Safed#First Crusader period

Legend has it that Safed was founded by a son of Noah after the Great Flood. According to the Book of Judges ({{bibleverse|Judges|1:17}}), the area where Safed is located was assigned to the tribe of Naphtali.{{cite web |url= http://www.hadassah.org/news/content/per_hadassah/archive/2004/04_DEC/traveler.asp |archive-url= https://archive.today/20120804185810/http://www.hadassah.org/news/content/per_hadassah/archive/2004/04_DEC/traveler.asp |url-status= dead |archive-date= 2012-08-04 |title= Hadassah Magazine |publisher= Hadassah.org |access-date= 2009-05-06 }}

It has been suggested that Jesus' assertion that "a city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden"{{bibleverse||Matthew|5:14|NKJV}} referred to Safed.[http://biblehub.com/commentaries/ellicott/matthew/5.htm Ellicott's Commentary for Modern Readers] and [http://biblehub.com/commentaries/meyer/matthew/5.htm Meyer's NT Commentary] on Matthew 5, both accessed 9 December 2016

Safed has been identified with Sepph, a fortified town in the Upper Galilee mentioned in the writings of the Roman-Jewish historian Josephus.[https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0017_0_17270.html Geography of Israel: Safed], accessed 9 December 2016 Safed is mentioned in the Jerusalem Talmud as one of five elevated spots where fires were lit to announce the New Moon and festivals during the Second Temple period.{{cite encyclopedia | encyclopedia= Encyclopedia Judaica |title= Safed |volume= 14 |pages= 626 |publisher= Keter |location= Jerusalem, Israel |year= 1972}}

There is scarce information about Safed before the Crusader conquest.Drory 2004, p. 163.Luz 2014, p. 33. A document from the Cairo Geniza, composed in 1034, mentions a transaction made in Tiberias in 1023 by a certain Jew, Musa ben Hiba ben Salmun with the nisba (Arabic descriptive suffix) "al-Safati" (of Safed), indicating the presence of a Jewish community living alongside Muslims in Safed in the 11th century.Barbé 2016, p. 63. According to the Muslim historian Ibn Shaddad (d. 1285), at the beginning of the 12th century, a "flourishing village" beneath a tower called Burj Yatim had existed at the site of Safed on the eve of the Crusaders' capture of the area in 1101–1102 and that "nothing" about the village was mentioned in "the early Islamic history books".Ellenblum 2007, p. 179, note 15. Although Ibn Shaddad mistakenly attributes the tower's construction to the Knights Templar, the modern historian Ronnie Ellenblum asserts that the tower was likely built during the early Muslim period (mid-7th–11th centuries).

The Frankish chronicler William of Tyre noted the presence of a burgus (tower) in Safed, which he called "Castrum Saphet" or "Sephet", in 1157.Ellenblum 2007, p. 179, note 16. Safed was the seat of a castellany (area governed by a castle) by at least 1165, when its castellan (appointed castle governor) was Fulk, constable of Tiberias.Barbé 2016, p. 58. The castle of Safed was purchased from Fulk by King Amalric of Jerusalem in 1168. He subsequently reinforced the castle and transferred it to the Templars in the same year. Theoderich the Monk, describing his visit to the area in 1172, noted that the expanded fortification of the castle of Safed was meant to check the raids of the Turks (the Turkic Zengid dynasty ruled the area east of the Kingdom).Ellenblum 2007, p. 179. Testifying to the considerable expansion of the castle, the chronicler Jacques de Vitry (d. 1240) wrote that it was practically built anew.Ellenblum 2007, p. 180. The remains of Fulk's castle can now be found under the citadel excavations, on a hill above the old city.Howard M. Sachar,[https://books.google.com/books?id=2RowAAAAQBAJ&pg=PT190 Farewell Espana: The World of the Sephardim Remembered,] Random House, 2013 p. 190.

In the estimation of modern historian Havré Barbé, the castellany of Safed comprised approximately {{convert|376|km2|mi2|sp=us}}. According to Barbé, its western boundary straddled the domains of Acre, including the fief of St. George de la Beyne, which included Sajur and Beit Jann, and the fief of Geoffrey le Tor, which included Akbara and Hurfeish, and in the southwest ran north of Maghar and Sallama.Barbé 2016, pp. 56, 59. Its northern boundary was marked by the Nahal Dishon (Wadi al-Hindaj) stream,Barbé 2016, p. 56. its southern boundary was likely formed near Wadi al-Amud, separating it from the fief of Tiberias,Barbé 2016, p. 59. while its eastern limits were the marshes of the Hula Valley and upper Jordan Valley.Barbé 2016, p. 57. There were several Jewish communities in the castellany of Safed, as testified in the accounts of Jewish pilgrims and chroniclers between 1120 and 1293.Barbé 2016, pp. 63, 59. Benjamin of Tudela, who visited the town in 1170, does not record any Jews living in Safed proper.Sachar 1994, p. 120.

Safed was captured by the Ayyubids led by Sultan Saladin in 1188 after a month-long siege, following the Battle of Hattin in 1187.Sharon 2007, p. [https://books.google.com/books?id=1d8xHcor0psC&pg=PA152 152] Saladin ultimately allowed its residents to relocate to Tyre. He granted Safed and Tiberias as an iqta (akin to a fief) to Sa'd al-Din Mas'ud ibn Mubarak (d. 1211), the son of his niece, after which it was bequeathed to Sa'd al-Din's son Ahmad.Drory 2004, p. 164. Samuel ben Samson, who visited the town in 1210, mentions the existence of a Jewish community of at least fifty there.Schechter, Solomon. Studies in Judaism: Second Series (Jewish Studies Classics 3), p. 206. Gorgias Press LLC, 2003. {{ISBN|1-59333-039-1}} He also noted that two Muslims guarded and maintained the cave tomb of a rabbi, Hanina ben Horqano, in Safed.Barbé 2016, p. 68. The iqta of Safed was taken from the family of Sa'd al-Din by the Ayyubid emir of Damascus, al-Mu'azzam Isa, in 1217.Luz 2014, p. 34. Two years later, during the Crusader siege of Damietta, al-Mu'azzam Isa had the Safed castle demolished to prevent its capture and reuse by potential future Crusaders.

{{multiple image

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| footer = The Crusader-Mamluk-era fortress of Safed

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As an outcome of the treaty negotiations between the Crusader leader Theobald I of Navarre and the Ayyubid al-Salih Ismail, Emir of Damascus, in 1240 Safed once again passed to Crusader control. Afterward, the Templars were tasked with rebuilding the Citadel of Safed, with efforts spearheaded by Benedict of Alignan, Bishop of Marseille. The rebuilding is recorded in a short treatise, De constructione castri Saphet, from the early 1260s.Pringle 1985, p. 139. The reconstruction was completed at the considerable expense of 40,000 bezants in 1243.Amitai-Preiss 1995, p. 757. The new fortress was larger than the original, with a capacity for 2,200 soldiers in time of war, and with a resident force of 1,700 in peacetime.Luz 2014, pp. 34–35. The garrison's goods and services were provided by the town or large village growing rapidly beneath the fortress, which, according to Benoit's account, contained a market, "numerous inhabitants" and was protected by the fortress. The settlement also benefited from trade with travelers on the route between Acre and the Jordan Valley, which passed through Safed.

File:Safed-83-n.jpg in 1275, and renovated or expanded by the Ottomans in 1671/72]]

The Ayyubids of Egypt had been supplanted by the Mamluks in 1250 and the Mamluk sultan Baybars entered Syria with his army in 1261. Thereafter, he led a series of campaigns over several years against Crusader strongholds across the Syrian coastal mountains.Holt 1995, p. 11. Safed, with its position overlooking the Jordan River and allowing the Crusaders early warnings of Muslim troop movements in the area, had been a consistent aggravation for the Muslim regional powers.Amitai-Preiss 1995, pp. 757–758. After a six-week siege,Luz 2014, p. 35. Baybars captured Safed in July 1266, after which he had nearly the entire garrison killed.Amitai-Preiss 1995, p. 758. The siege occurred during a Mamluk military campaign to subdue Crusader strongholds in Palestine and followed a failed attempt to capture the Crusaders' coastal stronghold of Acre. Unlike the Crusader fortresses along the coastline, which were demolished upon their capture by the Mamluks, Baybars spared the fortress of Safed.Drory 2004, p. 165. He likely preserved it because of the strategic value stemming from its location on a high mountain and its isolation from other Crusader fortresses. Moreover, Baybars determined that in the event of a renewed Crusader invasion of the coastal region, a strongly fortified Safed could serve as an ideal headquarters to confront the Crusader threat.Drory 2004, pp. 166–167. In 1268, he had the fortress repaired, expanded and strengthened. He commissioned numerous building works in the town of Safed, including caravanserais, markets and baths, and converted the town's church into a mosque.Drory 2004, p. 166. The mosque, called Jami al-Ahmar (the Red Mosque), was completed in 1275.Petersen, p. 73. By the end of Baybars's reign, Safed had developed into a prosperous town and fortress.

