Misplaced Pages

#99900

107-566: According to 10th-century biblical exegete Saadia Gaon , it literally means "constellations," while others interpret the word as naming various concrete astronomic bodies - Saturn , the seven planets , the Hyades , the Northern and Southern Crowns , the Southern Ship ( Argo Navis ?) or Sirius . The word itself is a hapax legomenon (i.e., a word appearing only once in a text) of

214-675: A certain explanation is given in the Talmud , such as the Hebrew words בד בבד ‎ in Exo. 30:34 (explained in Taanit 7a as meaning "each spice pounded separately"), Saadia deviates from the rabbinic tradition in his Judeo-Arabic translation of the Pentateuch, in this case explaining its sense as "having them made of equal portions." In another apparent deviation from Talmudic tradition, where

321-462: A confrontation between the two strong-willed personalities, Exilarch David and Saadia. Nissim declared, however, that if David was determined to see Saadia in the position, then he would be ready to become the first of Saadia's followers. Under his leadership, the ancient academy of Sura founded by Abba Arikha entered upon a new period of brilliancy. This renaissance was cut short by a clash between Saadia and David, much as Nissim had predicted. In

428-557: A controversy arose concerning the Hebrew calendar , that threatened the entire Jewish community. Since Hillel II (around 359 CE), the calendar had been based on a series of rules (described more fully in Maimonides ' Code ) rather than on observation of the lunar phases . One of these rules required the date of Rosh Hashanah to be postponed if the calculated lunar conjunction occurred at noon or later. Rabbi Aaron ben Meïr , head of

535-460: A dispute that had fallen out between him and the Exilarch. During Saadia's absence, his post was occupied by Joseph ben Jacob , the grandson of Natronai ben Hilai . At length, Saadia was reconciled with the Exilarch and returned to serve in his former position, although Joseph ben Jacob also remained serving in his capacity as Gaon. In 922, six years before Saadia was appointed Gaon of Babylonia,

642-650: A dispute with the Pasha of Damascus. 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. Under Zahir's patronage, Jewish families were encouraged to settle in Tiberias. He invited Rabbi Chaim Abulafia of Smyrna to rebuild

749-538: 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. 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", allowing the Jewish leadership to resettle there from

856-641: 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 ". Over time,

963-557: 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. After

1070-452: A member of Sura Academy . Saadia, in Sefer ha-Galui , stresses his Jewish lineage, claiming to belong to the noble family of Shelah , son of Judah , and counting among his ancestors Hanina ben Dosa , the famous ascetic of the first century. Saadia expressed this claim by calling his son Dosa ; this son later served as gaon of Sura Academy from 1012–1018. Regarding Joseph, Saadia's father,

1177-639: 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 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

SECTION 10

#1732776726100

1284-537: A multi-cultural trading center. The city slipped in importance following several earthquakes, foreign incursions, and after the Mamluks turned Safed into the capital of Galilee . The city was greatly damaged by an earthquake in 1837 , after which it was rebuilt, and it grew steadily following the Zionist Aliyah in the 1880s. In early modern times, Tiberias was a mixed city ; under British rule it had

1391-614: A new ultra-Orthodox neighborhood, Kiryat Sanz, on a slope on the western side of the Kinneret. 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. Among today's population of Jews, many are Mizrahi and Sephardic . The yearly growth rate of its population

1498-544: A probate case, Saadia refused to sign a verdict of the exilarch, which he thought unjust, although the Gaon of Pumbedita had subscribed to it. When the son of the exilarch threatened Saadia with violence to secure his compliance and was roughly handled by Saadia's servant, open war broke out between the exilarch and the gaon. Each excommunicated the other, declaring that he deposed his opponent from office. David ben Zakkai appointed Joseph ben Jacob Gaon of Sura and Saadia conferred

1605-595: A product of the Arabization of a large portion of Judaism, it served for centuries as a potent factor in the impregnation of the Jewish spirit with Arabic culture, so that, in this respect, it may take its place beside the Greek Bible-translation of antiquity and the German translation of the Pentateuch by Moses Mendelssohn. As a means of popular religious enlightenment, Saadia's translation presented

