Safed - WikiHQ

Safed ( ; ), also known as Tzfat and officially as Zefat In 2022, 93.2% of the population was Jewish and 6.8% was counted as other.

Safed has been identified with (), a fortified town in the Upper Galilee mentioned in the writings of the Roman Jewish historian Josephus. The Jerusalem Talmud mentions Safed as one of five elevated spots where fires were lit to announce the Rosh Chodesh and holidays during the Second Temple period.

Safed attained local prominence under the Crusaders, who built a large fortress there in 1168. It was conquered by Saladin 20 years later, and demolished by his grandnephew al-Mu'azzam Isa in 1219. After a treaty with the Crusaders in 1240, a larger fortress was erected and expanded and reinforced in 1268 by the Mamluk sultan Baybars, who developed Safed into a major town and the capital of a new province spanning the Galilee.

After a century of general decline, the stability brought by the 1517 Ottoman conquest ushered in nearly a century of growth and prosperity in Safed, during which time Jewish immigrants from across Europe developed the city into a center for wool and textile production and the mystical Kabbalah movement. It became known as one of the Four Holy Cities of Judaism. As the capital of Safed Sanjak, it was the main population center of the Galilee, with large Muslim and Jewish communities. Despite the fortunate governorship of Fakhr al-Din II in the early 17th century, the city underwent a general decline and, by the mid-18th century, was eclipsed by Acre. Druze and Muslim locals raided the Jewish community in 1834 and 1838. Many Jewish residents perished in the 1837 Galilee earthquake; through the philanthropy of Moses Montefiore, its synagogues and homes were rebuilt. Safed's population reached 24,000 toward the end of the 19th century, divided roughly equally between Jews and Muslims, with a small Christian community. Muslim merchants played a key role as middlemen in the grain trade between local farmers and traders in Acre, while the Ottomans promoted the city as a center of Sunni jurisprudence. Safed's conditions improved during this period, with the establishment of a municipal council and several banks.

By 1922, Safed's population had dropped to around 8,700; roughly 60% Muslim, 33% Jewish, and the remainder Christian. Amid rising ethnic tension throughout Mandatory Palestine, Safed's Jews were attacked in an massacre of 19 August 1929 and 22 Jews were killed. The city's population had risen to 13,700 by 1948, overwhelmingly Arab, though the city was proposed to be part of a Jewish state in the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine. During the 1948 Palestine war, Arab factions attacked and besieged the Jewish quarter, which held out until Jewish paramilitary forces captured the city after heavy fighting, precipitating British forces to withdraw. That year, the city became part of the then-newly established state of Israel.

thumb|Art in Safed: zodiac on ceramic disk

Safed has a large Haredi community and remains a center for Jewish religious studies. It hosts Ziv Medical Center and the Zefat Academic College. Safed is a major subject in Israeli art; it hosts an Artists' Quarter. Several prominent art movements played a role in the city, most notably the School of Paris. However the Artists' quarter has declined since its golden age in the second half of the 20th century. Due to its high elevation, the city has warm summers and cold, often snowy winters. Its mild climate and scenic views have made Safed a popular holiday resort frequented by Israelis and foreign visitors. In it had a population of .

Biblical reference

Legend has it that Safed was founded by a son of Noah after the Flood in Genesis.

It has been suggested that Jesus' assertion that "a city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden" referred to Safed.

History

Antiquity

Safed has been identified with Sepph, a fortified town in the Upper Galilee mentioned in the writings of the Roman-Jewish historian Josephus. 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.

Crusader era

Pre-Crusader village and tower

There is scarce information about Safed before the Crusader conquest. 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), 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". 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). 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. The castle of Safed was purchased from Fulk by King Amalric of Jerusalem in 1168. Testifying to the considerable expansion of the castle, the chronicler Jacques de Vitry (d. 1240) wrote that it was practically built anew. The remains of Fulk's castle can now be found under the citadel excavations, on a hill above the old city.

