Tiveria is one of the four holy cities of Eretz Yisroel with
almost uninterrupted Jewish settlement. For many
generations, the city was a preferred burial site for Jews
from the Diaspora who wanted to be buried in Eretz
Hakodesh. For long periods of time, Jews were forbidden
to live in Yerushalayim and Hevron, while Tsefat was quite
inaccessible, up the mountain. For this reason, the Jewish
cemetery in Tiveria was filled with the graves of
innumerable Jews from outside the country in addition to
those of generations of Jews from Tiveria and throughout the
Galil. This was the case from the time of the destruction of
Bayis Sheini until the end of the seventeenth
century.
Our knowledge of the ancient cemetery comes to us mainly
from the writings of Jewish travelers who came to Israel to
pray at the final resting-places of our ancients.
Early evidence is found in Sefer Hagilgulim of HaRav
Chaim Vital, zt"l, who learned the identification of
many gravesites from his rebbe, the Arizal Hakodosh:
"Outside of Tiveria near the northern part of the wall there
are two or three niches, and they say that these are
kivrei tzaddikim and I don't recall what everyone
says, and it seems le'aniyus daati that they say that
one of them is the grave of Rav Yitzchok Nafcha and my
teacher told me that these are graves of tzaddikim. . .
.
"Continue in the field on the western side of the wall
slightly diagonal to the south. There is a yard enclosed by
walls. Inside of this are gravesites and many sarcophagi and
in the niche near the opening of the yard is the burial
place of the R' Yochonon Ben Zakai . . ."
Additional documentation reports tens of thousands of graves
considered to be those of the twenty-four thousand students
of Rabbi Akiva that died in the plague. Travel diaries note
the location of tens of thousands of graves near those of
the Rivaz and the Rambam, scattered over a wide area along
the slopes of the mountain and in fields near the shore of
the Kinneret.
It is truly astounding, to say the least, that no one in the
Municipality of Tiveria was aware of the simple historical
facts about the existence of an ancient cemetery on the
Church of Scotland's property. One of the Municipal Council
members told us, "Now we hear you quoting, Sefer
Tiveria, after you woke up, but how could we have
possibly known that this was in Sefer Tiveria?"
Forgive me, but his complete surprise is quite
extraordinary. Is it unreasonable to expect that the heads
of the city and its prominent citizens would be aware of
their city's long, rich history?
So how did it happen that the tradition of the Jewish
cemetery in this area was lost? How could one ignore the
presence of tens of thousands of gravesites scattered over
such a large area?
The explanation is unequivocal: almost total destruction.
Tens of thousands of graves and monuments no longer exist.
Only a few have outlasted the ravages of time. Other factors
contributed to the destruction: everyday natural events,
earthquakes, and tremendous flooding along the mountain
slopes. Human elements also did their share, like the
Moslems who deliberately destroyed the cemetery and built
houses on part of it.
Some of the graves were destroyed by grave robbers looking
for treasures of gold and silver, although they probably
didn't find any.
The Ottoman government generously divided up this
"ownerless" land to anyone who wanted to build, thus
encouraging Moslems to build on the site of the ancient
cemetery, like the Scots in our case. They had shown their
contempt for the ancient cemetery even earlier.
A traveler in the area in the 1880s described how a road was
paved between Tiveria and Natzerat over ancient graves. "I
descended from the mountain where there are holy grave site
markers without using any road, just a service path, and I
passed through the city, wherein are buried members of the
Sanhedrin, in the middle of the goyim's street. Woe
to the eyes who have seen such a sight! Graves of those from
the essence of our nation being trampled upon. . . "
In the year 5672 (1912), the rabbis of Tiveria published a
writ calling for help to protect the Jewish grave remains.
They note that following an order of the Sultan in 1909, the
Moslems took possession of the entire area and leveled it
with plows. Within three years almost no remnants of
gravestones remained, including those that had been as large
as one meter high and three meters wide. Only a few
remained, and the rabbis plead for monetary help to enable
them to be fenced in. "Moslem citizens of the city were
given all the land adjacent to the holy city of Tiveria that
was ownerless. The land was given away for them to plow and
plant and pay tax on. The Moslems were obviously overjoyed
at the opportunity and began taking possession of the new
lands. From day to day they crept closer to the marked
graves of our holy ones, may their memories protect us.
Until they surrounded them on all sides, wanting to take
everything and leave us only the site of the graves
zy'a (the identified graves of Rabban Yochonon ben
Zakai, the Rambam, Rav Kahana and the Shloh Hakodosh). But
we stood heroically until we saved a sizable plot of land,
more than two square dunam, and we put up a stone fence to
stop them from coming any closer. The situation can not
remain as it is. There are numerous Moslems who have not yet
seized land and they look at this land with a glimmer in
their eyes, especially these days when the price of land has
increased tenfold. . . ."
Arabs plotted against Jews back then over a little bit of
land.