1712-611: A small town, long and narrow. He also describes the "hot salt springs, over which they have built Hammams which use no fuel." In 1265 the Crusaders were driven from the city by the Egyptian Mamluks , who ruled Tiberias until the Ottoman conquest in 1516. 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

1819-535: A statement made by Abraham ibn Daud and doubtless derived from Saadia's son Dosa, Saadia himself died in Babylonia at Sura in 942, at the age of sixty, of "black gall" (melancholia), repeated illnesses having undermined his health. An anecdote is reported in Sefer Hasidim about Saadia ben Yosef "the sage," in which he ends a dispute between a servant who claims to be the heir of his deceased master and

1926-638: A statement of the ancient Jewish gaon Aaron ben Meïr has been preserved saying that he was compelled to leave Egypt and died in Jaffa , probably during Saadia's prolonged residence in the Holy Land . The usual nisba al-Fayyumi refers to Saadia's native place, the Fayyum , which is located in Middle Egypt ; in Hebrew, it is often given as Pitomi , derived from a contemporary identification of Fayum with

2033-627: A third of whom were Jews, the rest being Muslims and a few Christians. 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. In 1863, it was recorded that the Christian and Muslim elements made up three-quarters of

2140-660: 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 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." Muslim commanders and their cavalry have reportedly settled in

2247-503: 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 . In the Ottoman registers of 1525, 1533, 1548, 1553, and 1572 all the residents were Muslims . The registers in 1596 recorded the population to consist of 50 families and four bachelors, all Muslim. In 1780, there were about 4,000 inhabitants, two thirds being Jews. In 1842, there were about 3,900 inhabitants, around

SECTION 20

#1732776726100

2354-674: Is a bird that harbingers rain in the Levant (around October), for which reason the Talmud says: "When raḥam arrives, mercy ( raḥamīm ) comes into the world." He wrote both in Hebrew and in Arabic a work, now known only from a few fragments, entitled "Sefer ha-Galui" (Arabic title, "Kitab al-Ṭarid"), in which he emphasized with great but justifiable pride the services which he had rendered, especially in his opposition to heresy. The fourteen years which Saadia spent in Babylonia did not interrupt his literary activity. His principal philosophical work

2461-607: 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

2568-628: Is described, and the process described in Sefer Yetzirah (matter formed by speech). The cosmogony of Sefer Yetzirah is even omitted from the discussion of creation in his magnum opus "Kitab al-Amanat wal-I'tiḳadat." Concerning the supposed attribution of the book to the patriarch Abraham , he allows that the ideas it contains might be ancient. Nonetheless, he clearly considered the work worthy of deep study and echoes of Sefer Yetzirah's cosmogony do appear in "Kitab al-Amanat wal-I'tiḳadat" when Saadia discusses his theory of prophecy. Saadia translated

2675-503: Is the first important rabbinic figure to write extensively in Judeo-Arabic . Known for his works on Hebrew linguistics , halakha , and Jewish philosophy , he was a practitioner of the philosophical school known as the " Jewish Kalam ". In this capacity, his philosophical work The Book of Beliefs and Opinions represents the first systematic attempt to integrate Jewish theology with components of ancient Greek philosophy . Saadia

2782-674: Is whether Saadia applied this principle in his other translations. Re'em (Hebrew: ראם , romanized:  rəʾēm ), as in Deuteronomy 33:17 , improperly translated as "unicorn" in some English translations, is a word that is now used in Modern Hebrew to represent the " oryx ." However, Saadia understood the same word to mean " rhinoceros " and writes there the Judeo-Arabic word for the creature ( Judeo-Arabic : אלכרכדאן , romanized:  al-karkadann ). He interprets

2889-573: 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 . In 614, Tiberias was the site where, during the final Jewish revolt against the Byzantine Empire , parts of the Jewish population supported

2996-563: 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. There were 5,381 Jews, 2,645 Muslims, 565 Christians and ten others in the 1931 census . By 1945, the population had increased to 6,000 Jews, 4,540 Muslims, 760 Christians with ten others. During the 1948 Arab-Israeli War , Palestinian Arab residents of Tiberias besieged its Jewish quarter. Haganah troops then successfully attacked