Baybars assigned fifty-four mamluks, at the head of whom was Emir Ala al-Din Kandaghani, to oversee the management of Safed and its dependencies.Barbé 2016, pp. 71–72. From the time of its capture, the city was made the administrative center of Mamlakat Safad,Sharon, 1997, p. [https://books.google.com/books?id=j1rSzWgHMjoC&pg=PR12 xii] one of seven mamlakas (provinces), whose governors were typically appointed from Cairo, which made up Mamluk Syria.Rhode 1979, pp. 16–17. Initially, its jurisdiction corresponded roughly with the Crusader castellany. After the fall of the Montfort Castle to the Mamluks in 1271, the castle and its dependency, the Shaghur district, were incorporated into Mamlakat Safad.Barbé 2016, pp. 72. The territorial jurisdiction of the mamlaka eventually spanned the entire Galilee and the lands further south down to Jenin.

File:Safed-73-n.jpg

The geographer al-Dimashqi, who died in Safed in 1327, wrote around 1300 that Baybars built a "round tower and called it Kullah ..." after leveling the old fortress. The tower was built in three stories, and provided with provisions, halls, and magazines. Under the structure, a cistern collected enough rainwater to regularly supply the garrison.Al-Dimashqi, p. 210, quoted in le Strange, p. 524 The governor of Safed, Emir Baktamur al-Jukandar (the Polomaster; {{reign|1309|1311}}), built a mosque later called after him in the northeastern section of the city.Petersen, pp. 260–261. The geographer Abu'l Fida (1273–1331), the ruler of Hama, described Safed as follows:

[Safed] was a town of medium size. It has a very strongly built castle, which dominates the Lake of Tabariyyah [Sea of Galilee]. There are underground watercourses, which bring drinking-water up to the castle-gate...Its suburbs cover three hills... Since the place was conquered by Al Malik Adh Dhahir [Baybars] from the Franks [Crusaders], it has been made the central station for the troops who guard all the coast-towns of that district."Abu'l Fida, p. 243, quoted in le Strange, p. 525

The native qadi (Islamic head judge) of Safed, Shams al-Din al-Uthmani, composed a text about Safed called Ta'rikh Safad (the History of Safed) during the rule of its governor Emir Alamdar ({{reign|1372|1376}}).Luz 2014, pp. 178–180. The extant parts of the work consisted of ten folios largely devoted to Safed's distinguishing qualities, its dependent villages, agriculture, trade and geography, with no information about its history.Luz 2014, p. 178. His account reveals the city's dominant features were its citadel, the Red Mosque and its towering position over the surrounding landscape.Luz 2014, pp. 178–179. He noted Safed lacked "regular urban planning", madrasas (schools of Islamic law), ribats (hostels for military volunteers) and defensive walls, and that its houses were clustered in disarray and its streets were not distinguishable from its squares.Luz 2014, pp. 179–180. He attributed the city's shortcomings to the dearth of generous patrons.Luz 2014, p. 180. A device for transporting buckets of water called the satura existed in the city mainly to supply the soldiers of the citadel; surplus water was distributed to the city's residents.Luz 2014, p. 179. Al-Uthmani praised the natural beauty of Safed, its therapeutic air, and noted that its residents took strolls in the surrounding gorges and ravines.

The Black Death brought about a decline in the population in Safed from 1348 onward. There is little available information about the city and its dependencies during the last century of Mamluk rule ({{circa|1418|1516}}), though travelers' accounts describe a general decline precipitated by famine, plagues, natural disasters and political instability.Rhode 1979, p. 17.

File:Safed-79-n.jpg

The Ottomans conquered Mamluk Syria following their victory at the Battle of Marj Dabiq in northern Syria in 1516.Rhode 1979, p. 18. Safed's inhabitants sent the keys of the town citadel to Sultan Selim I after he captured Damascus.Layish 1987, p. 67. No fighting was recorded around Safed, which was bypassed by Selim's army on the way to Mamluk Egypt. The sultan had placed the district of Safed under the jurisdiction of the Mamluk governor of Damascus, Janbirdi al-Ghazali, who defected to the Ottomans. Rumors in 1517 that Selim was slain by the Mamluks precipitated a revolt against the newly appointed Ottoman governor by the townspeople of Safed, which resulted in wide-scale killings, many of which targeted the city's Jews, who were viewed as sympathizers of the Ottomans.Rhode 1979, pp. 18–19. Safed became the capital of the Safed Sanjak, roughly corresponding with Mamlakat Safad but excluding most of the Jezreel Valley and the area of Atlit,Rhode 1979, pp. 16–17, 25–26. part of the larger province of Damascus Eyalet.Abbasi 2003, p. 50.

In 1525/26, the population of Safed consisted of 633 Muslim families, 40 Muslim bachelors, 26 Muslim religious persons, nine Muslim disabled, 232 Jewish families, and 60 military families.{{cite journal |author=Bernard Lewis |title=Studies in the Ottoman Archives–I |journal=Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies |volume=16 |number=3 |year=1954 |pages=469–501 |doi=10.1017/s0041977x00086808 |s2cid=162304704}} In 1549, under Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, a wall was constructed and troops were garrisoned to protect the city.Abraham David, 2010. [https://books.google.com/books?id=qqy4wqVbSUkC&pg=PA96 pp. 95–96] In 1553/54, the population consisted of 1,121 Muslim households, 222 Muslim bachelors, 54 Muslim religious leaders, 716 Jewish households, 56 Jewish bachelors, and 9 disabled persons.{{cite journal |doi=10.1017/S0041977X00086808 |author=Bernard Lewis |title=Studies in the Ottoman Archives—I |journal=Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London |volume=16 |issue=3 |year=1954 |pages=469–501 |s2cid=162304704}} At least in the 16th century, Safed was the only kasaba (city) in the sanjak and in 1555 was divided into nineteen mahallas (quarters), seven Muslim and twelve Jewish.Rhode 1979, p. 34. The total population of Safed rose from 926 households in 1525–26 to 1,931 households in 1567–1568. Among these, the Jewish population rose from a mere 233 households in 1525 to 945 households in 1567–1568.Petersen (2001), Gazetteer 6, s,v. [https://www.academia.edu/21620272/Gazetteer_6_S_Z Ṣafad] The Muslim quarters were Sawawin, located west of the fortress; Khandaq (the moat); Ghazzawiyah, which had likely been settled by Gazans; Jami' al-Ahmar (the Red Mosque), located south of the fortress and named for the local mosque; al-Akrad, which dated to the Middle Ages and continued to exist through the 19th century,Ebied and Young 1976, p. 7. and whose inhabitants mainly were Kurds; al-Wata (the lower), the southernmost quarter of Safed and situated below the city; and al-Suq, named after the market or mosque located within the quarter.Rhode 1979, pp. 34–35. The Jewish quarters were all situated west of the fortress. Each quarter was named for the place of origin of its inhabitants: Purtuqal (Portugal), Qurtubah (Cordoba), Qastiliyah (Castille), Musta'rib (Jews of local, Arabic-speaking origin), Magharibah (northwestern Africa), Araghun ma' Qatalan (Aragon and Catalonia), Majar (Hungary), Puliah (Apulia), Qalabriyah (Calabria), Sibiliyah (Seville), Taliyan (Italian) and Alaman (German).

In the 15th and 16th centuries there were several well-known Sufis (mystics) of ibn Arabi living in Safed.Layish 1987, p. 70. The Sufi sage Ahmad al-Asadi (1537–1601) established a zawiya (Sufi lodge) called Sadr Mosque in the city.Layish 1987, p. 71. Safed became a center of Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism) during the 16th century.{{cite web |url=https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vie/Safed.html |title=Safed |publisher=Jewish Virtual Library |access-date=2008-10-25}}

After the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492, many prominent rabbis found their way to Safed, among them the Kabbalists Isaac Luria and Moses ben Jacob Cordovero; Joseph Caro, the author of the Shulchan Aruch; and Solomon Alkabetz, composer of the Shabbat hymn "Lekha Dodi".

{{blockquote|The kabbalistic response to the trauma of the exile varied widely, ranging from a quietistic approach adopted by the Italian and North African kabbalists, to a more activist apocalyptic approach which sought signs of the imminent redemption. The expulsion was seen by many as the tribulation that would herald the beginning of the messianic age as foretold in rabbinic literature. The spiritualization of religious life culminated in the creative outburst of religious innovation in Safed in the second half of the sixteenth century as a response to the expulsion. This spiritual revolution spread from Safed and transformed the practice of Judaism throughout the Jewish world.{{cite book |last1=Zohar |first1=Zion |title=Sephardic and Mizrahi Jewry: From the Golden Age of Spain to Modern Times |date=2005 |publisher=NYU Press |isbn=978-0-8147-9706-8 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=H6K1IcaHwd0C |language=en}}}}

The influx of Sephardic Jews—reaching its peak under the rule of sultans Suleiman the Magnificent and Selim II—made Safed a global center for Jewish learning and a regional center for trade throughout the 15th and 16th centuries.{{Cite book |publisher=General Council (Vaad leumi) of the Jewish Community of Palestine |last=Keneset Yiśraʼel be-Erets-Yiśraʼel. Ṿaʻad ha-leʼumi |title=Historical memoranda |year=1947 |page=56}} Sephardi Jews and other Jewish immigrants by then outnumbered Musta'arabi Jews in the city.