In the estimation of modern historian Havré Barbé, the castellany of Safed comprised approximately . Its northern boundary was marked by the Nahal Dishon (Wadi al-Hindaj) stream, its southern boundary was likely formed near Wadi al-Amud, separating it from the fief of Tiberias, while its eastern limits were the marshes of the Hula Valley and upper Jordan Valley. There were several Jewish communities in the castellany of Safed, as testified in the accounts of Jewish pilgrims and chroniclers between 1120 and 1293. Benjamin of Tudela, who visited the town in 1170, does not record any Jews living in Safed proper.

Ayyubid interregnum

Safed was captured by the Ayyubids led by Sultan Saladin in 1188 after a month-long siege, following the Battle of Hattin in 1187. Saladin ultimately allowed its residents to relocate to Tyre. Samuel ben Samson, who visited the town in 1210, mentions the existence of a Jewish community of at least fifty there. He also noted that two Muslims guarded and maintained the cave tomb of a rabbi, Hanina ben Horqano, in Safed. 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. 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. The reconstruction was completed at the considerable expense of 40,000 bezants in 1243. 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. 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. 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. After a six-week siege, Baybars captured Safed in July 1266, 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. He likely preserved it because of the strategic value stemming from its location on a high mountain and its isolation from other Crusader fortresses. In 1268, he had the fortress repaired, expanded and strengthened. The mosque, called Jami al-Ahmar (the Red Mosque), was completed in 1275. By the end of Baybars's reign, Safed had developed into a prosperous town and fortress. From the time of its capture, the city was made the administrative center of Mamlakat Safad, one of seven mamlakas (provinces), whose governors were typically appointed from Cairo, which made up Mamluk Syria. Initially, its jurisdiction corresponded roughly with the Crusader castellany. The territorial jurisdiction of the mamlaka eventually spanned the entire Galilee and the lands further south down to Jenin. The governor of Safed, Emir Baktamur al-Jukandar (the Polomaster; ), built a mosque later called after him in the northeastern section of the city. The geographer Abu'l Fida (1273–1331), the ruler of Hama, described Safed as follows:<blockquote>[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."</blockquote>

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 (). 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. His account reveals the city's dominant features were its citadel, the Red Mosque and its towering position over the surrounding landscape. 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. He attributed the city's shortcomings to the dearth of generous patrons. 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. Al-Uthmani praised the natural beauty of Safed, its therapeutic air, and noted that its residents took strolls in the surrounding gorges and ravines. In 1481, Joseph Mantabia reported that 300 Jewish families lived in Safed and its surrounding villages. While the accuracy of this figure is uncertain, it reflects the town's growing importance as a center of Jewish life, particularly with the arrival of Sephardic Jews due to persecutions in Portugal and Spain.

Ottoman era

Sixteenth-century prosperity

thumb|right|upright=1|The Red Mosque

The Ottomans conquered Mamluk Syria following their victory at the Battle of Marj Dabiq in northern Syria in 1516. Safed's inhabitants sent the keys of the town citadel to Sultan Selim I after he captured Damascus. No fighting was recorded around Safed, which was bypassed by Selim's army on the way to Mamluk Egypt. 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, part of the larger province of Damascus Eyalet.

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. In 1549, under Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, a wall was constructed and troops were garrisoned to protect the city. 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. 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. The total population of Safed rose from 926 households in 1525–26 to 1,931 households in 1567–1568. 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, 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. 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). The Sufi sage Ahmad al-Asadi (1537–1601) established a zawiya (Sufi lodge) called Sadr Mosque in the city. Safed became a center of Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism) during the 16th century.

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".

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. Sephardi Jews and other Jewish immigrants by then outnumbered Musta'arabi Jews in the city. 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. In 1584, there were 32 synagogues registered in the town.

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.

Political decline, attacks and natural disasters

thumb|right|upright=1|Originally built as a [[caravanserai by the Ottomans in the mid-1700s, the "Saraya" (house of the governor) currently serves as a community centre]]

By the early part of the 17th century, Safed was a small town. 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.

The Ottomans drove Fakhr al-Din into European exile in 1613, but his son Ali became governor in 1615. 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. In , 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." 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. Five years later, Fakhr al-Din was routed by the Ottoman governor of Damascus, Mulhim abandoned Safed, and its Jewish residents returned. 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. 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.

