Judaic Treasures of the Jerusalem was and remains the holiest of
cities in the Holy Land, but Jews also gave a measure of
holiness to three other cities there: Hebron, Safed, and
Tiberias. The holiness of Jerusalem arises in part from what
remains there, but more from what took place there. So it is
with its sister cities. Hebron is where the patriarchs and
matriarchs lived and are buried, and it was the first capital of
King David. Tiberias, on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, was
chosen by the patriarch of the Jews in the second century as his
seat. The Palestinian Talmud was largely composed in its great
rabbinical academy. in the environs of Safed, high in the
Galilean hills, are the graves of the leading rabbis of late
antiquity. Its stature as a holy city was enhanced in the
sixteenth century, when it was the greatest center of Jewish
mysticism and seat of Jewish legal scholarship. To gain entree
into the company of the three more ancient holy cities, it
called itself Beth-El, suggesting identity with t