Tiberias from the walls. Safed in the distance. David Roberts. 1855

Tiberias from the walls. Safed in the distance

English: This Sketch, in addition to the view of the City, gives, in the distance, crowning
a lofty hill, the City of Safed. The land is peculiarly liable to earthquakes ; Safed
was fearfully visited in the middle of the last century (1759); but a still heavier
visitation befell it in 1837. On the first day of the year, a succession of the most
violent shocks rent the earth in many places, and almost instantly overthrew the
chief part of the dwellings. The loss of life was dreadful, though perhaps too largely
calculated at five thousand ; four-fifths of the sufferers were Jews.
Safed is venerated as one of the four holy cities of Judea; the others being
Jerusalem, Hebron, and Tiberias. Its prominent position led to its being fortified
at an early period. By some authorities it has been supposed to occupy the site
of Bethulia, and by others, that of Kitron, a city of Zebulon. But, nothing is
distinctly known of the City before the Crusades, when it afforded shelter to Baldwin III.
after his defeat at El-Huleh, in 1157. Safed is, however, chiefly celebrated for
its Rabbinical school, one of the most distinguished among the Jews, and for many
centuries it has been thus regarded; but the period of its scholastic foundation is not
certain, it was probably long after the conquest by Bibars. Its palmy days were, however,
during the sixteenth century, when the most eminent of the Rabbins lived and taught
there; and at this early period (1578) it had an established printing-office, which,
even as late as 1833, still gave regular employment to a considerable number of
persons. 2 It has been supposed, that Safed was the " City set on a Hill," to which
allusion is made in the Sermon on the Mount, 3 and that the Hill itself was the

Mount of the Transfiguration.* But both suppositions are unsustained by evidence.