Talk:Tiberias

Untitled

Whydid Herod change the spelling of the Latin name from "Tiberius" to "Tiberias"?Kuralyov 19:18, 28 May 2005 (UTC)

Removed the following section since it was cut & pasted from http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/1/3/3/11330/11330-h/11330-h.htm and not relevant to a geography article. Samw 04:15, 26 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Singular Jewish custom

Burckhardt, in his "Travels through Syria," &c. informs us, that at Tiberias, one of the four holy cities of the Talmud, the Jews observe a singular custom in praying. While the rabbin recites the Psalms of David, or the prayers extracted from them, the congregation frequently imitate, by their voice or gestures, the meaning of some remarkable passages; for example, when the rabbin pronounces the words, "Praise the Lord with the sound of the trumpet," they imitate the sound of the trumpet through their closed fists. When "a horrible tempest" occurs, they puff and blow to represent a storm; or should he mention "the cries of the righteous in distress," they all set up a loud screaming; and it not unfrequently happens, that while some are still blowing the storm, others have already begun the cries of the righteous, thus forming a concert which it is difficult for any but a zealous Hebrew to hear with gravity.

Map

Can we please have a map for this article? Badagnani 22:40, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Ongoing war incidents

Regarding this recent entry:

On July 15 2006, Tiberias was struck by Katyusha rockets fired by Hezbollah from southern Lebanon. A total of 12 people were injured. To create maximum damage, the rockets contained flesh-tearing ball bearings. Prior to the July 15 attack, Tiberias was thought to have been out of range of Katyushas launched from southern Lebanon. On July 17, Tiberias again was hit by Katyushas. On July 20, two rockets hit an area just outside Tiberias. On July 25, rockets were reported in Tiberias, landing in open areas of the city. No casualties were reported from either attack. Until the Hezbollah attacks, there had been no assaults on the town since the 1973 Yom Kippur War.

I'm not sure it is appropriate to list current events of the ongoing war in a general encyclopedia article. We don't do that for past wars. Such material quickly becomes dated, in particular as the war is on-going. The correct place for these kind of ongoing incidents would be 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict and its related articles. -- Stbalbach 13:19, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Recent Change

I just made a small change towards the end of the article, regarding the claim that a "sanhedrin" was reestablished in Tiberias. Basically, there is no evidence that this body would qualify as a real Sanhedrin and the matter has stirred significant controversy in Orthodox circles, including the refusal of the Haredi leadership to support this body. That is why the claim that "a Sanhedrin was officially reestablished in Tiberias" could be misleading and needed some editting. For more on this topic see Modern attempts to revive the Sanhedrin. Danezra 1:10, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Completely agreed. (Slightly edited your comment for readability.) --Daniel575 | (talk) 17:46, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Allentown - not 1996

In the late 70's and early 80's I used to be part of the UNIFIL, and our backoffice was in Allentown Ave in Tiberias. There is a playground there ("Allentown park") with a plaque that says in Hebrew and English that the park is named after the sister city in the US. So... I saw that plaque no later than 1982, it's impossible to say that allentown is sister to Tiberias since 1996. 99.232.203.75 (talk) 05:16, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Categories

According to a contributor, Tiberias was categorized an Arab village depopulated during the Arab-Israeli conflict. But this does not apply as Tiberias, according to all information posted was a Roman, then Jewish city - there is no mention of Arab depopulation, therefore category is not applicabl. Tiberias is not Safed, where there had benn a large resident population of Palestinians/Arabs. The category may be sanctionned, but it should be used only where depopulation is verified (as Safed), rather than carpetting every entry regarding an Israeli village, settlement or City.

Article bias

The main problem with this article at the moment is that the historical account is focused mostly on the Jewish history, but Tiberias was a mixed city for many centuries. Here are some random population figures, I can add full cites when they get into the article:

• 1596: 50 families and 4 bachelors, all Muslim. (Hütteroth p188)
• 1868: 400 Jewish households, 159 Muslim households, 66 Greek Orthodox households (McCarthy, p47)
• 1922: 4427 Jews, 2096 Muslims, 422 Christians, 5 others (census)
• 1931: 5381 Jews, 2645 Muslims, 565 Christians, 10 others (census)
• 1945 : 6000 Jews, 4540 Muslims, 760 Christians, 10 Others. (Village Statistics)

Zero^talk 12:26, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Add this under 'bias.'

'...On April 10, the Haganah launched a mortar barrage, killing some Arab residents.[46] The local National Committee refused the offer of the Arab Liberation Army to take over defense of the city, but a small contingent of outside irregulars moved in.[46] During April 10–17, the Haganah attacked the city and refused to negotiate a truce, while the British refused to intervene.[46] The Arab population (6,000 residents or 47.5% of the population) was evacuated under British military protection on 18 April 1948.[46][47] No order to expel the population had been given to the Jewish forces and the evacuation seems to have surprised them...'

