Nazareth
Nazareth (Arabic: الناصرة, al-Nāṣira; Hebrew: נָצְרַת, Natzrat) is the most populous city in the Northern District of Israel, in the southern foothills of the Lower Galilee mountains, 10 km north of Mount Tabor and 23 km west of the Sea of Galilee. It is currently the city with the largest Arab population in Israel, with a population estimated at around 76,551 inhabitants at the end of 2017, 60% of whom are Muslims and the rest are Christians (40%). a city of special relevance for Christians because, according to the canonical gospels, the years of Jesus' private life were spent there.
Together with Nazareth Illit (since 2019 called Nof HaGalil), a city created in 1954 in the municipal area of Nazareth, declared an independent city in 1974 and inhabited by 40,596 people in 2017 (80% of whom are Jews), forms an urban nucleus of 117,147 people, the majority of Judeo-Christian beliefs (52%) and Arab ethnicity (72.27%), with considerable minorities of Muslim beliefs (48%) and Jewish ethnicity (27.72%).
Toponymy
The Greek name of Nazareth (Ναζαρέθ) appears for the first time in the Gospels in the text of Matthew that says thus what was spoken by the prophets was fulfilled, that he was to be called Nazarene (ναζωραιος) (Matthew 2:22-23).
A plausible point of view is that Nazareth and its demonym, “Nazarene” (Ναζωραῖος), are a normal adaptation of a Greek term that reconstructs a hypothetical Aramaic word, which would also be found in the root of the word with which some later rabbinical writings nicknamed Jesus. This word appears twelve times in surviving Greek manuscripts of the New Testament, 10 times as Nazareth or Nazareth, and twice as Nazarah. The first two forms retain feminine endings common to Galilean place names. The minor variants, Nazarat and Nazarath, are also confirmed. The form Nazará (Ναζαρά) may be the oldest form of the name in Greek, dating back to the supposed document Q. and is found in Matthew 4:13 and Luke 4:16.
Several scholars have questioned a relationship between "Nazareth" and the terms "Nazarene" and "Nazōraeno" for linguistic reasons, while some affirm the possibility of the etymological relationship "given the idiosyncrasy of Galilean Aramaic".
Traditionally, this adjective referring to Jesus in Matthew 2:22-23 has been interpreted as a play on words, according to the opinion, among others, of Saint Jerome, possibly derived from from the Hebrew word נצר (natser, transliterated Nazer), which means "shoot", alluding to the prophecy of Isaiah in which he calls the Messiah A rod will come out of the trunk of Jesse and a shoot (Netser) will sprout from its roots (Isaiah 11:1). Similar prophecies are found in Isaiah 53:2, Jeremiah 23:5 and Zechariah 3: 8.
Different derivatives of this word are used in the book of Isaiah as a messianic allusion and are translated depending on the context as "shoot", "offshoot", "branch", "flower" or "I renew"; or as some conjugation of watch, keep, observe, defend, surround, preserve (from danger) or hide. This last meaning for "Nazareth" could be deduced from Isaiah 65:4 and would correspond with the fact that this verse refers to those who hide living among graves, since very close to Nazareth and Under the current urban area, there is an ancient necropolis.
However, there is another hypothesis about the prophetic pun to which this text alludes. It has been speculated that it may refer to the Jewish custom of consecrating oneself to God for a period and leaving one's hair as a sign of that consecration, abstaining from alcoholic beverages, sexual relations, etc. This type of consecration was called a "Nazarite", as in the case of Samson: For, behold, you will conceive and bear a son and his head will never be shaved: for the child will be a Nazarite (נָזִיר Nazir: separated, set aside, consecrated) before God, from the womb and will begin to deliver Israel from the hands of the Philistines (Judges 13:5).
In these ways, the author of the Gospel of Matthew may have associated the words of these Old Testament texts with the name of the city of Nazareth whose name may have originated from the same phonetic root.
History
Antiquity
Archaeological excavations in the city of Sepphoris, 6 km from the present location of Nazareth, documented archaeological remains from the Middle Paleolithic (including flints made using the Levallois method) and from the Yarmukian culture. Neolithic remains were also found Pre-Pottery B and Middle Copper Age. Evidence from pottery remains indicated that the Sepphoris site was inhabited during the Iron Age (1000-586 BC), and that actual occupation and various construction work from the 4th century B.C. C., with the Hellenistic period.
