Four Holy Cities

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Nineteenth-century out-of scale map of the four cities: Jerusalem at top right, Hebron beneath it, the Jordan River running top to bottom, Safed at top left, and Tiberias beneath it. Four holy cities plaque.jpg
Nineteenth-century out-of scale map of the four cities: Jerusalem at top right, Hebron beneath it, the Jordan River running top to bottom, Safed at top left, and Tiberias beneath it.

The Four Holy Cities of Judaism are the cities of Jerusalem, Hebron, Safed and Tiberias, which were the four main centers of Jewish life after the Ottoman conquest of Palestine. [1]

Contents

According to the 1906 Jewish Encyclopedia: "Since the sixteenth century the Holiness of Palestine, especially for burial, has been almost wholly transferred to four cities—Jerusalem, Hebron, Tiberias, and Safed." [2]

See also

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References

  1. Wigoder, Geoffrey, ed. (1989). The Encyclopedia of Judaism. Macmillan. p. 768. Term applied to the Erets Israel cities of Jerusalem, Hebron, Safed and Tiberias. These were the four main centers of Jewish life after the Ottoman conquest of 1516. The concept of the holy cities dates only from the 1640s, when the Jewish communities of Jerusalem, Hebron, and Safed organized an association to improve the system of fundraising in the Diaspora. Previously, such fundraising had been undertaken by individual institutions; now it was agreed that the emissaries would be sent on behalf of each urban Jewish community as a whole, with not more than one emissary per town. After Tiberias was refounded in 1740, it also joined the association. This arrangement did not last long, however, and by the mid-19th century there was no authority strong enough to enforce a centralized collection of ḥalukkah funds. In Jewish tradition, going back to ancient times, the only city regarded as holy is Jerusalem
  2. Jacobs, Joseph; Eisenstein, Judah David (1906). "Palestine, Holiness Of". Jewish Encyclopedia .
  3. Rosovsky, Nitza (1996). City of the Great King: Jerusalem from David to the Present. Harvard University Press. ISBN   978-0-674-13190-3.
  4. Auerbach, Jerold S. (2009-07-16). Hebron Jews: Memory and Conflict in the Land of Israel. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. ISBN   978-0-7425-6617-0.
  5. Paz, Yair (2006-12-26), "Holy Inhabitants of a Holy City: How Safed Became One of the Four Holy Cities of Eretz Israel in the 16th Century", A Holy People, Brill, pp. 237–260, ISBN   978-90-474-0923-6 , retrieved 2024-07-20
  6. Noy, Dov; Ben-Amos, Dan; Frankel, Ellen (November 2006). Folktales of the Jews: Tales from the Sephardic dispersion. Jewish Publication Society. p. 66. ISBN   978-0-8276-0829-0 . Retrieved 17 October 2010 via Google Books.
  7. Bellows, Henry W. (2008). The Old World in Its New Face: Impressions of Europe in 1867-1868. Vol. II. BiblioBazaar, LLC. p. 337. ISBN   978-0-559-64379-8 . Retrieved 17 October 2010 via Google Books.