During this period, the Jewish community developed the textile industry in Safed, transforming the town into an important and lucrative wool production and textile manufacturing centre.Rhode 1979, p. 20. There were more than 7,000 Jews in Safed in 1576 when Murad III proclaimed the forced deportation of 1,000 wealthy Jewish families to Cyprus to boost the island's economy. There is no evidence that the edict or a second one issued the following year for removing 500 families, was enforced.{{cite book|author=Abraham David|editor=Róbert Dán|title=Occident and Orient: a tribute to the memory of Alexander Scheiber|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=z8cUAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA86|year=1988|publisher=Brill Archive|isbn=9789630540247|pages=86–87|chapter=Demographic Changes in the Safed Jewish Community of the 16th Century}} In 1584, there were 32 synagogues registered in the town.{{cite book|author1=Abraham David|author2=Dena Ordan|title=To Come to the Land: Immigration and Settlement in 16th-Century Eretz-Israel |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qqy4wqVbSUkC&pg=PA117 |access-date=24 October 2011 |date=2010|publisher=University of Alabama Press |isbn=978-0-8173-5643-9 |page=117}}

A Hebrew printing press, the first in West Asia, was established in Safed in 1577 by Eliezer ben Isaac Ashkenazi of Prague and his son, Isaac.{{cite web|url=http://coursesa.matrix.msu.edu/~fisher/hst373/chronology/seventeenth.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20000817180349/http://coursesa.matrix.msu.edu/~fisher/hst373/chronology/seventeenth.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=2000-08-17|title=Ottomans and Safavids 17th Century|publisher=Michigan State University|access-date=2008-10-25}}

File:Seraya - Ottoman fortress - Safed.jpg by the Ottomans in the mid-1700s, the "Saraya" (house of the governor) currently serves as a community centre{{cite book|author=Dave Winter|title=Israel Handbook: With the Palestinian Authority Areas|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hvaiOGV9BjkC|year=1999|publisher=Footprint Handbooks|isbn=978-1-900949-48-4|page=714|quote=The Saraya was originally built as a caravanserai in the Ottoman period, though it was later used by both the Turks and the British as an administrative building.}}]]

By the early part of the 17th century, Safed was a small town. In 1602, the paramount chief of the Druze in Mount Lebanon, Fakhr al-Din II of the Ma'n dynasty, was appointed the sanjak-bey (district governor) of Safed, in addition to his governorship of neighbouring Sidon-Beirut Sanjak to the north. In the preceding years, the Safed Sanjak had entered a state of ruin and desolation and was often the scene of conflict between the local Druze and Shia Muslim peasants and the Ottoman authorities. By 1605, Fakhr al-Din had established peace and security in the sanjak, with highway brigandage and Bedouin raids having ceased under his watch. Trade and agriculture consequently thrived and the population prospered.Abu-Husayn 1985, pp. 83–84. He formed close relations with the city's Sunni Muslim ulama (religious scholars), particularly the mufti, al-Khalidi al-Safadi of the Hanafi school of fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence), who became his practical court historian.Abu-Husayn 1993, pp. 5–7.

The Ottomans drove Fakhr al-Din into European exile in 1613, but his son Ali became governor in 1615.Abu-Husayn 1985, p. 99. Fakhr al-Din returned to his domains in 1618 and five years later regained the governorship of Safed, which the Ma'n dynasty had lost, after his victory against the governor of Damascus at the Battle of Anjar.Abu-Husayn 1985, p. 121. In {{circa|1625}}, the orientalist Franciscus Quaresmius spoke of Safed being inhabited "chiefly by Hebrews, who had their synagogues and schools, and for whose sustenance contributions were made by the Jews in other parts of the world."{{cite book |author= Edward Robinson |title= Biblical Researches in Palestine, Mount Sinai and Arabia Petraea: a journal of travels in the year 1838 |url= https://archive.org/details/biblicalresearch03robiuoft |access-date=4 October 2010 |year=1841 |publisher=Crocker and Brewster |page=[https://archive.org/details/biblicalresearch03robiuoft/page/333 333]}} According to the historian Louis Finkelstein, the Jewish community of Safed was plundered by the Druze under Mulhim ibn Yunus, nephew of Fakhr al-Din.Finkelstein 1960, p. 63. Five years later, Fakhr al-Din was routed by the Ottoman governor of Damascus, Mulhim abandoned Safed, and its Jewish residents returned.{{dubious|date=February 2021}}

The Druze again attacked the Jews of Safed in 1656. During the power struggle between Fakhr al-Din's heirs (1658–1667), each faction attacked Safed. In the intra-communal turmoil among the Druze following the death of Mulhim, the 1660 destruction of Safed targeted the Jews there and in Tiberias; only a few of the former Jewish residents returned to the city before 1662.Joel Rappel. History of Eretz Israel from Prehistory up to 1882 (1980), Vol.2, p.531. "In 1662 Sabbathai Sevi arrived to Jerusalem. It was the time when the Jewish settlements of Galilee were destroyed by the Druze: Tiberias was completely desolate and only a few of former Safed residents had returned..."Barnai, Jacob. The Jews in Palestine in the Eighteenth Century: under the patronage of the Istanbul Committee of Officials for Palestine (University of Alabama Press 1992) {{ISBN|978-0-8173-0572-7}}; p. 14 Survivors relocated mainly to Sidon or Jerusalem.

Safed Sanjak and the neighbouring Sidon-Beirut Sanjak to the north were administratively separated from Damascus in 1660 to form the Sidon Eyalet, of which Safed was briefly the capital.Salibi 1988, p. 66. The province was created by the imperial government to check the power of the Druze of Mount Lebanon, as well as the Shia of Jabal Amil.

As nearby Tiberias remained desolate for several decades, Safed gained a key position among Galilean Jewish communities. In 1665, the Sabbatai Sevi movement arrived in Safed.{{citation needed|date=June 2020}} In the 1670s, the account of the Turkish traveller Evliya Çelebi recorded that Safed contained three caravanserais, several mosques, seven zawiyas, and six hammams. The Red Mosque was restored by Safed's governor Salih Bey in 1671/72, at which point it measured about {{convert|120x80|ft|m|sp=us}}, had all masonry interior, a cistern to collect rainwater in the winter for drinking and a tall minaret over its southern entrance; the minaret had been destroyed before the end of the 17th century.Petersen 2001, p. 261.

The Tiberias-based sheikh Zahir al-Umar of the local Arab Zaydan clan, whose father Umar al-Zaydani had been the governor and tax farmer of Safed in 1702–1706, wrested control of Safed and its tax farm from its native strongman, Muhammad Naf'i, through military pressure and diplomacy by 1740.Joudah 1987, p. 24. The Naf'i, Shahin, and Murad families continued to farm the taxes of Safed and its countryside into the 1760s as Zahir's subordinates.Cohen 1973, p. 83. By the 1760s, Zahir entrusted Safed to his son Ali, who made the town his headquarters.Cohen 1973, pp. 84–85. After Zahir was killed by Ottoman imperial forces, the governor of Sidon, Jazzar Pasha, moved to oust Zahir's sons from their Galilee strongholds. Ali made a final, unsuccessful stand against Jazzar Pasha from Safed, which was afterward captured and garrisoned by the governor.Cohen 1973, pp. 93–95. The simultaneous rise of Acre, established by Zahir as his capital in 1750 and which served as the capital of the Sidon Eyalet under Jazzar Pasha (1775–1804) and his successors, Sulayman Pasha al-Adil (1805–1819) and Abdullah Pasha (1820–1831), contributed to the political decline of Safed. It became a subdistrict center with limited local influence, belonging to the Acre Sanjak .

Underdevelopment and a series of natural disasters further contributed to Safed's decline during the 17th–mid-19th centuries. An outbreak of plague decimated the population in 1742 and the Near East earthquakes of 1759 left the city in ruins, killing 200 residents.Sa'ar H. When Israel trembles: former earthquakes. Ynet online. 11.05.2012. {{in lang|he}} An influx of Russian Jews in 1776 and 1781, and of Lithuanian Jews of the Perushim movement in 1809 and 1810, reinvigorated the Jewish community.Morgenstern 2006, p. In 1812, another plague killed 80% of the Jewish population.Franco 1916, p. 633. Following Abdullah Pasha of Acre's ordered killing of his Jewish vizier Haim Farhi, who served the same post under Jazzar and Sulayman, the governor imprisoned the Jewish residents of Safed on 12 August 1820, accusing them of tax evasion under the concealment of Farhi; they were released upon paying a ransom.Morgenstern 2006, p. 72. The war between Abdullah Pasha and the influential Farhi brothers in Constantinople and Damascus in 1822–1823 prompted Jewish flight from the Galilee in general, though by 1824 Jewish immigrants were steadily moving to the city.Morgenstern 2006, p. 60.

