The Galilee

A TASTE OF ISRAEL

The Galilee

The Galilee is the green, hilly north, centered on the Sea of Galilee, which Israelis call the Kinneret. It holds Safed, the home of Kabbalah, and the places where the Gospels set much of the ministry of Jesus. Roman ruins at Beit She'an and the migrating birds of the Hula Valley add further layers.

Sea of Galilee

Beit She'an

Where Rome ruled and empires collided

Beit She'an, in the Jordan Valley, was a crossroads of civilizations from the Canaanites onward. In the Bible, the Philistines hung the bodies of King Saul and his sons on its walls (1 Samuel 31). Under Rome it was Scythopolis, the only city of the Decapolis west of the Jordan, and its well-preserved ruins include a theater, bathhouses, and a colonnaded main street. An earthquake in 749 CE brought much of it down, and fallen columns still lie where they fell. The archaeological park is one of the largest in Israel, beside a modern town of the same name.

Glossary: Beit She'an

Nazareth

Childhood home of Jesus, and Israel's largest Arab city

Nazareth, in the lower Galilee, is the town where Jesus grew up according to the Gospels, and the Basilica of the Annunciation marks where Christians believe the angel Gabriel told Mary she would bear him. It is also the largest Arab city in Israel, with a Muslim majority, a sizeable Christian minority, and a lively old market. Nearby Upper Nazareth was founded in 1957 as a Jewish town. Pilgrims arrive from around the world, and visitors can try knafeh, a sweet cheese pastry, in the old city.

Glossary: Nazareth

Cana

Where water was turned to wine

Cana is the village where, according to the Gospel of John, Jesus turned water into wine at a wedding, his first miracle. Several places claim the site, but Christian tradition since the Middle Ages has pointed to Kafr Kanna, an Arab town near Nazareth. The Franciscan Wedding Church there displays stone jars said to recall the story, and couples from many countries renew their vows in its chapel. Shops in the town sell wine and olive oil, and the town sits among the hills of the lower Galilee.

Glossary: Cana

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The Kinneret

A lake renowned for miracles of faith

The Kinneret, or Sea of Galilee, is Israel's largest freshwater lake, about 21 kilometers long and 13 wide, and it lies some 210 meters below sea level. Its Hebrew name may come from the word for a harp, kinnor, for the lake's shape. The Jordan River feeds it, and it supplies much of Israel's drinking water through the National Water Carrier. The Gospels place miracles on its waters, including Jesus walking on the lake and calming a storm. Tiberias, founded around 20 CE, lies on the western shore, and visitors can take boats across the lake.

Glossary: The Kinneret

Magdala

Home of Mary Magdalene

Magdala, on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee, was a prosperous fishing town in the first century and is the traditional home of Mary Magdalene. Excavations begun in 2009 uncovered a synagogue from the Second Temple period, one of the oldest found in the Galilee, along with streets, houses, and a market. The Magdala Stone, carved with a seven-branched menorah, was found in the synagogue and is one of the earliest known depictions of the Temple's menorah. The site is now an archaeological park with a modern church beside it.

Glossary: Magdala

Capernaum

A fishing village at the center of the Gospels

Capernaum was a fishing village on the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee that the Gospels describe as the center of Jesus's ministry. He is said to have taught in its synagogue and healed the sick there, and the home of the apostle Peter was here. Excavations have uncovered a fourth or fifth century limestone synagogue built over an earlier basalt one, and the remains of a house that a modern church now covers. The village was abandoned around the 11th century and was rediscovered by archaeologists in the 19th.

Glossary: Capernaum

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Mount of Beatitudes

Site of the Sermon on the Mount

The Mount of Beatitudes is a hillside above the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee, traditionally identified as the place where Jesus delivered the Sermon on the Mount, which opens with the Beatitudes (Matthew 5). The identification dates to the Byzantine period, and the present octagonal church was built in the 1930s. Its gardens and terraces look out over the lake and the hills of the Galilee, and the quiet setting draws pilgrims and walkers. The exact place of the sermon is not known.

Glossary: Mount of Beatitudes

Safed

City of mysticism and the center of Kabbalah

Safed, high in the Upper Galilee, is one of Judaism's four holy cities and the center of Kabbalah, the Jewish mystical tradition. After the expulsion from Spain in 1492 many scholars and mystics settled there, among them Isaac Luria, known as the Ari, and Joseph Karo, who wrote the Shulchan Aruch. The Ari Synagogue and the cobbled lanes of the old Jewish quarter preserve that period. Today Safed is also an artists' colony, with galleries in the Artists' Quarter, and a summer retreat for its cool mountain air.

Glossary: Safed (Tzfat)

Hula Valley

Paradise for birds and bird lovers

The Hula Valley in the northern Galilee is a wetland on one of the great bird migration routes between Europe, Asia, and Africa. Each autumn tens of thousands of cranes stop here, along with pelicans, storks, and many other species, and the passage over Israel is estimated at hundreds of millions of birds a year. The valley's marshes were drained in the 1950s to fight malaria and create farmland, and part of the area was later reflooded to restore the ecosystem and create the Agamon Hula park. Visitors can rent bicycles for the paths.

Glossary: Hula Valley

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