3103-610: The Codex Cairensis and the Aleppo Codex were written in Tiberias as well as the Tiberian vocalization was devised here. 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

3210-522: The Hebrew Bible . In Yiddish , the term mazalot came to be used in the sense of "astrology" in general, surviving in the expression " mazel tov ," meaning "good fortune." The appearance of the word in the Book of Job appears in the context of various astronomical phenomena: The related word mazalot (מַּזָּלוֹת) in 2 Kings may have a different meaning, and is often translated differently, with

3317-527: The Jews of Yemen has been exceptionally great, as many of Saadia's extant works were preserved by the community and used extensively by them. The basis for the Yemenite tiklāl is founded upon the prayer format edited originally by Saadia. The Yemenite Jewish community also adopted thirteen penitential verse written by Saadia for Yom Kippur , as well as the liturgical poems composed by him for Hoshana Rabbah ,

Mazzaroth - Misplaced Pages Continue

3424-717: 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. In the late 12th century Tiberias' Jewish community numbered 50 Jewish families, headed by rabbis, and at that time

3531-550: The Latin Vulgate renders the word as "luciferum", there are alternative English translations as "morning star" (CVB, TRC, furthermore Luther 's 1545 German translation as Morgenstern also means "morning star" ; (DRA); "Venus" (MSG); "Crown season" (NJB); "sequence of seasons" (NLT); "Lucifer, 'that is, dai sterre (day star)" ( Wycliffe's Bible ). WES gives "stars in the southern signs". Translators' Notes given in individual translations are: The Targum renders

3638-618: The Palestinian Gaonate (then located in Ramla ), claimed a tradition according to which the cutoff point was 642/1080 of an hour (approximately 35 minutes) after noon. In that particular year, this change would result in a two-day schism with the major Jewish communities in Babylonia: according to Ben Meir the first day of Passover would be on a Sunday, while according to the generally accepted rule it would be on Tuesday. Saadia

3745-588: The Papal States , but when the Ottomans and the Republic of Venice went to war, the plan was abandoned. 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 . In 1624, when

3852-632: 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

3959-665: 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

4066-459: The Roman Empire , the city was known by its Koine Greek name Τιβεριάς ( Tiberiás , Greek : Τιβεριάδα , romanized :  Tiveriáda ). 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

4173-559: 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. 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

4280-479: The Via Maris , and the city was also known for its mat industry. In 1033 Tiberias was again destroyed by an earthquake . A further earthquake in 1066 toppled the great mosque. 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

4387-538: 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

Mazzaroth - Misplaced Pages Continue

4494-646: The zamer (Hebrew: זָֽמֶר , romanized:  zāmer ) in Deuteronomy 14:5 as giraffe . In Saadia's translation and commentary on the Book of Psalms ( Kitāb al-Tasābiḥ ), he has done what no other medieval writer has done before him, bringing down a biblical exegesis and noting where the verse is to be read as a rhetorical question, and where the verse itself derides the question with good humor: הַר אֱלהִים הַר בָּשָׁן. הַר גַּבְנֻנִּים הַר בָּשָׁן לָמָּה תְּרַצְדוּן הָרִים גַּבְנֻנִּים הָהָר חָמַד אֱלהִים לְשִׁבְתּוֹ. אַף יי' יִשְׁכּן לָנֶצַח ‎ Is

4601-502: The 1970s. 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 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 . In 1959, during Wadi Salib riots , the " Union des Nords-africains led by David Ben Haroush, organised

4708-464: The Arab section of the city, and British troops evacuated the Arab residents upon their request. Some fled in the wake of news of the Deir Yassin massacre . The entire Arab population of the city was removed in 1948 by the British and partly because of Haganah decision. After the war had ended, a large number of Jewish immigrants to Israel settled in Tiberias. Today almost all of the population