The forces of Muhammad Ali of Egypt wrested control of the Levant from the Ottomans in 1831 and in the same year many Jews who had fled the Galilee, including Safed, under Abdullah Pasha returned as a result of Muhammad Ali's liberal policies toward Jews.Morgenstern 2006, p. 61. Safed was raided by Druze in 1833 at the approach of Ibrahim Pasha, the Egyptian governor of the Levant. In the following year, the Muslim notables of the city, led by Salih al-Tarshihi, opposed to the Egyptian policy of conscription, joined the peasants' revolt in Palestine.{{citation |first=Khaled M. |last=Safi |editor=Roger Heacock |title=Of Times and Spaces in Palestine: The Flows and Resistances of Identity |chapter=Territorial Awareness in the 1834 Palestinian Revolt |chapter-url=http://books.openedition.org/ifpo/483 |publisher=Presses de l'Ifpo |location=Beirut |year=2008 |isbn=9782351592656}} During the revolt, rebels plundered the city for over thirty days.Sicker 1999, p. 13. Emir Bashir Shihab II of Mount Lebanon and his Druze fighters entered its environs in support of the Egyptians and compelled Safed's leaders to surrender. The Galilee earthquake of 1837 killed about half of Safed's 4,000-strong Jewish community,Lieber 1992, p. [https://archive.org/details/mysticsmissionar0000lieb/page/256 256]. destroyed all fourteen of its synagogues and prompted the flight of 600 Perushim for Jerusalem;{{cite book|author=Thomas A. Idinopulos|title=Weathered by Miracles: A History of Palestine from Bonaparte and Muhammad Ali to Ben-Gurion and the Mufti|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=goVtAAAAMAAJ|year=1998|publisher=Ivan R. Dee|isbn=978-1-56663-189-1|page=63}} the surviving Sephardic and Hasidic Jews mostly remained.Lieber 1992, pp. 256–257. Among the 2,158 residents of Safed who had died, 1,507 were Ottoman subjects, the rest foreign citizens.{{cite journal |last1=Ambraseys |first1=N. N. |title=The earthquake of 1 January 1837 in Southern Lebanon and Northern Israel |journal=Annals of Geophysics |date=25 November 1997 |volume=40 |issue=4 |doi=10.4401/ag-3887 |hdl=2122/1595 |hdl-access=free }} The Jewish quarter was situated on the hillside and was particularly hard hit; the southern and Muslim section of the town experienced considerably less damage. The following year, in 1838, Druze rebels and local Muslims raided Safed for three days.

File:Safed iii.jpg

Ottoman rule was restored across the Levant in 1840. The Empire-wide Tanzimat reforms, which were first adopted in the 1840s, brought about a steady rise in Safed's population and economy. In 1849 Safed had a total estimated population of 5,000, of whom 2,940–3,440 were Muslims, 1,500-2,000 were Jews and 60 were Christians.Abbasi 2003, p. 52. The population was estimated at 7,000 in 1850–1855, of whom 2,500–3,000 were Jews. The Jewish population increased in the last half of the 19th century by immigration from Persia, Morocco, and Algeria. Moses Montefiore (d. 1885) visited Safed seven times and financed much of the rebuilding of Safed's synagogues and Jewish houses.

In 1864 the Sidon Eyalet was absorbed into the new province of Syria Vilayet. In the new province, Safed remained part of the Acre Sanjak and served as the center of a kaza (third-level subdivision), whose jurisdiction covered the villages around the city and the subdistrict of Mount Meron (Jabal Jarmaq). In the Ottoman survey of Syria in 1871, Safed had 1,395 Muslim households, 1,197 Jewish households and three Christian households. The survey recorded a relatively high number of businesses in the city, namely 227 shops, fifteen mills, fourteen bakeries and four olive oil factories, an indicator of Safed's long-established role as an economic hub for the people of the Upper Galilee, the Hula Valley, the Golan Heights and parts of modern-day South Lebanon.Abbasi 2003, p. 54. Through the late 19th century, Safed's merchants served as middlemen in the Galilee grain trade, selling the wheat, pulses and fruit grown by the peasants of the Galilee to the traders of Acre, who in turn exported at least part of the merchandise to Europe. Safed also maintained extensive trade with the port of Tyre. The bulk of trade in Safed, which was traditionally dominated by the city's Jews, largely passed to its Muslim merchants during the late 19th century, particularly trade with the local villagers; Muslim traders offered higher credit to the peasants and were able to obtain government assistance for debt repayments. The wealth of Safed's Muslims increased and a number of the city's leading Muslim families made an opportunity from the Ottoman Land Code of 1858 to purchase extensive tracts around Safed.Abbasi 2003, p. 56. The major Muslim landowning clans were the Soubeh, Murad and Qaddura.Abbasi 2003, p. 55. The latter owned about 50,000 dunams toward the end of the century, including eight villages around Safed.Abū Mannah, Weismann and Zachs 2005, p. [https://books.google.com/books?id=U7loMhnI5S8C&pg=PA178 178].

File:Safed1908.jpg

In 1878 the municipal council of Safed was established. In 1888 the Acre Sanjak, including the Safed Kaza, became part of the new province of Beirut Vilayet, an administrative state of affairs which persisted until the Empire's fall in 1918.Abbasi 2003, pp. 50–51. The centralization and stability brought by the imperial reforms solidified the political status and practical influence of Safed in the Upper Galilee.Abbasi 2003, p. 51. The Ottomans developed Safed into a center for Sunni Islam to counterbalance the influence of non-Muslim communities in its environs and the Shia Muslims of Jabal Amil.Abbasi 2003, p. 53. Along with the three major landowning families, the Muslim ulema (religious scholarly) families of Nahawi, Qadi, Mufti and Naqib comprised the urban elite (a'yan) of the city. The Sunni courts of Safed arbitrated over cases in Akbara, Ein al-Zeitun and as far away as Mejdel Islim. According to the late 19th-century account of British missionary E. W. G. Masterman, the Muslim families of Safed included Kurds, Damascenes, Algerians, Bedouin from the Jordan Valley, and people from the villages around Safed.{{Cite journal |last=Masterman |first=E. W. G. |date=1914-10-01 |title=Safed |url=https://doi.org/10.1179/peq.1914.46.4.169 |journal=Palestine Exploration Quarterly |volume=46 |issue=4 |pages=169–179 |doi=10.1179/peq.1914.46.4.169 |issn=0031-0328}} Many Damascenes had been settled in the city by Baybars when he conquered Safed in 1266. Until the late 19th century the Muslims of Safed maintained strong social and cultural connections with Damascus. The government settled Algerian and Circassian exiles in the countryside of Safed in the 1860s and 1878, respectively, possibly in an effort to strengthen the Muslim character of the area. At least two Muslim families in the city itself, Arabi and Delasi, were of Algerian origin, though they accounted for a small proportion of the city's overall Muslim population. Masterman noted that the Muslims of Safed were conservative, "active and hardy", who "dress[ed] well and move[d] about more than the people from the region of southern Palestine".Abbasi 2003, pp. 53–54. They lived mainly in three quarters of the city: al-Akrad, whose residents were mostly laborers, Sawawin, home to the Muslim a'yan households and the city's Catholic community, and al-Wata, whose inhabitants were largely shopkeepers and minor traders.Schumacher, 1888, p. [https://archive.org/stream/quarterlystateme19pale#page/n213/mode/1up 188] The entire Jewish population lived in the Gharbieh (western) quarter.

File:Safed. Kunstenaarskolonie weg met aan weerzijden muren met zicht op het atelier, Bestanddeelnr 255-9230.jpg in Safed]]

Safed's population reached over 15,000 in 1879, 8,000 of whom were Muslims and 7,000 Jews. A population list from about 1887 showed that Safad had 24,615 inhabitants; 2,650 Jewish households, 2,129 Muslim households and 144 Roman Catholic households. Arab families in Safed whose social status rose as a result of the Tanzimat reforms included the Asadi, whose presence in Safed dated to the 16th century, Hajj Sa'id, Hijazi, Bisht, Hadid, Khouri, a Christian family whose progenitor moved to the city from Mount Lebanon during the 1860 civil war, and Sabbagh, a long-established Christian family in the city related to Zahir al-Umar's fiscal adviser Ibrahim al-Sabbagh;Layish 1987, pp. 68, 71.Deeb 1996, p. 1. many members of these families became officials in the civil service, local administrations or businessmen. When the Ottomans established a branch of the Agricultural Bank in the city in 1897, all of its board members were resident Arabs, the most influential of whom were Husayn Abd al-Rahim Effendi, Hajj Ahmad al-Asadi, As'ad Khouri and Abd al-Latif al-Hajj Sa'id. The latter two also became board members of the Chamber of Commerce and Agriculture branch opened in Safed in 1900.Abbasi 2003, pp. 55–56. In the last decade of the 19th century, Safed contained 2,000 houses, four mosques, three churches, two public bathhouses, one caravanserai, two public sabils, nineteen mills, seven olive oil presses, ten bakeries, fifteen coffeehouses, forty-five stalls and three shops.Petersen 2001, p. 259.

{{Image frame|align=left|content=

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| caption= Safed street map (date 2018, white text and light grey streets) overlaid on a Survey of Palestine map (date 1942, black text, red urban areas and black streets), showing the relative locations of Safed to its three Mandate-era satellite villages: Al-Zahiriyya al-Tahta, Ein al-Zeitun and Biriyya.

