by Tamar Wismeon

Looking down over Lake Kinneret and across at Mount Meron, Safed has been a center of Jewish mysticism and spirituality since Biblical days. (Mount Meron hosts the tomb of the revered Talmudic sage and kabbalist Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai). Peaking at over 2,600 feet in the mountains of Galilee, the city boasts among its historic features the cave of Shem and Eber. This cave is thought to be the beit midrash (study hall) of Noah’s son and great-grandson, where our forefather Jacob learned Torah. It is a stone’s throw from the city center, tucked away behind the bridge that crosses over Jerusalem Street, the main thoroughfare.

The name Safed (Tzefat in Hebrew) is believed to come from the word “tzofeh,” meaning “overlook.” Some two thousand years ago, this strategically located city served as a Roman army camp. During the Crusader period, a citadel was built at Safed’s highest point, with a moat encircling it lower down. A section of the citadel still remains, offering stunning views of the city; the grassy park that surrounds the citadel makes an excellent place for a picnic. The ancient moat is thought to form the basis for the circular Jerusalem Street, where the city hall, cafes, gift shops, and banks are located. Between the citadel and the old city lies modern Safed.

Near the park is an elegantly restored Ottoman building, whose past bears witness to Safed’s tumultuous history. Originally built to house the Turkish governor, the conquering British turned it into an officers’ club after World War I. When they left, the Palmach, the main Jewish fighting force, used it as the frontier military post in their attempt to claim the citadel. After 1948, a cafe moved in and movies were projected in the spacious courtyard, to the accompaniment of an outdoor orchestra. Today the building hosts the Israel Bible Museum, a free exhibition featuring the bold paintings and whimsical sculptures of U.S. artist Philip Ratner. All the works on display are drawn from the Bible and Kabbalah, grouped in themes such as “Genesis” and “Heroes.” A personal favorite is a delicate, dramatic sculpture representing the Akeidah (the Sacrifice of Isaac), with the figures of Abraham, Isaac, and the angel locked in struggle.

Safed is famed for its alley-like streets. This one is home to the Abuhav Synagogue.

A wide set of steps, “Olei HaGardom,” runs from Jerusalem Street to the top of the old cemetery. The steps were built by the British to divide the Jewish and Arab quarters. If you turn and look behind the steps at the roof of what was the British police station — today the Ministry of the Interior — you can still see the old floodlights that lit up the stairs for easy patrolling after nightfall.

On the morning of April 16, 1948, a month before the British Mandate was officially scheduled to end, the Jewish community was abruptly informed that the British troops would leave the city that day. Safed was then home to 1,350 Jews and 12,000 Arabs, with another 40,000 Arabs settled in the surrounding area. The Jewish community was so obviously outnumbered that the British Governor “generously” offered them safe conduct from the city, giving them an hour to pack. Trucks lined up in front of the police station, but the Jews elected to remain.

Before the British left, they placed the citadel and other key positions in Arab hands; it took weeks of fighting and more than a few miracles before the Palmach restored Safed to Jewish hands. A local joke is that Safed was saved due to miracles and natural events: the natural event was that the mekubalim (kabbalistic sages) prayed fervently for deliverance, and the miracle was that the Palmach arrived on time (to provide reinforcements for Menachem Begin’s badly outnumbered Irgun)! Chiseled plaques attached to pockmarked walls throughout the city memorialize Jews who died in the fighting.

The Abuhav Synagogue’s aron kodesh holds a Torah scroll written hundreds of years ago by Rabbi Yitzchak Abuhav.

To the right of the steps is the Jewish Quarter. It is filled with ancient synagogues and study houses, along with numerous modern-day yeshivot. Probably the most famous synagogue, located in the center of the old city, is the Ari Ashkenazi. The Ari — Rabbi Yitzchak Luria — was the 16th-century kabbalist who is responsible for the Kabbalat Shabbat liturgy. During the time of the Ari, there were open fields lying between the Jewish Quarter below and the forest above. The Ari would lead his students into the fields to welcome Shabbat, and this synagogue was built on the spot where he went to pray.

The original synagogue was destroyed, along with much of the city and over 2,000 inhabitants, in a 1759 earthquake. The present building, completed in 1857, contains a carved wooden ceremonial chair donated by the daughter of Rabbi Itchele Halberstam, one of the rebbes of Sanz. The chair is famed for the numerous instances of childless women who have sat in it and given birth within twelve months.

Also notable is the notch in the wooden bimah facing the door. During the War of Independence, bomb shrapnel blew through the open door of the shul, miraculously at a moment when the congregants were bowing down. The searing metal shards flew over their heads into the bimah, and no one was injured. At the edge of the Jewish Quarter, in the direction of the Artists’ Colony, you will find a host of art galleries. Here you can see examples of the famous Safed Candle — delicately woven hand-dipped Havdalah candles and elegant beeswax table-lights. A number of galleries offer Jewish micrography (art created from tiny letters), such as a rose containing the entire “Song of Songs.”

Modern Safed features cheder children, vendors, and artists alike.