4815-592: The Bible whenever he thought that they broke-away from the plain and ordinary meaning of the text. Saadia adopts in principle the method of the Sages that even the episodic-like parts of the Bible (e.g. story of Abraham and Sarah, the selling of Joseph, etc.) that do not contain commandments have a moral lesson to tell. In some instances, Saadia's biblical translations reflect his own rationale of difficult Hebrew words based on their lexical root, and he will, at times, reject

4922-581: The Biblical Pithom , an identification found in Saadia's works. At the age of 20, Saadia began composing his first great work, the Hebrew dictionary called the Agron . At 23, he composed a polemic against the followers of Anan ben David , particularly Solomon ben Yeruham, thus beginning the activity which was to prove important in opposition to Karaite Judaism in defense of Rabbinic Judaism . In

5029-416: The Humash and some of the other books of the Hebrew Bible into Judeo-Arabic, adding a Judeo-Arabic commentary. Saadia translated Megillat Antiochus into Judeo-Arabic and wrote an introduction. Tiberias Tiberias ( / t aɪ ˈ b ɪər i ə s / ty- BEER -ee-əs ; Hebrew : טְבֶרְיָה , Ṭəḇeryā ; Arabic : طبريا , romanized :  Ṭabariyyā ) is an Israeli city on

5136-451: The Jewish community. The synagogue he built still stands today, located in the Court of the Jews. 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. An essay written by Rabbi Joseph Schwarz in 1850 noted that "Tiberias Jews suffered

5243-430: 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. Tiberias flourished during the early Islamic period , when it served as the capital of Jund al-Urdunn and became

5350-399: 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. It was to be its final meeting place before its disbanding in 425 CE. When Johanan bar Nappaha (d. 279) settled in Tiberias,

5457-486: 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 and rebuild the city. 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

SECTION 50

#1732776726100

5564-410: The Pentateuch, not only an exact interpretation of the text, but also a refutation of the cavils which the heretics raised against it. Further, it set forth the bases of the commandments of reason and the characterization of the commandments of revelation; in the case of the former the author appealed to philosophical speculation; of the latter, naturally, to tradition. The position assigned to Saadia in

5671-428: The Scriptures even to the unlearned in a rational form which aimed at the greatest possible degree of clarity and consistency. His system of hermeneutics was not limited to the exegesis of individual passages, but treated also each book of the Bible as a whole, and showed the connection of its various portions with one another. The commentary contained, as is stated in the author's own introduction to his translation of

5778-427: The Sultan recognized Fakhr-al-Din II as Lord of Arabistan (from Aleppo to the borders of Egypt), 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 from its destruction , and was not entirely abandoned, remaining an important Jewish center in Galilee. In the 1720s, the Arab ruler Zahir al-Umar , of

5885-437: The Talmud ( Hullin 63a) names a biblical species of fowl (Leviticus 11:18) known as raḥam ( Hebrew : רחם ) and says that it is the colorful European bee-eater called the sheraqraq , Saadia in his Judeo-Arabic translation of the Humash writes that raḥam is the Egyptian vulture based on the phonetic similarity of its Arabic name with the Hebrew. The sheraqraq ( Arabic : شقراق , romanized :  šiqirrāq )

5992-433: The assertions of Ben Meïr regarding the calendar and helped to avert from the Jewish community the perils of schism. His dispute with Ben Meir was an important factor in his call to Sura in 928. The Exilarch insisted on appointing him as Gaon "head of the academy" despite the weight of precedent (no foreigner had ever served as Gaon before) and against the advice of the aged Nissim Nahrwani, a Resh Kallah at Sura, who feared

6099-545: 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

6206-446: 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. Tiberias' 13 synagogues served the spiritual needs of a growing Jewish population. Tombs of famous rabbis Yohanan ben Zakkai , Akiva and Maimonides are also located in the city. In the 6th century Tiberias was still the seat of Jewish religious learning. In light of this,

6313-411: 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. 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

6420-445: The city following the battle of Fahl and the fall of Damascus . Since 636 CE, Tiberias served as the regional capital, until Beit She'an 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

6527-425: The city. 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. 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 . The first modern spa

