....Between the 7th and 11th centuries,
Masoretes (Jewish scribes) in the Galilee and Jerusalem were active in compiling a system of pronunciation and grammatical guides of the Hebrew language. They authorised the division of the Jewish
Tanakh, known as the
Masoretic Text, which is regarded as authoritative till today.
[88]
Gradual revival with increased immigration (1211–1517)
Main article:
Pre-Zionist Aliyah
The Crusader rule over Palestine had taken its toll on the Jews. Relief came in 1187 when
Ayyubid Sultan
Saladin defeated the Crusaders in the
Battle of Hattin, taking Jerusalem and most of Palestine. (A Crusader state centred round
Acre survived in weakened form for another century.) In time, Saladin issued a proclamation inviting all Jews to return and settle in Jerusalem,
[95]and according to
Judah al-Harizi, they did: "From the day the Arabs took Jerusalem, the Israelites inhabited it."
[96] al-Harizi compared Saladins decree allowing Jews to re-establish themselves in Jerusalem to the one issued by the Persian Cyrus the Great over 1,600 years earlier.
[97]
In 1211, the Jewish community in the country was strengthened by the arrival of a group headed by over 300 rabbis from France and England,[98] among them Rabbi
Samson ben Abraham of Sens.
[99] The motivation of European Jews to emigrate to the Holyland in the 13th-century possibly lay in persecution,
[100] economic hardship, messianic expectations or the desire to fulfill the commandments specific to the land of Israel.
[101] In 1217, Spanish pilgrim
Judah al-Harizi found the sight of the non-Jewish structures on the
Temple Mount profoundly disturbing: "What torment to see our holy courts converted into an alien temple!" he wrote.
[102] Nachmanides, the 13th-century Spanish rabbi and recognised leader of Jewry greatly praised the land of Israel and viewed its settlement as a positive commandment incumbent on all Jews. He wrote "If the gentiles wish to make peace, we shall make peace and leave them on clear terms; but as for the land, we shall not leave it in their hands, nor in the hands of any nation, not in any generation."
[103] .... Wishing to re-establish a strong Jewish presence in the holy city, he brought a Torah scroll from
Nablus and founded a
synagogue. Nahmanides later settled at
Acre, where he headed a yeshiva together with
Yechiel of Paris who had
emigrated to Acre in 1260, along with his son and a large group of followers.
[104][105] Upon arrival, he had established the
Beth Midrash ha-Gadol d'Paris Talmudic academy where one of the greatest
Karaite authorities, Aaron ben Joseph the Elder, was said to have attended.
[106]
In 1260, control passed to the Egyptian
Mamluks and until 1291 Palestine became the
frontier between Mongol invaders (
occasional Crusader allies). The conflict impoverished the country and severely reduced the population. Sultan
Qutuz of Egypt eventually defeated the Mongols in the
Battle of Ain Jalut (near
Ein Harod) and his successor (and assassin),
Baibars, eliminated the last Crusader
Kingdom of Acre in 1291, thereby ending the Crusader presence.
In 1266 the Mamluk Sultan
Baybars converted the
Cave of the Patriarchs in
Hebron into an exclusive Islamic sanctuary and banned Christians and Jews from entering, which previously would be able to enter it for a fee. The ban remained in place until
Israel took control of the building in 1967.
[107][108] In 1286, leader of German Jewry
Meir of Rothenburg, was imprisoned by
Rudolf I for attempting to lead a large group of Jews hoping to settle in Palestine.
[109] Exiled from France in 1306,
Ishtori Haparchi (d. 1355) arrived in Palestine and settled
Bet She'an in 1313. Over the next seven years he compiled an informative geographical account of the land in which he attempts to identify biblical and talmudic era locations.
[110] Two other noted Spanish kabbalists, Hananel ibn Askara and
Shem Tov ibn Gaon, emigrated to Safed around this time.
[111]
During the tolerant reign of
Nassir Mahomet (1299–1341) Jewish pilgrims from Egypt and Syria were able to spend the festivals in Jerusalem, which had a large Jewish community.
[111] Many of the Jerusalem Jews occupied themselves with study of the codes and the
kabbalah. Others were artisans, merchants, calligraphers or physicians.
[111] The vibrant community of Hebron engaged in weaving, dyeing and glassware manufacturing; others where shepherds.
[111]
...
In 1470, Isaac b. Meir Latif arrived from
Ancona and counted 150 Jewish families in Jerusalem.
[113] In 1473, the authorities closed down the Nachmanides Synagogue after part of it had collapsed in a heavy rainstorm. A year later, after an appealing to Sultan
Qaitbay, the Jews were given permission to repair it. The Muslims of the adjoining mosque however contested the verdict and for two days, proceeded to demolish the synagogue completely. The vandals were punished, but the synagogue was only rebuilt 50 years later in 1523.
[116]
1481 saw Italian Joseph Mantabia being appointed
dayyan in Jerusalem.
[117] A few years later in 1488, Italian commentator and spiritual leader of Jewry,
Obadiah ben Abraham arrived in Jerusalem. He found the city forsaken holding about seventy poor Jewish families.