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Safed was the centre of Safad Subdistrict. According to a census conducted in 1922 by the British Mandate authorities, Safed had a population of 8,761 inhabitants, consisting of 5,431 Muslims, 2,986 Jews, 343 Christians and others.Barron, 1923, p. [https://archive.org/stream/PalestineCensus1922/Palestine%20Census%20%281922%29#page/n8/mode/1up 6] Safed remained a mixed city during the British Mandate for Palestine and ethnic tensions between Jews and Arabs rose during the 1920s. During the 1929 Palestine riots, Safed and Hebron became major clash points. In the Safed massacre 20 Jewish residents were killed by local Arabs."Arab Attack At Safed", The Times, Saturday, August 31, 1929; p. 10; Issue 45296; col D. Safed was included in the part of Palestine recommended to be included in the proposed Jewish state under the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine.[http://domino.un.org/unispal.nsf/0/7f0af2bd897689b785256c330061d253 General Assembly Resolution of 29 November 1947: Retrieved 3 March 2014] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120524094913/http://domino.un.org/unispal.nsf/0/7f0af2bd897689b785256c330061d253 |date=24 May 2012 }}

{{Further|1948 Palestine war}}

In 1948 the city was home to about 12,000 Arabs and about 1,700 Jews, mostly religious and elderly. On 5 January 1948, Arabs attacked the Jewish Quarter.Martin (2005). Routledge Atlas of the Arab-Israeli Conflict. Routledge. {{ISBN|0-415-35901-5}}. In February 1948, during the civil war, Muslim Arabs attacked a Jewish bus attempting to reach Safed, and the Jewish quarter of the town came under siege by the Muslims. British forces that were present did not intervene. According to Martin Gilbert, food supplies ran short. "Even water and flour were in desperately short supply. Each day, the Arab attackers drew closer to the heart of the Jewish quarter, systematically blowing up Jewish houses as they pressed in on the central area."Martin Gilbert Israel, A history William Morrow & Co, NY 1998 {{ISBN|0-688-12362-7}} p. 174

On April 16, the same day that British forces evacuated Safed, 200 local Arab militiamen, supported by over 200 Arab Liberation Army soldiers, tried to take over the city's Jewish Quarter. They were repelled by the Jewish garrison, consisting of some 200 Haganah fighters, men and women, boosted by a Palmach platoon.Benny Morris, 1948, The First Arab-Israeli War, 2008 Yale University Press, p. 157

The Palmach ground attack on the Arab section of Safed took place on 6 May, as a part of Operation Yiftach. The first phase of the Palmach plan to capture Safed, was to secure a corridor through the mountains by capturing the Arab village of Biriyya.Gilbert, 1998, p. 177 The Arab Liberation Army placed artillery pieces on a hill adjacent to the Jewish quarter and started its shelling.{{Cite web|url=https://archive.org/details/1948historyoffir00morr|title=1948|date=April 28, 2008|publisher=Yale University Press|via=Internet Archive}} The Palmach's Third Battalion failed to take the main objective, the "citadel", but "terrified" the Arab population sufficiently to prompt further flight, as well as urgent appeals for outside help and an effort to obtain a truce.Morris, 2004, p. 223

The secretary-general of the Arab League Abdul Rahman Hassan Azzam stated that the goal of Plan Dalet was to drive out the inhabitants of Arab villages along the Syrian and Lebanese frontiers, particularly places on the roads by which Arab regular forces could enter the country. He noted that Acre and Safed were in particular danger.Broadmead to HC, 5 May 1948, SAMECA CP III\5\102. Quoted in Morris, 2004, p. 223 However, the appeals for help were ignored, and the British, now less than a week away from the end of the British Mandate of Palestine, also did not intervene against the second and final Haganah attack, which began on the evening of 9 May, with a mortar barrage on key sites in Safed. Following the barrage, Palmach infantry, in bitter fighting, took the citadel, Beit Shalva and the police fort, Safed's three dominant buildings. Through 10 May, Haganah mortars continued to pound the Arab neighbourhoods, causing fires in the marked area and in the fuel dumps, which exploded. "The Palmah 'intentionally left open the exit routes for the population to "facilitate" their exodus...' "Morris 2004, page 224 quoting unnamed source from Book of the Palmah II According to Gilbert, "The Arabs of Safed began to leave, including the commander of the Arab forces, Adib Shishakli (later Prime Minister of Syria). With the police fort on Mount Canaan isolated, its defenders withdrew without fighting. The fall of Safed was a blow to Arab morale throughout the region... With the invasion of Palestine by regular Arab armies believed to be imminent – once the British had finally left in eleven or twelve days' time – many Arabs felt that prudence dictated their departure until the Jews had been defeated and they could return to their homes. According to Abbasi, the exodus of the Arabs of Safed had three phases.Abbasi (2004) pp. 40–42. The first was due to the departure of the British compounded by the failure of an attack on the Jewish quarter and a disagreement between the Jordanian and Syrian commanders. The second was due to the fall of nearby Ein al-Zeitun and the massacre that Jewish forces committed there. The third was due to the deliberate creation of panic by Jewish forces.

Some 12,000 Arabs, with some estimates reaching 15,000, fled Safed and were a "heavy burden on the Arab war effort".Morris, 2004, page 224 quoting Yigal Allon from Book of the Palmah II Among them was the family of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.{{cite news |author=Sarah Honig |newspaper=The Jerusalem Post |url=http://fr.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1246443837339&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull |title=Another Tack: Self-exiled by guilt |date= July 17, 2009 |author-link=Sarah Honig}}{{efn|Abbas is quoted as saying "People were motivated to run away... They feared retribution from Zionist terrorist organizations – particularly from the Safed ones. Those of us from Safed especially feared that the Jews harbored old desires to avenge what happened during the 1929 uprising.... They realized the balance of forces was shifting and therefore the whole town was abandoned on the basis of this rationale – saving our lives and our belongings." In 2012 Abbas stated "I visited Safed before once. I want to see Safed. It's my right to see it, but not to live there."{{cite news|author=Harriet Sherwood in Jerusalem |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/nov/04/mahmoud-abbas-palestinian-territories |title=Mahmoud Abbas outrages Palestinian refugees by waiving his right to return | World news |work=The Guardian |date= 2012-11-04|access-date=2013-03-12 |location=London}}}} The city was fully under the control of Jewish paramilitary forces by May 11, 1948.

Early in June, Jewish dignitaries from Safed journeyed to Tel Aviv to ask the government to block the return of Arabs to the city, threatening to abandon it if the latter were allowed back. They reasoned that since most of the Arabs' property had been seized or stolen in the meantime, the Jewish community would be unable to withstand the pressure of the returnees' demands for restitution.Benny Morris, [http://www.haaretz.com/misc/article-print-page/.premium.HIGHLIGHT.MAGAZINE-was-israeli-looting-in-48-part-of-a-broader-policy-to-expel-arabs-1.9873157 'Was Israeli looting in '48 part of a broader policy to expel Arabs?,'] Haaretz 3 June 2021.

File:Zoltan Kluger. Safed.jpg|Safad 1937

File:Safed iv.jpg|Mandate Police station at Mount Canaan, above Safed (1948)

File:Safed 1948.jpg|Safed (1948)

File:Safed citadel.jpg|Safed Citadel (1948)

File:Safad v.jpg|Safad Municipal Police Station after the battle (1948)

File:Safad i.jpg|Bussel House, Safad, 11 April 1948: Yiftach Brigade headquarters

File:Mount Canaan iv.jpg|View of Safed from Mount Canaan (1948)

File:Mount Canaan Police station.jpg|Mandate administration building on the eastern outskirts of Safed (1948)

File:Safed v.jpg|Yiftach Brigade, with their Hotchkiss machine guns, based at Bussel House, 1948

File:Druze in Safad.jpg|Druze parading in Safed after the Palmach victory in 1948

In 1974, 25 Israeli Jews (mainly school children) from Safed, were killed in the Ma'alot massacre. Over 1990s and early 2000s, the town accepted thousands of Russian Jewish immigrants and Ethiopian Beta Israel.{{cite web|url=http://www.safed.co.il/|title=Safed|work=safed.co.il|access-date=May 12, 2012}} In July 2006, "Katyusha" rockets fired by Hezbollah from Southern Lebanon hit Safed, killing one man and injuring others. Many residents fled the town for the duration of the conflict.{{cite news|author=Myre, Greg|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/15/world/middleeast/15voices.html?_r=1&oref=slogin|title=2 More Israelis Are Killed as Rain of Rockets From Lebanon Pushes Thousands South|work=The New York Times|date=2006-07-15|access-date=2008-10-25}} On July 22, four people were injured in a rocket attack.