SECTION 60

#1732776726100

6634-419: 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. Yakut , writing in the 1220s, described Tiberias as

6741-471: The content of this esoteric work by the light of philosophy and scientific knowledge, especially by a system of Hebrew phonology which he himself had founded. He did not permit himself in this commentary to be influenced by the theological speculations of the Kalam , which are so important in his main works. In introducing Sefer Yetzirah's theory of creation he makes a distinction between the Biblical account of creation ex nihilo , in which no process of creation

6848-445: The definitive trait of " a cock girded about the loins " within Proverbs 30:31 ( Douay–Rheims Bible ) as "the honesty of their behavior and their success", rather than the aesthetic interpretations of so many others, thus identifying a spiritual purpose of a religious vessel within that religious and spiritual instilling schema of purpose and use. In his commentary on the Sefer Yetzirah , Saadia sought to render lucid and intelligible

6955-463: The earlier Targum for his own understanding. For example, in Psalm 16:4, Saadia retracts from the Targum (translated): "They will multiply their goddesses ( Hebrew : עַצְּבוֹתָם ); they have hastened after some other thing; I shall not pour out their libations of blood, neither shall I take-up their names upon my lips," writing instead: "They will multiply their revenues (Judeo-Arabic:אכסאבהם); they have hastened after some other thing," etc. Even where

7062-519: The exilarchate on David's brother Hasan (Josiah; 930). Hasan was forced to flee and died in exile in Greater Khorasan , and the strife that divided Babylonian Judaism continued. Saadia was attacked by the exilarch and his chief adherent, the young but learned Aaron ibn Sargado (later Gaon of Pumbedita, 943-960), in Hebrew pamphlets. Fragments of these pamphlets show a hatred on the part of the exilarch and his partisans that did not shrink from scandal. Saadia did not fail to reply. Saadia's influence upon

7169-436: 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

7276-429: The first months of 1949. 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. 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

7383-399: The former shore. In October 1938, Arab militants murdered 19 Jews in Tiberias during the 1936–39 Arab revolt in Palestine . 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. On 10 April, the Haganah launched

7490-484: The hill of God the hill of Bashan? A hunchback mountain is the hill of Bashan! (Meaning, it is unfit for God's Divine Presence). Why leap ye, ye hunchback mountains? That mountain wherein God desires to dwell (i.e. Mount Moriah in Jerusalem), even the Lord shall dwell [therein] forever more. Saadia's approach to rabbinic exegesis and midrashic literature was ambivalent. Although he adopted them in his liturgies, he did not recoil from denouncing them in his commentary on

7597-531: The hot springs for three days. "Afterwards they dip in another spring which is cold, whereupon ... they become cured." 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 . By this time, Tiberias had experienced its last period of prosperity; dried fruit, oil, and wine had been exported to Cairo via

7704-466: The least" during an Arab rebellion which took place in 1834. Around 600 people, including nearly 500 Jews, died when the town was devastated by the 1837 Galilee earthquake . An American expedition reported that Tiberias was still in a state of disrepair in 1847/1848. 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

7811-884: The linkage of this word to the planets or the zodiac being more widely held (in Kabbalistic astrology , mazalot was also used for astrology in general, and the word may be related to the Assyrian manzaltu , "station"): The Septuagint , however, uses the transliteration mazzaroth (μαζουρωθ) again at this point. The word is traditionally (following LXX ) left untranslated (ABC, ACV, AKJ, ASV, BBE, BIB, ESV, GNV, HNV, JPS, K21, KJG, KJR, KJV, NAB, NKJ, NRS, NWT, RSV, RWB, TMB, TNK, UPD, WEB, YLT, LXE, ZIK), but some modern English Bible translations render it as "zodiac" (AMP, CJB, EMP, LEE); others have "constellations" (CJB, CSB, DBY, NET, ERV, GWN, LEE, LIT, MKJ, NAS, NAU, NIB, NIV, TNV, WEV) or "stars" (CEV, NCB, NIR, NLV, TEV). But as

