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: Zerotalk 12:26, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
 * 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)

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? Zerotalk 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: --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." 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). Zerotalk 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. Zerotalk 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. Zerotalk 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)

nonexistent event
The article had, unsourced, "On June 28, 1938, in an event that shocked the Yishuv, an Arab infiltrated a Jewish wedding and set off a bomb that killed seven Jews, including three children." There was no such event. The probable source of the story can be seen in the Palestine Post of July 1, which says "Yesterday a bomb was thrown into a hotel in Tiberias where a wedding was in progress, injuring seven Jews, one of them, a boy, seriously." In the newspapers of those days, bombings and shootings were commonplace. Zerotalk 23:36, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

Demographic history
The section "Demographic history" removes all data from, say from early Ottoman time. So now the only History under the early Ottoman time is....Jewish! Even though the daftars showed that no Jews actually lived in Tiberias at that time!

This is completely wrong. Also: very few articles have a "Demographic history" -section (it has been made during this last year). Unless I hear a good argument against it, I will re-introduce the demography into the appropriate sections. Huldra (talk) 23:58, 4 June 2016 (UTC)


 * Whether it is collected into one place or distributed by time period doesn't matter, provided the data is there and is neutrally written (unlike now). So whichever format you think will work best is fine with me. Zerotalk 05:37, 5 June 2016 (UTC)

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Correction of Search Link
If one goes to the Wikipedia homepage and types in "Tiberias", the link that appears with the photo is captioned "Tiberias city in northeast palestine". I am not familiar with where that entry is logged for purposes of correction, but would request that it be corrected.One-Off Contributor (talk) 05:33, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

Problem corrected--erroneous entry in Wikidata listing.One-Off Contributor (talk) 06:02, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

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What is Avigdorov's connection to Tiberias?
Avraham Avigdorov (1929–2012) was born at Mitzpa, not Tiberias, studied at Mikveh Israel, is buried in Herzliya. What is his connection to Tiberias? Did his family/his mother move there from Mitzpa, or did he go to school there? Arminden (talk) 23:37, 14 December 2020 (UTC)

hi. You were the main contributors to the Avigdorov article on English WP. I guess if anyone does have access to biographical details, it must be you. Could you please help out? Thanks! Arminden (talk) 17:59, 15 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Hi Arminden, I am not aware whether Avigdorov ever lived in Tiberias, but probably not. —Ynhockey (Talk) 19:06, 15 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I believe the confusion comes from the fact that Mitzpa, the moshav (village) where he was born and raised, is very close or nearby Tiberias. Maybe it is so close that it is sometimes considered a neighborhood of the larger city? I don't know if that would entitle him to appear on the list... warshy (¥¥) 19:19, 15 December 2020 (UTC)
 * In order to get to Mitzpe you need to drive up along the outskirts of Upper Tiberias (not even through it, but north of it), then there's a valley and there is Mitzpe, quite isolated and clearly distinct from Tiberias. I understand that Avigdorov lost his father when he was seven or so, maybe his mom and him moved to Tiberias, or maybe he went there to study in high school, as the moshava certainly doesn't have more than a primary school at the most. Also, at the time of his birth and many years after that, the Scottish Hospital had the only maternity ward in the whole county, so it might well be that technically he was born in Tiberias like every other baby in his generation, save for home births. The Palmach website also has Tiberias as his birthplace, but I wouldn't trust that too much. So far, I tend to think that we have no base to have him, with photo, on the Tiberias page. The anonymous editor is probably a local patriot who added the pictures of a pretty model/actress and of a young Jimmy Dean-like war hero to the article. Can't blame him/her, but it's not the municipality's advertisement page, so... Arminden (talk) 11:35, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

Unbalanced
Presently, anyone reading this article, espcially the lead, will not know that this place was a majority Muslim for much (most?) of its history. (See also my above note, under "Demographic history")

(Seriously, when editors can write "No Christians or Jews were mentioned in the Ottoman registers of 1525, 1533, 1548, 1553, and 1572", without noting who was actually mentioned in those Ottoman registers?? 😫 ) cheers, Huldra (talk) 23:12, 28 June 2022 (UTC)


 * While I agree with the aforementioned edit - the demographic section should explicitly note who was actually there at the time - I don't see why these Ottoman registers should appear at lede. We don't detail historic demographic trivia at lede, unless it is of importance to any historical events of the period described. Tombah (talk) 07:33, 29 June 2022 (UTC)
 * The first two and a half paragraphs mention only Jews and Jewish history. The whole lede reads as if no other community was relevant to the history of the town.
 * A quick google will show that:
 * Tiberias was the Islamic capital of Jund al-Urdunn
 * One of the oldest mosques in the world has been excavated here
 * The largest Byzantine church in the Galilee is here
 * “This was an area that was multi-religious and a very moving symbol of regional coexistence”
 * Onceinawhile (talk) 16:11, 29 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Good additions. I added some of those to the article. Tombah (talk) 18:13, 29 June 2022 (UTC)


