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Tour of Israel: Tiberias
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Tiberias is a city in northeastern Israel with a population of about 35,000. It
is located on the western shore of Lake Tiberias (Sea of Galilee), and offers
some nice lakeside hotels for tourists. Tiberias' hot springs make it an especially
popular winter resort. Tiberias was a center of Jewish learning from its founding
in AD 19 until the Middle Ages. The city was founded by Herod Antipas. Herod named
the city for the emperor Tiberius. After the Roman destruction of the Temple at
Jerusalem in AD 70, Jewish scholars began to settle in Tiberias. The highest rabbinical
court, the Sanhedrin, met in Tiberias. The Talmud, a body of commentaries on Jewish
civil and religious law, was compiled primarly in Tiberias between the 3rd and
5th centuries AD. The tomb of Maimonides is located in Tiberias.
The Jewish
community continued to thrive under Byzantine and Arab rule. After the 12th century,
both the Jewish community and Tiberias as a whole declined. In the 1800s, the
city was rebuilt as its agricultural opportunities and mild climate attracted
a large number of Jewish immigrants. From the time of the British mandate until
today, there has been a Jewish majority in Tiberias.
Information from the
Israeli Ministry of Tourism and Microsoft's Encarta '95.
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~ Lisa
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