7918-408: The man's true son and heir by having them both draw blood into separate vessels. He then took a bone from the deceased man and placed it into each of the cups. The bone in the cup of the true heir absorbed the blood, while the servant's blood was not absorbed in the bone. Using this as genetic proof of the son's true inheritance, Saadia had the servant return the man's property to his son. Saadia Gaon

8025-566: 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 Muqaddasi, those who suffered from scab or ulcers, and other such diseases came to Tiberias to bathe in

8132-543: 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 . Both

8239-532: The north-western part of the lake. In 61 CE Herod Agrippa II annexed the city to his kingdom whose capital was Caesarea Philippi . 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. Eventually, the rebels were expelled from Tiberias, and while most other cities in

8346-469: The oldest list of Hebrew grammarians, which is contained in the introduction to Abraham ibn Ezra 's "Moznayim," has not been challenged even by the latest historical investigations. Here, too, he was the first; his grammatical work, now lost, gave an inspiration to further studies, which attained their most brilliant and lasting results in Spain , and he created in part the categories and rules along whose lines

8453-434: The population (2,000 to 4,000). 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. 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 400 Christians. In the 1922 census of Palestine conducted by

8560-533: The provinces of Judaea, Galilee and Idumea were razed, Tiberias was spared this fate because its inhabitants had decided not to fight against Rome. It became a mixed city after the fall of Jerusalem in 70 CE; with Judea subdued, the surviving southern Jewish population migrated to Galilee. 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

8667-410: The residents of Tiberias. The Arab population of Tiberias (6,000 residents or 47.5% of the population) was evacuated by the British forces on 18 April 1948. 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. On 30 December 1948, when David Ben-Gurion was staying in Tiberias, James Grover McDonald ,

8774-502: The same year, he left Egypt and moved to Palestine . In 921, Saadia triumphed over Gaon Aaron ben Meïr over the latter's introduction of a new triennial cycle of Torah reading that also changed the dates of Passover and Rosh Hashanah . Later, one of Saadia's chief disputants was the Karaite by the name of Abu al-Surri ben Zuṭa, who is referred to by Abraham ibn Ezra , in his commentary on Exodus 21:24 and Leviticus 23:15 ). In

8881-778: The seventh day of Sukkot . Saadia's Judeo-Arabic translation of the Pentateuch, the Tafsir , was copied by the Yemenite Jews in nearly all their handwritten codices. They originally studied Saadia's major work of philosophy, Beliefs and Opinions , in its original Judeo-Arabic, although by the early 20th-century, only fragments survived. As much as Saadia's Judeo-Arabic translation of the Torah ( Tafsīr ) has brought relief and succour to Jews living in Arabic-speaking countries, his identification of places, fauna and flora, and

8988-501: 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 . 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. The city

9095-546: 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

9202-420: 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. 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 . In Talmudic times, the Jews still referred to it by this name. Tiberias

9309-516: The stones of the priestly breastplate , has found him at variance with some scholars. Abraham ibn Ezra , in his commentary on the Torah, wrote scathing remarks on Saadia's commentary, saying: "He doesn't have an oral tradition […] perhaps he has a vision in a dream, while he has already erred with respect to certain places […]; therefore, we will not rely on his dreams." However, Saadia assures his readers elsewhere that when he rendered translations for

9416-551: The style of the Bible. He was likewise one of the founders of comparative philology, not only through his brief "Book of Seventy Words," already mentioned, but especially through his explanation of the Hebrew vocabulary by the Arabic, particularly in the case of the favorite translation of Biblical words by Arabic terms having the same sound. Saadia's works were the inspiration and basis for later Jewish writers, such as Berachyah in his encyclopedic philosophical work Sefer Hahibbur (The Book of Compilation). Saadia likewise identifies

9523-542: The translation as "guards of the mazalot". Rashi clarifies mazzarot as "all the gates of the mazalot". Lofts (2010) connects Mazareus (part of the name of the Sethian figure Yesseus Mazareus Yessedekeus ) with Mazzaroth. Saadia Gaon Saʿadia ben Yosef Gaon (882/892 – 942) was a prominent rabbi , gaon , Jewish philosopher, and exegete who was active in the Abbasid Caliphate . Saadia

