. On April 10, the Haganah launched a mortar barrage, killing some Arab residents. 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. 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. Widespread looting of the Arab areas by the Jewish population had to be suppressed by force by the Haganah and Jewish police, who killed or injured several looters.
The city of Tiberias became almost entirely Jewish since 1948. Many Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews settled in the city, following the Jewish exodus from Arab countries 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 towns. Over time, the city came to rely on tourism, becoming a major Galileean 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.
Tiberias consists of a small port on the shores of the Galilee lake for both fishing and tourist acitivities. Since 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 6 meters higher than today), with the full operational capacity of Israeli desalination facilities by 2014.
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.
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. During 1949, 606 houses, comprising almost all of the built-up area of the old quarter other than religious buildings, was demolished over the objections of local Jews who owned about half the houses. 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. 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.
A 2,000 year-old Roman theatre was discovered 15 meters below ground near Mount Bernike in the Tiberias hills. It seated over 7,000 people. Excavations on the shore unearthed a rare coin with the image of Jesus on one side and the Greek words "Jesus the Messiah King of Kings" on the other. It belongs to a series of coins issued in Constantinople to commemorate the First Millennium of Jesus' birth. Such coins have surfaced in neighboring countries, such as Turkey, but this is the first one found in Israel. It is believed to have been brought to Tiberias by Christian pilgrims.
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.
Geography and climate
Tiberias is located between the shore and the slopes of Sea of Galilee, between the elevation of -200 to 200 meters. Tiberias has a climate that borders a Hot-summer Mediterranean climate (koppen Csa) and a Hot Semi-arid climate (koppen BSh) with an annual precipitation of about 400 mm (15.75 in) The summers in Tiberias are very hot with an average maximum temperature of 36C (97F) and average minimum temperature of 21C (70F) in July and August. The winters are mild with temperatures ranging from 18C to 8C (65F and 46F). Extremes have ranged from 0 to 46C (32F to 115F).
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. See Galilee earthquake of 1837, Galilee earthquake of 363, and Near East earthquakes of 1759.
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. 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 200 metres below sea level, This is the lowest course in the world.
Twin towns — sister cities
Tiberias is twinned with:
|Climate chart (explanation)|
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- Harry Levin, 'Jerusalem Embattled - A diary of a city under siege.' Cassel, 1997. ISBN 0-304-33765-X. Page 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).
- Arnon Golan, The Politics of Wartime Demolition and Human Landscape Transformation, War in History, vol 9 (2002), pp431–445.
- http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1137820.html Old Tiberias synagogue to regain its former glory Haaretz
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- Jesus coins
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|Wikimedia Commons has media related to Tiberias.|
|Wikivoyage has a travel guide for Tiberias.|
- City council website (Hebrew) 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
- Nefesh B'Nefesh Community Guide for Tiveria-Tiberias, Israel