Honestly. This echoes the old 'gee -- the Arabs just left' fantasy. Think it was maybe the mortar barrage? The Haganah assault? Something we said? OF COURSE the Arabs left. The Jews were trying to kill them. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.7.78.57 (talk) 07:31, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

I think the Arabs were trying to kill the Jews aswell? Chesdovi (talk) 13:47, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

And you omitted the previous sentence that speaks of Arabs and Jews shooting at each other why, exactly? Zero^talk 03:50, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

City of Hell

Where can one find an explanation regarding the medieval hadith which counts Tiberias as one of Islam's city's of hell? (besides from that of Moshe Gil: "of non-Muslim population is reflected in a hadith according to which it is one of the four cities of hell") Chesdovi (talk) 11:30, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Here is a nice solid reference for you: [1]--Geewhiz (talk) 11:35, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

There are no cities literally in Islamic hell as far as I am aware. Some writer in the early medieval period described "four cities of paradise" and "four cities of hell". The former were Mecca, Medina, Jerusalem and Damascus. The latter were Rome, Constantinople, Antioch and San'a in one version, and Constantinople, Tiberias, Antioch and San'a in another. It is just the same as when someone today calls some place a "city from hell" (search Google for thousands of examples), it means the writer hated the place. Calling it part of the Islamic tradition is too strong and not supported by the source. You know there are many tens of thousands of hadiths, most of them entirely forgotten. It is not mentioned in the Encyclopedia of Islam article on Tiberias (nor in the article on hell), nor is it mentioned in any of Guy le Strange's translations of medieval Arabic descriptions of Tiberias. I can agree to it appearing later in the article when the medieval history is given, in some form like this: "A hadith published in Damascus in 1176 said that "the four cities of paradise are Mecca, Medina, Jerusalem and Damascus and the four cities of hell are Constantinople, Tiberias, Antioch and San'a."[2] Ok? Note that this source prefixes the information with "The only outright negative comments found in our sources are repetitions of earlier traditions which point to the city's wretchedness" (nb, not to its evil in the religious sense). Zero^talk 11:50, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

You have both been so helpful. How about the following tucked away somewhere:

The city has been the subject of negative undertones in Islamic tradition. A hadith recorded by Ibn Asakir of Damascus (d. 1176) names Tiberias as one of Islam’s four cities of hell. This could have been reflecting the fact that at the time, the town had a notable non-Muslim population.

Chesdovi (talk) 12:07, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't like "Islam's four cities of hell" since it sounds like an official classification rather than just a negative opinion. I'll agree to "the four cities of hell", including the quotation marks. Zero^talk 12:29, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree. Zero and Gila, you have both been wonderful this afternoon. Keep up the good work. Chesdovi (talk) 12:38, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

I would like to add minor detail in an agreement to above notes: That not everything is related to Isreal not all names must be related to jews and arabs, but also Tabar used to be area around Caspian sea which was also called Tabaristan. It is sad to see that most of our jewish brothers and sisters think that there was not other human being or believers were on earth before moses or Noah or whoever. This simply is not a scientific fact nor it is a religious fact. Just google some of the common names that might have root in Central Asia, Tibbet, India or Iranian(none Persian). We can enrich our human heritage by being open minded and not to be biased so much that all things are either Jewish or Roman. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Adamites (talk • contribs) 07:07, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

travel guides as sources

Travel guides are notoriously inaccurate as sources of history. This article contains 13 references to [Winter, Dave (1999) Israel Handbook: With the Palestinian Authority Areas Footprint Travel Guides]. Most seem correct, but replacing them by citations to history books would be better. An example of a serious error is this: "That year [1740 apparently], the Pasha of Damascus launched a raid against Tiberias. The siege lasted 85 days, ending in the capture of the city." In fact the siege was in 1742 and ended with the attackers giving up and going home. Probably there is confusion with the surrender of Tiberias to Damascus in 1776. I will fix this and add more details as I find time. Zero^talk 12:16, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

you should remove the "arabic name" and put the greek or latin name instead

tiberias are city that estublished in the roman empire(and named after the name of roman emperor)and populated mainly by jews in the begining.the arabs came much later after the islamist conquests in the area,the arabic are relevant just because its dominance in the area after the oppression of other languages and cultures.so the latin and greek names are much more relevant from the arabic her. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.65.220.209 (talk) 17:10, 1 November 2012 (UTC)