The origin of Nazareth is somewhat controversial, as it is not mentioned by first-century historians or geographers. Frank Zindler, former president of the Atheists of America organization, wrote that Nazareth is not mentioned in the Old Testament, nor in the epistles of Paul of Tarsus, nor in the Talmud —where 63 other Galilean cities are cited—, nor in the the work of Flavius Josephus. Between the years 66-73 CE, the Jewish-Roman historian Flavius Josephus, in the context of the First Judeo-Roman War, made references to Galilee in the I (a region of about 4000 square kilometers), the region where Nazareth is currently located. In them, Josephus mentions 45 cities and villages, but Nazareth is not included. The city that he mentions closest to the current location of the city is "Japha", totally destroyed in the year 67 by the Romans due to war. According to Josephus, the victims of that destruction, which would amount to 15,000, were possibly buried in the place of present-day Nazareth. Excavations made in that city show the existence of a necropolis. According to John P. Meier, Nazareth was "an insignificant place in the mountains of Lower Galilee, a town so obscure that it is never mentioned in the Old Testament, Josephus, Philo, or the early literature of the rabbis, or the pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament". According to Gregory Jenks, this lack of mention does not prove that Nazareth did not exist in the I, or even that it was unknown to Josephus. However, he suggests that Nazareth was not involved in the first Jewish-Roman war, and that it was such an insignificant place that Josephus had no reason to mention it.
Chronologically speaking, it is in the Gospels that it is first mentioned on up to a dozen occasions, as noted above. Although Luke 1:26 calls it a "city" and described it as large and important enough to have a synagogue (Luke 4:16), in reality it would be a poor village that owed all its later importance to the fact of Christianity. -transform:lowercase">I was undoubtedly ironic and derogatory, and in this sense the name of Jesus was accompanied by the title "of Nazareth", a dark place that did not favor it at all, as pointed out by Raymond E.Brown.
American archaeologist James F. Strange noted: “Nazareth is not mentioned in ancient Jewish sources before the third century AD. This probably reflects its lack of prominence, both in Galilee and Judea". Strange estimated the population of Nazareth in the early 1st century at a figure "up to a maximum of about 480" people. In 2009, Israeli archaeologist Yardenna Alexandre excavated archaeological remains in Nazareth that could date to the time of Jesus in the early Roman period. Alexandre told the press: "The discovery is of the utmost importance as it reveals for the first time a house of the Jewish people of Nazareth." Other sources indicate that possibly during the time of Jesus, Nazareth had a population of about 400. inhabitants and a public bath, which was important for civic and religious purposes.
The earliest known references to "Nazareth" other than the Gospels (1st century AD) come from three Christian theologians and historians: Sixth Julius Africanus, dated around AD 221; C., Origen (c. 185-254 AD), naming the city as "Nazar" and "Nazareth" and, finally, Eusebius refers to the settlement of Nazara (c. 275-339 AD.). There is also epigraphic evidence in the synagogue of Caesarea Maritima above Nazareth dated to the 4th century AD. C. about events, possibly from the 2nd century AD. C.
The excavations directed by Father Bellarmino Bagatti discovered numerous caves and cavities, some with signs of having been widely used for centuries as tombs, many from the Bronze Age. Others were adapted as water cisterns, oil tanks or grain silos. Apparently, there were indications that the city had been founded again, after centuries of remaining deserted, in the days of the Hasmoneans. Bagatti concluded that during the I century, “Nazareth was a small farming village, made up of a few dozen families.” The findings corresponded to a horticulture activity near an ancient necropolis. Several tombs, discovered by Bagatti and others, would have been located outside the urban perimeter, and would serve, in fact, to delimit its perimeter.[citation required]
Byzantine Empire
Epiphanius cites Nazareth in his work Panarion (approximately AD 375) among cities devoid of non-Jewish populations. Referring to Joseph of Tiberias, a wealthy Roman Jew who converted to Christianity in the time of Constantine, says of him that he received the imperial mandate to build Christian churches in Jewish towns and villages where there were no Gentiles or Samaritans, citing Tiberias, Diocesarea, Nazareth and Capernaum as examples. From this information it is inferred that at the beginning of the IV century d. A small church could have been built at Nazareth including a cave complex, although the town was predominantly Jewish until the 7th century d. C.