[118]
By 1495, there were 200 families. Obadiah, a dynamic and erudite leader, had begun the rejuvenation of Jerusalem's Jewish community. This, despite the fact many refugess from the
Spanish and Portuguese expulsion of 1492-97 stayed away worried about the lawlessness of Mamulk rule.
[119] An anonymous letter of the time lamented: "In all these lands there is no judgement and no judge, especially for the Jews against Arabs."
[119] Mass immigration would start after the Turks conquered the region in 1517.
[119] Yet in Safed, the situation fared better.
Thanks to
Joseph Saragossi who had arrived in the closing years of the 15th century,
Safed and its environs had developed into the largest concentration of Jews in Palestine. With the help of the Sephardic immigration from Spain, the Jewish population had increased to 10,000 by the early 16th century. [120]
Twenty-five years earlier Joseph Mantabia had counted just 300 families in and around Safed.
[121] The first record of Jews at Safed was provided by French explorer Samuel ben Samson 300 years earlier in 1210 when he found only 50 Jews in residence.
[121] At the beginning of the 17th century, Safed was to boast eighteen talmudical colleges and twenty-one synagogues.
[122]
Records cite at least 30 Jewish urban and rural communities in the country at the Opening of the 16th century.
Modern history (1517–present)
Growth and stability under Ottoman rule (1517–1917)
Main articles:
Old Yishuv and
Ottoman Jews
Palestine was conquered by Turkish Sultan
Selim II in 1516–17, and became part of the
province of Syria for the next four centuries.
.....The 16th-century nevertheless saw a Resurgence of Jewish life in Palestine. Palestinian rabbis were instrumental producing a universally accepted manual of Jewish law and some of the most beautiful liturgical poems. Much of this activity occurred at
Safed which had become a spiritual centre, a haven for mystics.
Joseph Karo's comprehensive guide to Jewish law, the
Shulchan Aruch, was considered so authoritative that the variant customs of German-Polish Jewry were merely added as supplement glosses.
[125] Some of the most celebrated hymns were written in Safed by poets such as
Israel Najara and
Solomon Alkabetz.
[126]
The town was also a centre of Jewish mysticism, notable kabbalists included
Moses Cordovero and the German-born Naphtali Hertz ben Jacob Elhanan.
[127][128][129] A new method of understanding the
kabbalah was developed by Palestinian mystic
Isaac Luria, and espoused by his student
Chaim Vital. In Safed, the Jews developed a number of branches of trade, especially in grain, spices, textiles and dyeing.
In 1577, a Hebrew printing press was established in Safed. The 8,000 or 10,000 Jews in Safed in 1555 grew to 20,000 or 30,000 by the end of the century.
In around 1563, Joseph Nasi secured permission from Sultan Selim II to acquire Tiberias and seven surrounding villages to create a Jewish city-state.[130] He hoped that large numbers of Jewish refugees and Marranos would settle there, free from fear and oppression; indeed, the persecuted Jews of Cori, Italy, numbering about 200 souls, decided to emigrate to Tiberias.
[131][132] Nasi had the walls of the town rebuilt by 1564 and attempted to turn it into a self-sufficient textile manufacturing center by planting
mulberry trees for the cultivation of
silk. Nevertheless, a number of factors during the following years contributed to the plan's ultimate failure. Nasi's aunt, Doña
Gracia Mendes Nasi supported a
yeshiva in the town for many years until her death in 1569.
[133]
In 1567, a Yemenite scholar and Rabbi,
Zechariah Dhahiri, visited
Safed and wrote of his experiences in a book entitled
Sefer Ha-Musar. His vivid
descriptions of the town Safed and of
Rabbi Joseph Karo's
yeshiva are of primary importance to historians, seeing that they are a first-hand account of these places, and the only extant account which describes the
yeshiva of the great Sephardic Rabbi,
Joseph Karo.
[134]
In 1576, the Jewish community of Safed faced an expulsion order: 1,000 prosperous families were to be deported to Cyprus, "for the good of the said island", with another 500 the following year.
[135] The order was later rescinded due to the realisation of the financial gains of Jewish rental income.
[136] In 1586, the Jews of Istanbul agreed to build a fortified
khan to provide a refuge for Safed's Jews against "night bandits and armed thieves."
[135]
In 1569, the
Radbaz moved to Jerusalem, but soon moved to Safed to escape the high taxes imposed on Jews by the authorities.
In 1610, the
Yochanan ben Zakai Synagogue in Jerusalem was completed.
[137] It became the main synagogue of the Sephardic Jews, the place where their chief rabbi was invested. The adjacent study hall which had been added by 1625 later became the
Synagogue of Elijah the Prophet.
[137]
In the 1648–1654
Khmelnytsky Uprising in Ukraine over 100,000 Jews were massacred, leading to some migration to Israel. In 1660 (or 1662), the majorly Jewish towns of
Safed and
Tiberias are
destroyed by the
Druze, following a power struggle in
Galilee.
[138][139][140][141][142][143][144] In 1665, the events surrounding the arrival of the self-proclaimed Messiah
Sabbatai Zevi to Jerusalem, causes a massacre of the Jews in Jerusalem.