9630-561: The twenty-odd unclean fowl mentioned in the Hebrew Bible , ( Leviticus 11:13–19; Deuteronomy 14:12–18) his translation was based on an oral tradition received by him. Saadia's method of conveying names for the fowls based on what he had received by way of an oral tradition prompted him to add in his defense: "Every detail about them, had one of them merely come unto us [for identification], we would not have been able to identify it for certain, much less recognize their related kinds." The question often asked by scholars now

9737-488: 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

9844-459: The war ended, the new Israeli authorities destroyed the Old City of Tiberias. 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

9951-484: 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 (300 feet) long by 78 metres (256 feet) 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

10058-464: The western shore of the Sea of Galilee . 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 . In 2022, it had a population of 48,472. Tiberias was founded around 20 CE by Herod Antipas and was named after Roman emperor Tiberius . It became a major political and religious hub of

10165-457: The year 928, at the age of thirty-six (variant: forty-six), David ben Zakkai , the Exilarch or head of Babylonian Jewry, petitioned Saadia to assume the honorary title of gaon, where he was appointed that same year the Gaon of Sura Academy at Mata Mehasya , a position which he held for 14 years until his death. After only two years of teaching, Saadia recused himself from teaching because of

10272-514: 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. As the Ottoman Empire expanded along the southern Mediterranean coast under Sultan Selim I ,

10379-418: Was a pioneer in the fields in which he toiled. The foremost object of his work was the Bible; his importance is due primarily to his establishment of a new school of Biblical exegesis characterized by a rational investigation of the contents of the Bible and a scientific knowledge of the language of the holy text. Saadia's Arabic translation of the Torah is of importance for the history of civilization; itself

10486-886: Was also very active in opposition to Karaite Judaism in defense of Rabbinic Judaism . Saadia was born in Dilāẓ in the Faiyum in Middle Egypt in 892. He immigrated to ancient Israel (in the Abbasid province of Bilad Al-Sham) in 915 at the age of 23, where he studied in Tiberias under the scholar Abu Kathir Yaḥya al-Katib (known as Eli ben Yehudah ha-Nazir in Hebrew), a Jewish mutakallim or theologian also mentioned by ibn Ḥazm . In 926, Saadia settled permanently in Lower Mesopotamia , known to Jews as " Babylonia ", where he became

10593-544: 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. 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. This name also appears in his work The Jewish War . Under

10700-414: Was built in 1929. 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

10807-401: Was completed in 933; and four years later, through Ibn Sargado's father-in-law, Bishr ben Aaron, the two enemies were reconciled. Saadia was reinstated in his office; but he held it for only five more years. David b. Zakkai died before him (c. 940), being followed a few months later by the exilarch's son Judah, while David's young grandson was nobly protected by Saadia as by a father. According to

10914-486: Was developed the grammatical study of the Hebrew language. His dictionary, primitive and merely practical as it was, became the foundation of Hebrew lexicography; and the name "Agron" (literally, "collection"), which he chose and doubtless created, was long used as a designation for Hebrew lexicons, especially by the Karaites. The very categories of rhetoric, as they were found among the Arabs, were first applied by Saadia to

11021-691: 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 . Herod Antipas made it the capital of his realm in Galilee and named it after the Roman emperor Tiberius . The city was built in immediate proximity to a spa which had developed around seventeen natural mineral hot springs, Hammat Tiberias . Tiberias

11128-468: 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 . Tiberias is mentioned in John 6:23 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

11235-443: 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 6 metres (20 feet) 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. In 2012, plans were announced for

11342-627: Was in Aleppo , on his way from the East, when he learned of Ben Meïr's regulation of the Jewish calendar. Saadia addressed a warning to him, and in Mesopotamia, he placed his knowledge and pen at the disposal of the exilarch David ben Zakkai and the scholars of the academies, adding his letters to those sent by them to the communities of the Jewish diaspora (922). In Babylonia, he wrote his Sefer haMo'adim , or "Book of Festivals ," in which he refuted

11449-536: 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 , 10 kilometres (6 miles) outside

#99900