Zionism and Israel - Encyclopedic Dictionary
Tiberias Definition

Tiberias - Town on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, founded by Herod Antipas in 26, and named for Tiberius Caesar . Replaced an existing town of Rakkath. The town has an elevation of about 700 m at the sea shore and 1500 meters inland. ,Jews refused to live there for a time apparently, because the city was built on gravestones. The town plays an important role in Jewish history. It was a center of the Jewish rebellion in 68-73 AD. The Sanhedrin (the Jewish religious High Court in the period of the Second Temple) relocated to Tiberias from Sepphoris. The Mishna was completed in Tiberias in the third century under the supervision of Rabbi Yehuda Ha-Nasi ("Judah the Prince"). The so-called Jerusalem Talmud was compiled in the fifth century. The Samaritans had a center in Tiberias in the middle of the 4th century. The Crusaders later captured the town, making it the capital of the Galilee, but Saladin retook Tiberias for the Muslim Empire in 1187. The great Jewish sage Maimonides was buried in Tiberias in 1204. The Jewish community of Tiberias suffered the vicissitudes of Christian and Muslim rule, as well as the ravages of natural disasters. In 638, all the Jews and Christians were supposedly driven out by the Kalif Omar ibn Kataf. However,   when the Crusaders conquered the country, Jewish inhabitants were found in Tiberias, The traveler, Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela reported 50 Jewish families in Tiberias.  Tiberias was destroyed in the Crusader wars. It was still virtually uninhabited in  1523.

Tiberias has two congregations; 1, the Sephardim, with a handsome Synagogue and 80 families; and 2, the Ashkenazim, with two Synagogues and about 100 families, who are all Poles and Russians. The Jewish inhabitants of Tiberias enjoy more peace and security than those of Zafed.

By the beginning of the 20th century there were 2,000 Jews in a population of 3,600 according to the Jewish Encyclopedia, published in 1911.

Tiberias was taken by the Haganah  in April of 1948. The Arab inhabitants fled. Today, Tiberias is a town of about 50,000 inhabitants. A photo of modern Tiberias is shown at right.

Synonyms and alternate spellings: Tverya, Tveria.

Further Information: Photos  Tiberias - 1862 Tiberias - Jewish Family 1893

Hebrew/Arabic pronunciation and transliteration conventions:

'H - ('het) a guttural sound made deep in the throat. To Western ears it may sound like the "ch" in loch. In Arabic there are several letters that have similar sounds. Examples: 'hanukah, 'hamas, 'haredi. Formerly, this sound was often represented by ch, especially in German transliterations of Hebrew. Thus, 'hanukah is often rendered as Chanuka for example.

ch - (chaf) a sound like "ch" in loch or the Russian Kh as in Khruschev or German Ach, made by putting the tongue against the roof of the mouth. In Hebrew, a chaf can never occur at the beginning of a word. At the beginning of a word, it has a dot in it and is pronounced "Kaf."

u - usually between oo as in spoon and u as in put.

a- sounded like a in arm

ah- used to represent an a sound made by the letter hey at the end of a word. It is the same sound as a. Haganah and Hagana are alternative acceptable transliterations.

'a-notation used for Hebrew and Arabic ayin, a guttural ah sound.

o - close to the French o as in homme.

th - (taf without a dot) - Th was formerly used to transliterate the Hebrew taf sound for taf without a dot. However in modern Hebrew there is no detectable difference in standard pronunciation of taf with or without a dot, and therefore Histadruth and Histadrut, Rehovoth and Rehovot are all acceptable.

q- (quf) - In transliteration of Hebrew and Arabic, it is best to consistently use the letter q for the quf, to avoid confusion with similar sounding words that might be spelled with a kaf, which should be transliterated as K. Thus, Hatiqva is preferable to Hatikva for example.

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This work and individual entries are copyright © 2005 by Ami Isseroff and Zionism and Israel Information Center and may not reproduced in any form without permission unless explicitly noted otherwise. Individual entries may be cited with credit to The Encyclopedia and Dictionary of Zionism and Israel