The town has retained its unique status as a Jewish studies centre, incorporating numerous facilities. In 2010, eighteen senior rabbis led by the chief rabbi of Safed, Shmuel Eliyahu, issued an edict urging the city's residents not to rent or sell property to Arabs, warning of an "Arab takeover"; Arabs constitute a fractional proportion of the population, and the statement was generally perceived to be directed at the 1,300 Arab students enrolled at Zefat Academic College.{{cite news |last1=Sherwood |first1=Harriet |title=Dozens of Israeli rabbis back call to forbid sale of property to Arabs |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/dec/07/israeli-rabbis-ban-rental-sale-to-arabs |access-date=9 June 2020 |work=The Guardian |date=7 December 2010}}{{cite news |last1=Ashkenazi |first1=Eli |title=Safed Rabbi Boasts That anti-Arab Edict Worked |url=https://www.haaretz.com/1.5005432 |access-date=9 June 2020 |work=Haaretz |date=28 April 2011}}{{cite news |last1=Cook |first1=Jonathan |title=Safed 'the most racist city' in Israel |url=https://www.thenational.ae/uae/safed-the-most-racist-city-in-israel-1.557067 |access-date=9 June 2020 |work=The National |date=8 November 2010}}

• Muhammad Afadani Hassan Abd al-Rahman (elected in 1927)
• Salah Izz al-Din Qaddura (elected in 1934)
• Ali Reza al-Nakhawi (1934–1939)
• Zaki Qaddura
• Moshe Padhatzur (1948–1955)
• Avraham HaCohen (1955–1965)
• Meir Meivar (March–November 1965; November 1969–September 1971)
• Yaakov Hopert (November 1966–April 1966; April 1967–November 1969)
• Israel Chaim Berkowitz (April 1966–April 1967)
• Eli Kadoush (1971–1973)
• Aharon Nahmias (1973–1983)
• Ze'ev Perl (1983–1993)
• Moshe Chaniya (1993–1998)
• Yosef Oz (1998–2001)
• Oded HaMairi (2001–2003)
• Yishai Maimon (2003–2008)
• Ilan Shohat (2008–2018)
• Shuki Ohana (2018–February 2024)
• Yossi Kakun (2024–)

In 2008, the population of Safed was 32,000.{{cite web|url=http://www.cbs.gov.il/population/new_2009/table3.pdf|publisher=Israel Central Bureau of Statistics|title=Table 3 – Population of Localities Numbering Above 1,000 Residents and Other Rural Population|date=2008-06-30|access-date=2016-06-04}} According to CBS figures in 2001, the ethnic makeup of the city was 99.2% Jewish and non-Arab, with no significant Arab population. 43.2% of the residents were 19 years of age or younger, 13.5% between 20 and 29, 17.1% between 30 and 44, 12.5% from 45 to 59, 3.1% from 60 to 64, and 10.5% 65 years of age or older.

The city is home to a relatively large community of Haredi Jews. The village of Akbara in the city's southwestern outskirts, which had a population of about 500 Arab Muslims, most of whom belonged to a single clan, the Halihal, is under Safed's municipal jurisdiction.{{cite news |last1=Hassin |first1=Tal |title=A New Racist Reality for the Arabs of Safed |url=https://www.haaretz.com/1.4776066 |access-date=9 June 2020 |work=Haaretz |date=4 August 2020}}

The city is located above the Dead Sea Transform, and is one of the cities in Israel most at risk of earthquakes (along with Tiberias, Beit She'an, Kiryat Shmona, and Eilat).[http://unitedwithisrael.org/experts-warn-major-earthquake-could-hit-israel-any-time Experts Warn: Major Earthquake Could Hit Israel Any Time] By Rachel Avraham, staff writer for United With Israel Date: Oct 22, 2013

Safed is {{convert|40|km|mi|sp=us}} east of Acre and {{convert|20|km|mi|sp=us}} north of Tiberias.

Safed has a Mediterranean climate (Köppen climate classification: Csa) with hot, dry summers and cool, rainy and occasionally snowy winters. The city receives {{convert|682|mm|0|abbr=on}} of precipitation per year. Summers are rainless and hot with an average high temperature of {{convert|31|°C|0|abbr=on}} and an average low temperature of {{convert|20|°C|0|abbr=on}}. Winters are cool and wet, and precipitation is occasionally in the form of snow. Winters have an average high temperature of {{convert|10|°C|0|abbr=on}} and an average low temperature of {{convert|5|°C|0|abbr=on}}.

{{Weather box

|width = auto

|location = Safed (Har Kenaan) (2004-2022, extremes 1939–present)

|metric first = yes

|single line = yes

|Jan record high C = 21.7

|Feb record high C = 26.7

|Mar record high C = 30.9

|Apr record high C = 34.5

|May record high C = 38.1

|Jun record high C = 40.0

|Jul record high C = 39.0

|Aug record high C = 42.0

|Sep record high C = 40.6

|Oct record high C = 36.0

|Nov record high C = 30.1

|Dec record high C = 24.4

|year record high C =

|Jan high C = 10.3

|Feb high C = 12.2

|Mar high C = 15.6

|Apr high C = 20.5

|May high C = 25.3

|Jun high C = 28.6

|Jul high C = 30.6

|Aug high C = 30.4

|Sep high C = 28.5

|Oct high C = 24.8

|Nov high C = 18.1

|Dec high C = 12.6

|year high C = 21.4

|Jan mean C = 7.6

|Feb mean C = 9.1

|Mar mean C = 11.7

|Apr mean C = 15.9

|May mean C = 20.1

|Jun mean C = 23.1

|Jul mean C = 25.2

|Aug mean C = 25.2

|Sep mean C = 23.4

|Oct mean C = 20.4

|Nov mean C = 14.8

|Dec mean C = 10.0

|year mean C =

|Jan low C = 5.0

|Feb low C = 6.0

|Mar low C = 7.9

|Apr low C = 11.3

|May low C = 14.9

|Jun low C = 17.6

|Jul low C = 19.9

|Aug low C = 20.0

|Sep low C = 18.4

|Oct low C = 15.9

|Nov low C = 11.4

|Dec low C = 7.3

|year low C =

|Jan record low C = -6.4

|Feb record low C = -9.0

|Mar record low C = -3.4

|Apr record low C = 0.2

|May record low C = 5.7

|Jun record low C = 8.7

|Jul record low C = 12.2

|Aug record low C = 13.0

|Sep record low C = 10.7

|Oct record low C = 5.9

|Nov record low C = -1.7

|Dec record low C = -3.2

|year record low C =

|rain colour = green

|Jan rain mm= 182.1

|Feb rain mm = 122.9

|Mar rain mm = 61.4

|Apr rain mm = 34.8

|May rain mm = 12.3

|Jun rain mm = 0.1

|Jul rain mm = 0.0

|Aug rain mm = 0.8

|Sep rain mm = 3.3

|Oct rain mm = 21.3

|Nov rain mm = 72.3

|Dec rain mm = 143.4

|year rain mm =

|unit rain days = 0.1 mm

|Jan rain days = 14.3

|Feb rain days = 11.3

|Mar rain days = 9.7

|Apr rain days = 5.0

|May rain days = 2.9

|Jun rain days = 0.2

|Jul rain days = 0.0

|Aug rain days = 0.1

|Sep rain days = 1.1

|Oct rain days = 4.3

|Nov rain days = 7.8

|Dec rain days = 11.3

|year rain days = 67.9

|source 1 = Israel Meteorological Service{{cite web

| url = https://ims.gov.il/en/ClimateAtlas

| title = Climate Atlas

| publisher = Israel Meteorological Service

| accessdate = January 22, 2023

}}{{cite web

| url = https://ims.gov.il/en/data_gov

| title = Meteorological Database

| publisher = Israel Meteorological Service

| accessdate = January 22, 2023

}}

}}

According to CBS, the city has 25 schools and 6,292 students. There are 18 elementary schools with a student population of 3,965, and 11 high schools with a student population of 2,327. 40.8% of Safed's 12th graders were eligible for a matriculation (bagrut) certificate in 2001. The Zefat Academic College, originally an extension of Bar-Ilan University, was granted independent accreditation by Israel's Council of Higher Education in 2007.{{Cite web | url=http://www.zefat.ac.il/?CategoryID=637 |title = המכללה האקדמית צפת}} For the 2011–2012 school year, the college began a program designed specifically for Haredi Judaism.{{cite news |id={{ProQuest|913691816}} |last1=Omer-Man |first1=Michael |date=9 December 2011 |title=Safed college opens track for haredi women |url=https://www.jpost.com/metro/features/safed-college-opens-track-for-haredi-women |work=The Jerusalem Post }} It was created in order to allow haredi women living in the Upper Galilee access to higher education, while still maintaining strict religious practice. The program accomplishes this goal through separate classes for male and female students. The classes are also taught during certain hours as to allow women to fulfill other aspects of their religiosity.

