| Old Yishuv |
|---|
 |
| Key events |
| Key figures |
|
| Economy |
| Philanthropy |
| Communities |
| Synagogues |
| Related articles |
The textile industry became an important feature of 16th-century Safed, Ottoman Galilee (at the time within Damascus Eyalet of the Ottoman Empire), following an influx of Jewish immigration in late 15th and early 16th centuries. Run as a Jewish monopoly, textile manufacturing became the community's main source of income. The industry declined toward the end of the century.
After the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492, many sought refuge in Turkish-controlled lands. They used the opportunity to introduce the production of high-quality wool which they had manufactured in Spain [1] [2] and soon Jewish merchants became significantly involved in the wool trade in nearly all parts of the Ottoman Empire. [3] Many made their way to Safed, which with its numerous springs and nearby streams, had the perfect geological conditions for the manufacture of cloth.
In 1522, Safed's Jewish population stood at three hundred families. The influx of Spanish refugees transformed the town into an international hub of fabric production and by the end of the century, the number of Jewish families in Safed had increased to at least 20,000. [4]
Foreign wool was imported through the ports of Sidon and Acre to be processed [5] [6] and the finished goods were exported abroad, including to Syria and Egypt. [7] The 16th century saw textiles becoming the principal regional industry [8] [9] and in Safed it was the main source of income for the Jewish community [10] who maintained a monopoly on the trade. [11] David de-Rossi, an Italian Jewish merchant who visited in 1535, was amazed to witness the enormous growth of the tailoring trade and claimed that over 15,000 suits had been manufactured in Safed in that year alone. [6]
The Jews were active in all the stages of production: dyeing, spinning and weaving. [10] The women were involved in the spinning the raw, short-fibered wool at home while the weaving was performed in workshops. [6] Scholars residing in Safed who were involved in the business included Rabbi Moses Galante who owned a factory [12] and Rabbis Moses Berab, Menachem HaBavli and his brother Reuben who were wool dyers. [13]
Buildings containing special mills were used to cleanse the cloth. [6] By using water-powered mechanical technology in the fulling process, the Jews had introduced a modern and efficient manner of textile production in to the region. [14]
Production was not limited to Safed and its environs; other centres existed in Nablus and Jerusalem. [8] During the 1560s and 1570s Joseph Nasi initiated the cultivation of mulberry trees in Tiberias for the production of silk clothing "of the kind worn in Venice" and Merino sheep were to be raised for their wool. [15]
Safed's economic growth during the period was chiefly due to the booming textile trade. [16] The Jews, heavily involved in the various stages of manufacture and trade, were levied with substantial taxes which provided a significant boost to the country’s economy. [6] When 1,000 of the most affluent Jews were faced with deportation to Cyprus in 1576, it was argued by the local revenue authorities that Safed would be "on the verge of ruin" and the "Treasury of Damascus will suffer a great loss" if, among other things, the "stamp duty on broadcloth, customs on felt and the tax farming of the dye-houses would be discontinued". [17]
The success of the trade resulted in the growth of Safed's Jewish community and consequently had implications for the country's religious establishment. Levi ibn Habib, the Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem, felt it was Safed's material prosperity which had allowed Jacob Berab and his group of rabbis to feel they could challenge Jerusalem's historic supremacy and attempt to revive ordination in Safed. [18] He wrote sarcastically: "Is it because of the great quantity of clothes that are manufactured in Safed that they presume to be the leaders of the Jewish people?" [19]
Towards the end of the century the industry faced a sharp decline. Cheaper woollen goods from western Europe began to flood the markets. Safed's labourers could not withstand the competition and when the merchants relocated, Safed's Jewish community itself began to decline. [8] [10]
Tiberias is an Israeli city on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee. Established around 20 CE, it was named in honour of the second emperor of the Roman Empire, Tiberius. In 2019 it had a population of 44,779.
Safed is a city in the Northern District of Israel. Located at an elevation of 900 metres (2,953 ft), Safed is the highest city in the Galilee and in Israel.
Jacob Berab, also spelled Berav or Bei-Rav,, was an influential rabbi and talmudist best known for his attempt to reintroduce classical semikhah (ordination).
The history of the Jews in Turkey covers the 2400 years that Jews have lived in what is now Turkey. There have been Jewish communities in Anatolia since at least the fifth century BCE and many Spanish and Portuguese Jews expelled from Spain by the Alhambra Decree were welcomed into the Ottoman Empire in the late 15th century, including regions now part of Turkey, centuries later, forming the bulk of the Ottoman Jews.
Palestinian Jews were Jewish inhabitants of Palestine prior to the establishment of the modern state of Israel.
The halukka, also spelled haluka or chalukah was an organized collection and distribution of charity funds for Jewish residents of the Land of Israel.
Menahem ben Moshe Bavli, also known as Menahem Ben Moshe ha-Bavli, was a Jewish rabbi and author of the 1571 book Ta'amei Ha-Misvot.