 * It is still seriously unbalanced. Especially the lead; eg: "In 1560, Suleiman the Magnificent granted Tiberias and its environs to Joseph Nasi, but his attempts of resettling Jews in the area by encouraging industry failed".
 * What the heck does a failed attempt to settle Jews in Tiberas have to do in the lead? It hardly has any relevance to the article at all, (or should we list all failed attempts wrt Tiberias these last 2000+ years?) Huldra (talk) 21:34, 29 June 2022 (UTC)


 * Also, in the lead: "During the same period, the Tiberian vocalization, the presently accepted method of vocalizing Hebrew, was developed in Tiberias by the Masoretes". -This might be relevant for the Tiberian vocalization-article, but simply isn't relevant in the lead of the Tiberias-article, Huldra (talk) 21:37, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

Both are important milestones in Tiberias' history. First, it's not everyday that a Sultan grants rights for a city to someone. It just goes to show how impoverished the place was during that period, especially compared to its past glory. Also, it is considered a milestone in the future development of Zionism. That's why other Encyclopedia entries about the city mention that episode too. The Tiberian vocalization is also mentioned in other Encyclopedia entries about the city. It is considered one of the city's major cultural contributions to this day. We can maybe shorten the description of "presently accepted method", retaining just the basic fact itself. Tombah (talk) 05:42, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
 * The "important milestones in Tiberias' history" are so important, that none of the 260+ previous editors have even mentioned in the article in the 20 years this article has existed! And you insert it in the lead, no less! Seriously; ROTFL.
 * I am removing it. And pr WP:ONUS ("the onus to achieve consensus for inclusion is on those seeking to include disputed content"); please start a WP:RfC, iff you want to include it. Huldra (talk) 21:05, 30 June 2022 (UTC)

Wonder why Britannica had included this as part of their very short article on the city, but here, it is considered so controversial. When I ask some editors why this and that article (Temple Mount, Al-Aqsa Mosque) has been named a certain way for the last twenty years, they tell me Wikipedia is not a reliable source. But somehow, when it comes to Jewish history, things are deleted without hesitation, just for the sake of keeping (false) balance. Editors are supposed to be neutral over here. So please comply. Tombah (talk) 21:41, 30 June 2022 (UTC)


 * Britannica is not a reliable source. The material is disputed and a convincing explanation about why it is WP:DUE is what is required now, not forum style accusatory nonsense about Jewish history being deleted on WP. Selfstudier (talk) 22:00, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Of course Wikipedia is not a reliable source. BUT: this is a heavily "watched" page (155+ watchers at the moment), with literally hundreds of editors over 20 years (And I notice quite a few, shall we say, "pro-Israeli" editors among them.) And none have considered even adding to the article these two  "important milestones in Tiberias' history" which you want in the lead, no less? And other events, issues, (like the ones Onceinawhile mention above): they should not go in the lead? At the moment there is no balance; so I don't understand you when you write about "false balance", Huldra (talk) 22:38, 30 June 2022 (UTC)


 * Neither The Magnificent's ineffective action, nor Tiberian nikud, are suitable lead material. The vocalisation is suitable for adding later in the article as it is significant to the Jewish history of the place. Regarding Britannica, I don't think it is reliable and it ought to be replaced entirely. Winter's travel guide (cited 12 times!) is even worse; travel guides are notoriously unreliable for history (and I identified a blooper in this one 12 years ago, look up on this page). Zerotalk 04:53, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I removed Winter without removing the things he was cited for. New citations and/or corrections needed. Zerotalk 04:59, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I think Zahir al-Umar should be mentioned in the lead? Also, that a mosque he built is still standing (strangely, the article now only mentions a synagogue he permitted being built). Also, the fortifications (still standing) was built under him? Huldra (talk) 20:14, 1 July 2022 (UTC)

Notable people: organising the list
I have split "Notable people" into and
 * Historical figures predating the State of Israel, listed by year of birth
 * People of prominence in the State of Israel or born/active there, listed alphabetically.

It makes little sense to mix Israeli sportspeople and politicians with clear surnames, with historical figures predating the state by more than a millennium or several centuries, who also don't have surnames and whose names are transliterated in many different ways. Arminden (talk) 12:48, 19 November 2022 (UTC)
 * I agree. Thank you for doing this. warshy (¥¥) 19:02, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

Founding date
Obviously Tiberias was not built in 1 day. Some sources say 18 AD ome say 20 AD, so it should really say 18-20 AD. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 21:55, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

Climate classification
Tiberias simply has a very hot semi arid climate. It is far from a Mediterranean climate. The evaporation is very strong there. דולב חולב (talk) 21:05, 18 March 2024 (UTC)


 * Evapotranspiration more accurately דולב חולב (talk) 21:06, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Winter rainfall is heavy enough to nearly qualify for Csa, barely missing the mark. Uness232 (talk) 01:05, 22 March 2024 (UTC)