In October 2011, Israel's fifth medical school opened in Safed, housed in a renovated historic building in the centre of town that was once a branch of Hadassah Hospital.{{cite news|url=http://www.haaretz.com/business/new-medical-school-to-open-in-safed-1.392699|title=New Medical School to Open in Safed|work=Haaretz.com|date=2011-10-30}}

The Azrieli Faculty of Medicine opened in 2011 as an extension of Bar-Ilan University, created to train physicians in the Upper Galilee region."About." About | The Azrieli Faculty of Medicine | Bar-Ilan University. Accessed December 02, 2018. http://medicine.biu.ac.il/en/node/3 The schools conducts clinical instructions in six hospitals in the region:

• Tzafon Medical Center
• Ziv Medical Center
• Western Galilee Hospital
• EMMS Nazareth Hospital
• The Holy Family Hospital
• Mazra Mental Health Center

On March 8, 2021, the Israeli Prime-Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that Israel is to establish its 10th university in Safed, after a growing need for a university in the northern district of Israel. Plans have been in place to establish a university in the Galilee since 2005, but no progress was made until 2015 when Netanyahu vowed to start working on the project during a Galilee Conference.{{Cite news|date=2021-03-09|title=Israel to establish its 10th university in Safed|url=https://www.ynetnews.com/article/HkMmrZB7u|access-date=2021-03-12|website=ynetnews|language=en}}

As one of Judaism's Holy Cities, Safed hosts several Yeshivas.

The Haredi Yeshivat Tzfat [http://www.torahindex.com/en/inst/institutionsDetail.aspx?index=1&instID=4824 Yeshivat Tzfat] and associated institutions are headed by Rabbi Mordechai Kaplan.

The Religious Zionist Hesder Yeshiva of Tzfat [https://yhtsfat.org.il/ yhtsfat.org.il] was founded in 1997 by Rabbi Benyahu Broner and is today headed by Rabbi Shemuel Eliyahu with approximately 120 students.

For women, Sharei Bina is a midrasha (seminary) offering a one-year post high school program,"Safed HOME." Rabbi Cordovero. Accessed December 02, 2018. https://www.safed.co.il/open-learning-environment-for-women.html with an increased focus on Jewish spirituality - including formal study of Kabbalistic topics.{{cite news |id={{ProQuest|228062899}} |last1=Rothenberg |first1=Jennie |title=Ghosts, Artists & Kabbalists; the struggle for the soul of Tsfat |journal=Moment |date=April 2005 |page=42 }}

Chabad has several institutions including Machon Alte [https://www.chabad.org/jewish-centers/118275/Safed/Yeshivah-for-Beginners-Women/Machon-Alte Machon Alte] for women, and the advanced Kollel Tzemach Tzedek.[https://www.chabad.org/jewish-centers/119511/Safed/Kollel/Kolel-Avreichim-Tzemach-tzedek Kolel-Avreichim-Tzemach-tzedek]

The Livnot U'Lehibanot program in Safed provides an open, non-denominational atmosphere for young Jewish adults that combines volunteering, hiking and study with exploring Jewish heritage."Israel Programs – Kahal – Inspiration Center." Livnot U'Lehibanot. November 19, 1970. Accessed December 02, 2018. https://www.livnot.org/

File:Blue door in Beit Castel gallery, Safed, Israel.jpg gallery in the artists' colony]]

{{main|Artists Quarter of Safed}}

In the 1950s and 1960s, Safed was known as Israel's art capital. An artists' colony established in the old Arab quarter was a hub of creativity that drew artists from around the country, among them Yitzhak Frenkel, Yosl Bergner, Moshe Castel, Menachem Shemi, Shimshon Holzman and Rolly Schaffer.

In honor of the opening of the Glitzenstein Art Museum in 1953, the artist Mane Katz donated eight of his paintings to the city. Today the area contains a large number of galleries and workshops run by individual artists and art vendors. There are several museums and galleries that function in the historical homes of major Israeli artists such as the Frenkel Frenel Museum and the Beit Castel gallery (in Moshe Castel's former home).{{Cite web|url=https://hectorbarel.wixsite.com/beitcastel|title=Paintings {{!}} Moshe Castel Gallery {{!}} Israel|website=Moshecastelgallery|language=en|access-date=2019-08-12|archive-date=2019-08-12|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190812071258/https://hectorbarel.wixsite.com/beitcastel|url-status=dead}}{{Cite web|url=https://www.frenkel-frenel.org/The_official_Isaac_Frenkel-Frenel_web_site/Welcome.html|title=FRENKEL FRENEL MUSEUM|website=www.frenkel-frenel.org|access-date=2019-08-10}}Israel Travel News, Spotlight – A Spiritual Journey of Safed [http://itn.co.il/news/updates/spotlight-a-spiritual-journey-of-safed/ access date: 24/1/2018]

In the 1960s, Safed was home to the country's top nightclubs, hosting the debut performances of Naomi Shemer, Aris San, and other singers.{{cite news|url=https://www.haaretz.com/1.5038830|title=An Inside Job?|newspaper=Haaretz|author=Ashkenazi, Eli|access-date=2008-10-25}} Nowadays,

Safed has been hailed as the klezmer capital of the world, hosting an annual Klezmer Festival that attracts top musicians from around the globe.{{Cite web | url=http://www.safed-home.com/KlezmerFestivalofSafed.html |title = Klezmer Festival 2019 in Safed}}{{cite web|last=Davis |first=Barry |url=http://fr.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1249418567163 |title=You can take the music out of the shtetl |publisher=Fr.jpost.com |date=2009-08-10 |access-date=2012-01-07}} A school of world music, especially eastern music called Maqamat operates in the Artists' Quarter of Safed.{{Cite web |title=Maqamat School of Eastern Music - WOMEX |url=https://www.womex.com/virtual/maqamat_school_of |access-date=2023-12-27 |website=www.womex.com}}

• The Beit Hameiri museum documents Safed's Jewish community over the past 200 years.
• The Museum of the Art of Printing displays the first Hebrew printing press.

File:PikiWiki Israel 60503 the scottish church in safed.jpg

;Citadel Hill

The Citadel Hill, in Hebrew HaMetzuda, rises east of the Old City and is named after the huge Crusader and then Mamluk castle built there during the 12th and 13th centuries, which continued in use until being totally destroyed by the 1837 earthquake. Its ruins are still visible. On the western slope beneath the ruins stands the former British police station, still pockmarked by bullet holes from the 1948 war.

;Old Jewish Quarter

File:RoyLindmanAbuhav1.jpg, one of the city's historic synagogues]]

Before 1948, most of Safed's Jewish population used to live in the northern section of the old city. Currently home to 32 synagogues, it is also referred to as the synagogue quarter and includes synagogues named after prominent rabbis of the town: the Abuhav, Alsheich, Karo and two named for Rabbi Isaac Luria: one Ashkenazi, the other Sephardi.

;Mamluk-period buildings

Further south are two monumental Mamluk-period buildings:

• the Red Mosque with a khan (1276)
• the Mamluk mausoleum, now used by freemasons. The mausoleum was built for a Mamluk na'ib (governor) of Safed, Muzaffar ad-Din Musa ibn Hajj al-Ruqtay Musa Muzaffar al-Din ibn Ruqtay al-Hajj, who died in AH 762/AD 1360–61).{{cite book |title=The Mamluks in Egyptian Politics and Society |editor1=Thomas Philipp |editor2=Ulrich Haarmann |year=1998 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |series=Cambridge Studies in Islamic Civilization |isbn=9780521591157 |url={{Google books |id=WoPF9T4ZiWsC |page=43 |plainurl=yes}} |access-date=24 January 2018}}{{Cite web|url=http://go.galil.gov.il/en/the-red-kahn-and-the-mamluk-mausoleum|title=The Galilee Development Authority website|access-date=2018-01-24|archive-date=2018-01-25|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180125015724/http://go.galil.gov.il/en/the-red-kahn-and-the-mamluk-mausoleum|url-status=dead}}

Southeast of the Artists' Quarter is the Saraya, the fortified governor's residence built by Zahir al-Umar (1689/90–1775).

A report about the "obliteration of non-Jewish historic sites in Safed" mentions a mausoleum, an ancient grave and an ancient mosque that was converted into a clubhouse.[https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-safed-s-non-jewish-treasures-face-disrespect-and-vandalism-1.9331349 Safed’s non-Jewish Treasures Face Disrespect and Vandalism] - Haaretz

{{main|List of notable people from Safed}}

{{See also|List of twin towns and sister cities in Israel}}

Safed is twinned with:

• {{flagicon|HUN}} Erzsébetváros, Budapest, Hungary
• {{flagicon|POR}} Guarda, Portugal{{cite web |title=Geminações de Cidades e Vilas |url=https://www.anmp.pt/anmp/pro/mun1/gem101l0.php?cod_ent=M6300 |publisher=Associação Nacional de Municípios Portugueses |access-date=19 April 2021 |archive-date=20 October 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221020215207/https://www.anmp.pt/anmp/pro/mun1/gem101l0.php?cod_ent=M6300 |url-status=dead }}
• {{flagicon|FRA}} Lille, France{{cite web|url=http://www.leparisien.fr/lille-59000/la-ville-de-lille-met-en-veille-son-jumelage-avec-safed-en-israel-07-10-2014-4195033.php|title=La ville de Lille "met en veille" son jumelage avec Safed en Israël|date=31 August 2015|work=leparisien.fr|access-date=11 December 2014|archive-date=18 December 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141218193628/http://www.leparisien.fr/lille-59000/la-ville-de-lille-met-en-veille-son-jumelage-avec-safed-en-israel-07-10-2014-4195033.php|url-status=dead}}
• {{flagicon|BUL}} Nikopol, Bulgaria[http://www.g-news.co.il/article.asp?news=9574&article=9574] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151018072534/http://www.g-news.co.il/article.asp?news=9574&article=9574|date=2015-10-18}}
• {{flagicon|USA}} Palm Beach County, Florida, United States
• {{flagicon|ESP}} Toledo, Castile–La Mancha, Spain