Sandwiched amidst these shops is the Yosef Karo Synagogue. A contemporary of the Ari (Rabbi Karo’s son married the Ari’s daughter), Rabbi Yosef Karo is best known as the author of the Shulchan Aruch, the Code of Jewish Law. When he headed the beit din of Safed, this was the location of his study hall, while the attached buildings housed the rabbinical court and his private residence. An 1837 earthquake reduced most of the town to rubble and destroyed the study hall. An Italian architect, Yitzchak Guetta, visited a few years later and resurrected the city’s splendor by restoring some of its ancient edifices; the Yosef Karo study hall was rebuilt as a synagogue. Although the synagogue itself is generally locked except for prayer services, Yeshayahu Ben Asher, a local, has set up a visitor’s center and Kabbalah gallery in Rabbi Karo’s adjoining former home, one of the few houses to survive the earthquake intact. Ben Asher, who also gives tours and lectures, is happy to answer questions about Rabbi Yosef Karo and Safed. The entrancing, unbroken view of Mount Meron from his rooftop should not be missed.

Around the corner stands the most beautiful synagogue in Safed, named for the 15th-century Spaniard Rabbi Yitzchak Abuhav. Recently renovated, the Abuhav Synagogue, with its blue walls, carved wooden doors, and painted murals, is a popular choice for brit milah and bar-mitzvah celebrations.

Although most of the original 16th-century building fell in the earthquakes, one wall, housing the Torah scrolls, has remained intact.

Curiously, three arks are set in the wall. The one on the left is thought to have contained a compulsory copy of the Koran when Safed was under Ottoman rule. The central ark is used for regular services, while the most ornate ark, on the right, is reserved for a scroll written by Rabbi Abuhav himself and another written by a student of the Ari.

A Safed alleyway. In the distance is Mount Meron, famed site of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai’s tomb.

These two scrolls are used three times a year — on Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, and Shavuot. Legend has it that after the 1837 earthquake, when the scrolls were temporarily moved elsewhere for safekeeping, the ten men who volunteered to carry out the task first immersed themselves in the Ari’s mikvah in preparation for their awesome task, but nonetheless died within the year.

The Ari’s mikvah, above the old cemetery, is open to the public (men only) and is free of charge. A natural, unheated wellspring inside a cave, the mikvah has a well-deserved reputation for being icy cold, but is nonetheless very popular. People come to the cemetery to pray at the tombs of the Ari, Rabbi Yosef Karo, Rabbi Moshe Cordovero, and other tzaddikim.

A personal face to the city’s history is provided by the Beit HaMeiri Museum, located close to the cemetery, at the edge of the Jewish Quarter. Founded in 1980 by the late Yehezkel Meiri, a fifth-generation native of Safed, the museum contains a treasury of paintings and anecdotes describing life in the city over the past 200 years. Also on display are household utensils, craftsmen’s tools, and religious articles, along with a reconstruction of a local home. In the days of Baron Edmond de Rothschild, the building housed the first local school to use Hebrew as the language of instruction.

In August 1929, a week after the infamous Hebron massacre, Arabs attacked the Jewish Quarter in Safed. Seventeen Jews were murdered, including Ishmail Hacohen, the city’s eighty-year-old Sephardic Chief Rabbi. Rather than quelling the riots, the British sheltered the city’s 3,000 Jews in Government House (now called the Sariya Community Center and the central location for the annual International Klezmer Festival), locking them in for two days while allowing the pillage to continue. The Arabs set the Jewish Quarter ablaze, but the wind suddenly changed direction and blew the flames towards the Arab Quarter; they ceased rioting to save their own homes.

Today the Arab Quarter is home to Safed’s Artists’ Colony and the General Artists Exhibition Hall. This well-rounded collection introduces the styles (and prices) of local artists, from Masha’s delicate watercolor scenes to the vivid brightness found in works by Zipporah Brenner. If a specific artist’s work appeals to you, you can either buy it on the spot or visit his/her own gallery. These are scattered randomly through the streets. Facing the General Artists Hall, across the lawn, is an attractive row of tiny craft shops, where you may see artisans working on their handmade jewelry, ceramics, wind chimes, woven kippot, and patchwork cushions and clothing.

The entrance to the home where Rabbi Yosef Karo, the author of the Shulchan Aruch, resided.

Safed is a small city, confusing but compact, and crammed full of unique sights and stories. It is most crowded in the summer, during the International Klezmer Festival, when the city comes alive with open-air concerts and performances lasting well into the night. In the winter the city hibernates. Many artists go to Tel Aviv, migrating with the tourists to warmer climes. (The Jerusalem-based Castles agency [U.S.: 718-633-5096; Israel: 02-538-9911] offers discounts for many Safed hotels.)

Safed does attract visitors who come on a one-day guided tour and think they have seen it all. But these have just scratched the surface of this holy city.

Tamar Wisemon, a Safed resident, writes for a variety of magazines and newspapers, including The Jerusalem Report and Hamodia. Her “Kitchen Values for Kids” appeared in the June 1999 issue of The Jewish Homemaker.

The images are by Yaacov Kaszemacher, a renowned photographer and artist living in Safed. Inquiries should be directed to his Ohr Yaacov Gallery: 972-6-697-1723.