The Christian monk Jerome, translator of the Bible into Latin, wrote in the V century that Nazareth was a viculus, a mere village.
In the 6th century century, local Christian sources began to speak of apparitions of the Virgin Mary, which increased interest of the pilgrims around the place. These pilgrims founded the first church on the site of the current Greek Orthodox Church of the Annunciation, located over a freshwater spring known today as Mary's Well. Around the year 570 AD. C., a pilgrim from Piacenza recorded his journey from Sepphoris to Nazareth, claiming to have seen in the local synagogue the books that Jesus used and a bench on which he sat. According to this author, the Christians could build this bench, but the Jews could not, since he did not allow them to take it outside. About the beauty of the Jewish women of the place, he affirms that they said that Mary was from his family, and writes that "Mary's house is a basilica".
An archaeological excavation has found evidence that, before the construction of the Byzantine-period church in the house where Mary lived, there was a synagogue-church with Judeo-Christian symbols on the site. Until they were expelled in 630 d. In BC, the Jews probably continued to use their old synagogue, while the Judeo-Christians had to build their own, presumably on the site of Mary's house.
The Jewish city benefited from the pilgrimage of Christians that began in the fourth century AD. C., but in the year 614 d. Taking advantage of the Persian invasion of Palestine, latent anti-Christian hatred was brought to the fore. Christian Byzantine author Eutychius wrote that the Jewish population of Nazareth helped the Persians carry out a massacre of Christians. When the Byzantine emperor Heraclius defeated to the Persians in 630 AD. C. and evicted them from Palestine, he expelled all the Jews from Nazareth, turning the city into a fully Christian town.
Early Muslim Period
The Muslim Arab invasion of 638 did not have an immediate impact on the Christians of Nazareth and their churches, as Archbishop Arculf remembers seeing two churches there around 670 AD. C., one in the house of Joseph where Jesus had lived as a child, and another in the house of Mary where he received the Annunciation; on the other hand, he did not see any synagogue, which possibly would have been transformed into a mosque. The iconoclastic edict of Caliph Yazid II, announced in the year 721, possibly led to the destruction of the first church, since Willibald, on his pilgrimage from 724 to 726, he found only one church in Nazareth—the one dedicated to the Virgin Mary—that the Christians had been able to save from destruction by constant payments to the "pagan Saracens" (the Muslim Arabs). The ruins of the Church of Saint Joseph remained intact for a long time, while the Church of Saint Mary is mentioned by various sources over the following centuries, including the chronicles of the Arab geographer Al-Masudi at 943.
The Crusades
In 1099, the Crusader leader Tancred captured Galilee and established his capital at Nazareth. The Principality of Galilee was established, at least nominally, in 1099 as a vassal of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Later, in 1115, Nazareth became a lordship within the principality. There are records in 1115 and 1130 of a certain Martin of Nazareth, who was probably acting as Viscount of Nazareth. Tancred also established the Latin Patriarchate and made his seat at Nazareth. The former diocese of Scythopolis fell within the Archbishopric of Nazareth, one of the four archdioceses of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Following Saladin's overwhelming victory at the Battle of the Horns of Hattin (1187), the crusaders and Christian clergy living in Nazareth were forced to leave the city. Frederick II managed to negotiate safe-conduct for pilgrims traveling from Acre to Nazareth in 1229, while the King of France Louis IX, accompanied by his wife, attended mass in the grotto of the Annunciation.
Mamluk period
In 1263, the Mamluk Sultan Baibars destroyed Nazareth's Christian buildings and declared the city off-limits to the Latin clergy, in an attempt to finally drive out the remaining Crusaders in Palestine. Although Christian Arab families continued to live in Nazareth, the city's status was reduced to that of a mere village. Pilgrims who visited the site in 1294 reported a small church protecting the grotto. In the 14th century it was allowed some Franciscan friars returned and lived in the ruins of the basilica.
Ottoman Period
Nazareth, like the rest of Palestine, became part of the Ottoman Empire in 1517. The Franciscan friars were again expelled from the ruined basilica in 1584. In 1620, the Druze emir Fajr-al-Din II, who controlled this area of Ottoman Syria, allowed the Franciscans to build a small church in the grotto of the Annunciation. The monks organized pilgrimage tours of nearby holy sites, though they were often harassed by neighboring Bedouin tribes, who often kidnapped pilgrims for ransom.