File:Meron 181.jpg|Monument to the Israeli soldiers who fought in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War

File:Safed 2009.jpg|Safed in 2009

File:Safed view 02.JPG|View of Safed

File:Safed view 01.jpg|View of Safed

File:Safed 01.JPG|Houses in Safed

File:SafedDSCN4022.JPG|Doorway in Beit Castel gallery, Safed

File:Panorama Safed and Mount Meron.jpg]]

File:Panorama Safed צפת (Sea of Galilee in the background).jpg]]

• List of clock towers – Safed has its own, the Ottoman clock tower of the "Saraya" (government house), inaugurated in 1900

{{notelist}}

{{reflist|colwidth=30em|refs=}}

{{Refbegin}}

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• {{cite journal |last1=Abbasi |first1=Mustafa |title=The Battle for Safad in the War of 1948: A Revised Study |journal=International Journal of Middle East Studies |date=February 2004 |volume=36 |issue=1 |pages=21–47 |doi=10.1017/S0020743804361027 |jstor=3880136 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3880136}}
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• {{cite book |editor-last=Barron |editor-first=J.B. |title=Palestine: Report and General Abstracts of the Census of 1922 |url=https://archive.org/details/PalestineCensus1922 |publisher = Government of Palestine |year=1923}}
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• {{cite book |last1=Deeb |first1=Mary-Jane |author-link=Mary-Jane Deeb |editor1-last=Deeb |editor1-first=Mary-Jane |editor2-last=King |editor2-first=Mary E. |editor2-link=Mary E. Deeb |title=Hasib Sabbagh: From Palestinian Refugee to Citizen of the World |date=1996 |publisher=Middle East Institute and University Press of America |location=Lanham, Maryland and London |isbn=0-916808-43-2 |chapter=A Biographical Note |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PqM3Z7GvlXcC&pg=PA1}}
• {{cite book |last1=Drory |first1=Joseph |editor1-last=Winter |editor1-first=Michael |editor2-last=Levanoni |editor2-first=Amalia |title=The Mamluks in Egyptian and Syrian Politics and Society |date=2004 |publisher=Brill |isbn=9789004132863 |chapter=Founding a New Mamlaka |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NBBMJJTEoKMC&pg=PA163}}
• {{cite book |last1=Ebied |first1=R. Y. |last2=Young |first2=M. J. L. |title=Some Arabic Legal Documents of the Ottoman Period: From the Leeds Manuscript Collection University of Leeds, Dept. of Semitic Studies |year=1975 |publisher=Brill Archive |isbn=90-04-04401-9}}
• {{cite book |last1=Ellenblum |first1=R. |author-link=Ronnie Ellenblum |title=Crusader Castles and Modern Histories |date=2007 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=Cambridge |isbn=9781139462556 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oiYgyRyL97oC}}
• {{cite encyclopedia |last=Franco |first=M. |article=Safed |encyclopedia=The Jewish Encyclopedia: A Descriptive Record of the History, Religion, Literature, and Customs of the Jewish People from the Earliest Times to the Present Day |volume=10 |year=1916 |publisher=Funk and Wagnalls Company |location=New York and London |pages=633–636 |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=sr85AQAAMAAJ}}
• {{cite book |title=Village Statistics, April, 1945 |url=http://web.nli.org.il/sites/nli/Hebrew/library/Pages/BookReader.aspx?pid=856390|author=Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics|year=1945}}
• {{cite book |title=Village Statistics of 1945: A Classification of Land and Area ownership in Palestine|url=http://www.palestineremembered.com/Articles/General-2/Story3150.html|first=S.|last=Hadawi|author-link=Sami Hadawi|year=1970|publisher=Palestine Liberation Organization Research Center}}
• {{cite book |last1=Holt |first1=P. M. |title=Early Mamluk Diplomacy, 1260–1290: Treaties of Baybars and Qalāwūn with Christian Rulers |date=1995 |publisher=Brill |location=Leiden and New York |isbn=90-04-10246-9 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=b2oeolaGUCEC}}
• {{cite journal |last1=Layish |first1=Aharon |title="Waqfs" and Ṣūfī Monasteries in the Ottoman Policy of Colonization: Sulṭan Selīm I's "waqf" of 1516 in Favour of Dayr al-Asad |journal=Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London |date=1987 |volume=50 |issue=1 |pages=61–89 |doi=10.1017/S0041977X00053192 |jstor=616894 |s2cid=161757141 }}
• {{cite book |title=Palestine Under the Moslems: A Description of Syria and the Holy Land from A.D. 650 to 1500 |url=https://archive.org/details/palestineundermo00lestuoft |first=G. |last= Le Strange |author-link=Guy Le Strange |year=1890 |publisher=Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund}}
• {{cite book |last=Lieber |first=Sherman |title=Mystics and missionaries: the Jews in Palestine, 1799–1840 |url= https://archive.org/details/mysticsmissionar0000lieb |url-access=registration |year=1992 |publisher=University of Utah Press |isbn=978-0-87480-391-4 |page=[https://archive.org/details/mysticsmissionar0000lieb/}}
• {{cite book |last1=Luz |first1=Nimrod |title=The Mamluk City in the Middle East: History, Culture, and the Urban Landscape |date=2014 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=Cambridge |isbn=978-1-107-04884-3 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XeFSAwAAQBAJ}}
• {{cite book |editor=Mills, E. |title=Census of Palestine 1931. Population of Villages, Towns and Administrative Areas |url=https://archive.org/details/CensusOfPalestine1931.PopulationOfVillagesTownsAndAdministrativeAreas |publisher=Government of Palestine |location=Jerusalem |year=1932}}
• {{cite book |last1=Morgenstern |first1=Arie |translator=Joel A. Linsider |title=Hastening Redemption: Messianism and the Resettlement of the Land of Israel |date=2006 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=New York |isbn=978-0-19-530578-4 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2dFh-fYvjokC}}
• {{cite book |title=The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited |first=B. |last=Morris |author-link=Benny Morris |year=2004 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=0-521-00967-7}}
• {{cite book |last1=Petersen |first1=Andrew |title=A Gazetteer of Buildings in Muslim Palestine, Part 1 |date=2001 |publisher=Council for British Research in the Levant |location=London |isbn=978-0-19-727011-0 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ux_2wXFXYewC}}
• {{cite journal |first=D.|last=Pringle|author-link=Denys Pringle |year=1985 |title=Review Article: Reconstructing the Castle of Safad |journal=Palestine Exploration Quarterly |volume=117 |issue=2 |pages=139–149 |doi=10.1179/peq.1985.117.2.139}}
• {{cite thesis |last=Rhode |first=H.|author-link=Harold Rhode|title=The Administration and Population of the Sancak of Safad in the Sixteenth Century |year=1979 |publisher=Columbia University |type=PhD}}
• {{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4vOJ15vTZV4C |title=A House of Many Mansions: The History of Lebanon Reconsidered |first=K.|last=Salibi|author-link=Kamal Salibi |publisher=University of California Press |date=1988 |isbn=978-0-520-07196-4}}
• {{cite journal |last=Schumacher |first=G.|author-link=Gottlieb Schumacher | title = Population list of the Liwa of Akka |journal=Quarterly Statement - Palestine Exploration Fund |volume=20 |pages=169–191 |url=https://archive.org/details/quarterlystateme19pale |year=1888}}
• {{cite book |last=Sharon |first=M. |author-link=Moshe Sharon |title=Corpus Inscriptionum Arabicarum Palaestinae, A |volume= 1|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=j1rSzWgHMjoC |year=1997 |publisher=Brill |isbn=90-04-10833-5}}
• {{cite book |last=Sharon |first=M.|author-link=Moshe Sharon |title=Corpus Inscriptionum Arabicarum Palaestinae, Addendum |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=1d8xHcor0psC |year=2007 |publisher=Brill |isbn=978-90-04-15780-4}}
• {{cite book |last1=Sicker |first1=Martin |title=Reshaping Palestine: From Muhammad Ali to the British Mandate, 1831-1922 |date=1999 |publisher=Praeger |location=Westport and London |isbn=0-275-96639-9 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TWBxUi5fVS0C}}

{{Refend}}

{{Wikivoyage}}

• [http://www.zefat.muni.il/Pages/default.aspx City Council website] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210802202224/https://www.zefat.muni.il/Pages/default.aspx |date=2021-08-02 }}
• [http://www.zefat.net/ zefat.net] {{in lang|he}}
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20111125212133/http://www.safed-home.com/TouristInformation.html Tourist Information Center]
• [https://www.nbn.org.il/life-in-israel/community-and-housing/community-guide/tzfat/ Nefesh B' Nefesh Community Guide for Tzfat]
• Survey of Western Palestine, Map 4: [http://www.iaa-archives.org.il/zoom/zoom.aspx?folder_id=93&type_id=6&id=8367 IAA], [http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Survey_of_Western_Palestine_1880.04.jpg Wikimedia commons]; Safed on the PEF Map

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