The Tiberias-based sheikh Daher 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. The Naf'i, Shahin, and Murad families continued to farm the taxes of Safed and its countryside into the 1760s as Daher's subordinates. By the 1760s, Daher entrusted Safed to his son Ali, who made the town his headquarters. After Daher was killed by Ottoman imperial forces, the governor of Sidon, Jazzar Pasha, moved to oust Daher'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. The simultaneous rise of Acre, established by Daher 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 . 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. In 1812, another plague killed 80% of the Jewish population. 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. 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.

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. Safed was raided by Druze in 1833 at the approach of Ibrahim Pasha, the Egyptian governor of the Levant. During the revolt, rebels plundered the city as part of a month-long attack, in which Safed's Jewish community was the target of murder, rape and looting of property and religious artifacts, as well as the destruction of homes, synagogues and hundreds of Torah scrolls. 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. destroyed all fourteen of its synagogues and prompted the flight of 600 Perushim for Jerusalem; the surviving Sephardic and Hasidic Jews mostly remained. Among the 2,158 residents of Safed who had died, 1,507 were Ottoman subjects, the rest foreign citizens. The Jewish quarter was situated on the hillside and was particularly hard hit; The population was estimated at 7,000 in 1850–1855, of whom 2,500–3,000 were Jews. 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. The major Muslim landowning clans were the Soubeh, Murad and Qaddura. The latter owned about toward the end of the century, including eight villages around Safed.

thumb|left|Muslim quarter of Safed circa 1908

In 1878 the municipal council of Safed was established. The centralization and stability brought by the imperial reforms solidified the political status and practical influence of Safed in the Upper Galilee. 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. 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. 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. The entire Jewish population lived in the Gharbieh (western) quarter. many members of these families became officials in the civil service, local administrations or businessmen. 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.

Mandatory Palestine

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.

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 what was described in a contemporaneous account as the "systematic slaughter of the Jews" during the Safed massacre, 22 Jewish residents were killed in a "pogrom" by local Arabs who looted and set fire to houses in the city's Jewish quarter.

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.

1948 war

In 1948 the city was home to about 12,000 Arabs and about 1,700 Jews, mostly religious and elderly. 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."

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.

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. The Arab Liberation Army placed artillery pieces on a hill adjacent to the Jewish quarter and started its shelling. 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.

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. 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...' " 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. 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. Among them was the family of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. The city was fully under the control of Jewish paramilitary forces by May 11, 1948.

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

</gallery>

State of Israel

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. 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. 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.

Mayors

Muhammad Effendi Hassan Abd al-Rahman (elected in 1927)
Ali Reza al-Nakhawi (1931–1934)
Salah Izz al-Din Qaddura (elected in 1934)
Zaki Qaddura (1934-1946)
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–)

Demographics

In 2008, the population of Safed was 32,000. 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.

Seismology

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).

Geography

thumb|Safed in winter

Safed is east of Acre and north of Tiberias.

Education

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. For the 2011–2012 school year, the college began a program designed specifically for Haredi Judaism. 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 Azrieli Faculty of Medicine opened in 2011 as an extension of Bar-Ilan University, created to train physicians in the Upper Galilee region. 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

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

The Haredi Yeshivat Tzfat and associated institutions are headed by Rabbi Mordechai Kaplan.

The Religious Zionist Hesder Yeshiva of Tzfat 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, with an increased focus on Jewish spirituality - including formal study of Kabbalistic topics.

Chabad has several institutions including Machon Alte for women, and the advanced Kollel 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.

Culture

thumb|upright=1.2|[[Beit Castel gallery in the artists' colony]]

Artists' colony

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).

Music

In the 1960s, Safed was home to the country's top nightclubs, hosting the debut performances of Naomi Shemer, Aris San, and other singers. 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. A school of world music, especially eastern music called Maqamat operates in the Artists' Quarter of Safed.

Museums

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.

Historic sites

thumb|Scottish church in Safed

;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

thumb|[[Abuhav Synagogue, 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).

Southeast of the Artists' Quarter is the Saraya, the fortified governor's residence built by Daher 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.

Notable people

Twin towns – sister cities

Safed is twinned with:

Erzsébetváros, Budapest, Hungary
Guarda, Portugal
Lille, France
Nikopol, Bulgaria
Palm Beach County, Florida, United States
Toledo, Castile–La Mancha, Spain

Gallery

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