Stability came with the rule of Zahir al-Umar, a powerful sheik who controlled the Galilee first and most of the Levantine coast and Palestine later. By promoting immigration to Nazareth, Zahir al-Umar transformed it from a small village to a large city. Nazareth played a key role in his territory, as it allowed him to gain control over the agricultural areas of the central Galilee. He made sure to guarantee the safety of the city, not only for strategic reasons, but because protecting the Christian community gave him it helped to improve the growing ties of friendship with France and because one of his women resided in Nazareth.
Zahir authorized the Franciscans to build a church in 1730. This structure, which was enlarged in 1877, stood until 1955, when it was demolished to create a larger building (designed by architect Giovanni Muzio) that would just be completed. completed in 1967, having been consecrated by Pope Paul VI in 1964. Zahir also allowed the Franciscans to purchase the Synagogue Church in 1741 and authorized the Orthodox community to build St. Gabriel's Church in 1767. He also ordered the construction of a government building known as the Seraya, which functioned as the city hall until 1991. Their descendants—known as the Dhawahri—would make up the city's future elite, along with the Zu'bi, Fahum, and ';Onassah.
However, the Christian community in Nazareth did not fare well under Zahir al-Umar's successor, Jazzar Pasha (1776-1804). Intra-communal tensions escalated between Christian and Muslim peasants from neighboring villages. Napoleon Bonaparte's troops briefly captured Nazareth in 1799 during the Syrian campaign. Napoleon himself visited the city's holy sites and considered appointing his general Jean-Andoche Junot as Duke of Nazareth. During Governor Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt's capture of most of Ottoman Syria (1831-1840), Nazareth remained open to European missionaries and traders, and when the Ottomans recaptured the city money continued to flow into the city and spawn new institutions. During the Lebanese civil war of 1860, the city's Christians were spared massacres elsewhere in the Levant thanks to the protection of Aqil Agha, the Bedouin leader who controlled the Galilee between 1845 and 1870.
Kaloost Vartan, an Armenian from Istanbul, arrived in Nazareth in 1864 and established the city's first medical mission, the "hospital on the hill" Scottish, known today as the Nazareth Hospital. The Ottoman sultan, who favored the French, allowed them to establish an orphanage in the city: the Society of Saint Francis de Sale. At the end of the 19th century, Nazareth was a city with a large Arab Christian presence and a growing European community, in which a number of communal projects were taking place and nine religious buildings were being built. In 1871 the only church was completed. Anglican church, Christ Church, which was consecrated by Bishop Samuel Gobat under the leadership of the Rev. John Zeller.
At the end of the 19th century and beginning of the XX, Nazareth prospered as the nerve center of the dozens of Arab villages that surrounded it. Local peasants used to shop for provisions in Nazareth's many souks, among which there were separate souks for agricultural products, metallurgical products, jewelry, and furs. In 1914, Nazareth consisted of eight neighborhoods: 'Araq, Farah, Jami' 39;, Khanuq, Maidan, Mazazwa, Sharquiya and Shufani. There were nine churches, two monasteries, four convents, two mosques, four hospitals, four private schools, one public school, one police station, three orphanages, one hotel, three inns, one flour mill, and eight souks. The Ottomans lost control. of all Palestine (including Nazareth) to the Allies during World War I. Around this time the importance of Nazareth began to decline, as much of the Arab villages in the Jezreel Valley had been replaced by newly created Jewish settlements.
British Mandate of Palestine
The United Kingdom took control of the area and created the British Mandate for Palestine in 1920, the same year that the Balfour Declaration was issued, which stated that "Her Majesty's Government contemplates welcomes the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people", specifying "clearly that nothing will be done that would prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine". In the years before and after this declaration, Jewish emigration to Palestine grew enormously, driven by Zionist doctrine, which advocated such emigration to Palestine for the creation of a Jewish national state, and by latent anti-Semitism in much of Europe. Nazareth notables opposed the Zionist movement, sending a delegation to the First Palestinian Arab Congress in 1919 and issuing a protest letter in 1920 condemning the movement and showing solidarity with the yishuv (the Jews who had lived in Palestine since before the beginning of the Zionist emigrations). Politically, Nazareth became increasingly involved in the growing Palestinian nationalist movement. In 1922 a Christian-Muslim Association sponsored largely by the al-Zu'bi family was created in the city. The creation of a common front between the different faiths of the Palestinian Arab community proved very difficult to obtain, so a series of alternative organizations were born in Nazareth in the late 1920s, such as the Muslim Youth Organization of the Muslim Supreme Council and the Muslim National Association. By 1922 there was a small community of 58 Jews living in Nazareth.