The history of the Jews and Judaism in the Land of Israel is about the history and religion of the Jewish people who originated in the Land of Israel, and have maintained physical, cultural, and religious ties to it ever since. First emerging in the later part of the 2nd millennium BCE as an outgrowth of southern Canaanites, the Hebrew Bible claims that a United Israelite monarchy existed starting in the 10th century BCE. The first appearance of the name "Israel" in the non-Biblical historic record is the Egyptian Merneptah Stele, circa 1200 BCE. During the biblical period, two kingdoms occupied the highland zone, the Kingdom of Israel (Samaria) in the north, and the Kingdom of Judah in the south. The Kingdom of Israel was conquered by the Neo-Assyrian Empire, and the Kingdom of Judah by the Neo-Babylonian Empire. Initially exiled to Babylon, upon the defeat of the Neo-Babylonian Empire by the Achaemenid Empire under Cyrus the Great, many of the Jewish elite returned to Jerusalem, building the Second Temple.
The Four Holy Cities is the collective term in early modern Jewish tradition applied to the cities of Jerusalem, Hebron, Safed and (later) Tiberias, the four main centers of Jewish life after the Ottoman conquest of Palestine. The concept dates from the 1640s, when the Jewish communities of these cities organized an association for fundraising.
The Old Yishuv were the Jewish communities of the southern Syrian provinces in the Ottoman period, up to the onset of Zionist aliyah and the consolidation of the New Yishuv by the end of World War I. As opposed to the later Zionist aliyah and the New Yishuv, which began with the First Aliyah and was more based on a socialist and/or secular ideology emphasizing labor and self-sufficiency, many Jews of the Old Yishuv, whose members had continuously resided in or had come to Eretz Yisrael in the earlier centuries, were largely religious Jews, who depended on external donations (Halukka) for financial support.
The 1834 looting of Safed was prolonged attack against the Jewish community of Safed, Ottoman Empire, during the 1834 Peasants' Revolt. It began on Sunday June 15, the day after the Jewish holiday of Shavuot, and lasted for the next 33 days. Most contemporary accounts suggest it was a spontaneous attack which took advantage of a defenceless population in the midst of the armed uprising against Egyptian rule. The district governor tried to quell the violent outbreak, but failed to do so and fled. The event took place during a power vacuum, whilst Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt was fighting to quell the wider revolt in Jerusalem.
The 1660 destruction of Tiberias occurred during the Druze power struggle in the Galilee, in the same year as the destruction of Safed. The destruction of Tiberias by the Druze resulted in abandonment of the city by its Jewish community, until it was rebuilt by Zahir al-Umar in early eighteenth century. Altshuler however attributes the destruction of Tiberias in 1660 to an earthquake. The destruction could have also been a combination of both events.
Palestinian rabbis encompasses all rabbis who lived in the region known as Palestine up until modern times, but most significantly refers to the early Jewish sages who dwelled in the ancient Holy Land and compiled the Mishna and its later commentary, the Jerusalem Talmud. These rabbis lived between 150 BCE and 400 CE and during the Talmudic and later Geonic period, they exerted influence over Syria and Egypt, while the authorities in Babylonia had held sway over the Jews of Iraq and Iran. While the Jerusalem Talmud was not to become authoritative against the Babylonian, the liturgy developed by Palestinian rabbis was later destined to form the foundation of the minhag of nearly all the Ashkenazic communities across Europe.
Nisan Bak was a leader of the Hasidic Jewish community of the Old Yishuv in Ottoman Palestine. He was the founder of two Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem, Kirya Ne'emana and a Yemenite Jewish neighborhood, and builder of the Tiferet Yisrael Synagogue, also known as the Nisan Bak Shul.
David Yellin was an educator, a researcher of the Hebrew language and literature, a politician, one of the leaders of the Yishuv, the founder of the first Hebrew College for Teachers, one of the founders of the Hebrew Language Committee and the Israel Teachers Union, and the Zikhron Moshe neighborhood of Jerusalem.
Sefunot was a Hebrew-language academic journal, published annually, dealing with the study of Jewish communities in the East, from the end of the Middle Ages unto the present time. It was initiated by Meir Benayahu, and jointly published by the Ben Zvi Institute and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. A total of 26 books have been published in 25 volumes. The first book was published in 1956 and the last in 2017. The appellative Sefunot was chosen for the Annual, as it has the distinct meaning of "those things concealed," an allusion to the obscure nature of these Jewish communities.
In addition Jews in Safed carried on the manufacture and trade of weaving wool and clothing on a grand scale, developed by the skillful craftsmen and merchants among the exiles from Spain.
Wool woven in Salonica was sent to Safed, in Palestine, to be dyed.
In Palestine, the Sephardim transformed tiny Safed into a center of silk production for the markets of Syria and Egypt.
The most important industry in Palestine in the 16th century was the textile industry, which was concentrated in Safad and its vicinity...
these trades were entirely in the hands of the Jews.
Rabbi Moses Galanti, the rabbi of the community, owned a clothing factory that employed many workers and enjoyed a good reputation.
It is this process of mechanical fulling which the Jewish exiles transferred to the Ottoman Empire. Use of water-driven fulling mill now spread. [...] Thus it is reasonable to conclude that the distinctive term and technology spread from the Maghrib into the Mashriq and into the Ottoman realm, as a result of the events of 1492.
Safed became a thriving regional commercial centre, thanks in large part to the textile, and above all wool, industry, in which Jews participated heavily, particularly in dyeing
In the year 1600 Safed reached the climax of its development with its thirty-thousand Jewish families. This remarkable growth would not have been possible without a corresponding material prosperity. The remark made by Levi ibn Habib, the great opponent of Berab's movement of ordination, that Safed's presumption to challenge Jerusalem's historic supremacy was due to its manufacture of clothing is to be taken as more than mere sarcasm.