The modernization of Nazareth was relatively slow. At a time when other cities already had mains electricity, Nazareth invested in improving its running water system (adding two dams to the northwest of the city and numerous new cisterns), relegating the arrival of electricity until the 1930s. Around 1930, a new church for Baptist worship, a municipal garden in the Pozo de Maria and a police station in the Seraya of Zahir al-Umar were built, while the Muslim quarter of Sharqiya expanded..
Nazareth played a minor role during the Arab revolt of 1936-1939, contributing just two rebel commanders out of the 281 active throughout Palestine: Fu'ad Nassar and Tawfiq al-Ibrahim. The neighboring villages of Saffuriya and al-Mujaydil played a more active role from a military point of view, contributing nine commanders between them. The leaders of the revolt sought to use Nazareth as a staging ground for protests against the British proposal to hand over the Galilee to a future Jewish state. On 26 September 1937, the British Galilee District Commissioner Lewis Yelland Andrews was assassinated in Nazareth by local rebels.
By 1946 the municipal boundaries of Nazareth had been expanded and new neighborhoods had been created: Maidan, Maslaj, Januq and Nimsawi. The already existing neighborhoods experienced a construction boom and the city still had extensive land for vegetable gardens and agricultural crops. Two cigarette factories, a tobacco warehouse, two cinemas and a tile factory were established, significantly improving the city's economy. A police station was built on the southernmost hill of Nazareth alongside the police station. de la Seraya was transformed into the town hall building. Watchtowers were also built on some of the hills around the city and various government offices, such as the district commissioner's headquarters in the former Ottoman barracks, as well as the offices of the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Research and Settlements.
When the United Nations General Assembly approved resolution 181 II, known as the Partition Plan for Palestine, Nazareth was included in the Arab State of Palestine. Even before the outbreak of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, the city became a refuge for many Palestinians who had been expelled from the cities of Tiberias, Haifa and Baysan after the Haganah's capture of those cities on 18 September. April, April 22, and May 12, 1948, respectively.
Israel
1948 Arab-Israeli War
Before the first truce, declared on June 11, the city of Nazareth was not a battlefield in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, which began on May 15 of that year. Some of its inhabitants joined the loosely organized peasant militia and paramilitary forces, and the Arab Liberation Army (ALA) entered Nazareth on 9 July. The defense of the city consisted of 200 or 300 militiamen distributed by the hills that surround the city. The defenses on the southern and western hills collapsed under Israeli artillery shelling, while resistance on the northern hill had to deal with an approaching armored unit. Shortly after the Israelis began shelling the city, the Nazareth police chief raised the white flag at the city police station.
Most of the fighting in the Nazareth area took place in the surrounding villages, and especially in Saffuriya, where the inhabitants put up a stubborn resistance until Israeli airstrikes on 15 July forced them to flee. Nazareth capitulated to Israeli troops on July 16 in the context of Operation Dekel, which took place during the ten days of fighting that took place between the first and second truce. By then, the morale of the few local militiamen who resisted was very low and most refused to fight with the ALA soldiers due to the Israeli military superiority and an alleged mistreatment of the clergy and the Christian population by the ALA volunteers.. The Muslim mayor of Nazareth, Yusef Fahum, called for a halt to all acts of resistance to prevent the destruction of the city.
The surrender of Nazareth was formalized with a written agreement whereby the city's leaders agreed to cease hostilities in exchange for the promise of Israeli officers, including Canadian brigade commander Ben Dunkelman (the leader of the operation), that the inhabitants of the city would suffer no harm. Shortly after the signing of the agreement, Dunkelman received an order from Israeli General Chaim Laskov to expel the entire Arab population from the city, just as was being done in the rest of Palestine. Dunkelman refused to comply with the order, emphasizing that he was "shocked and horrified"; of being ordered to renege on an agreement that both he and Laskov had just signed. Twelve hours after challenging his superior, Dunkelman was relieved of his position, but he did not agree to leave until he obtained guarantees that the security of the population of Nazareth would be respected. David Ben Gurion defended the continuation of the Arab population of Nazareth, not so much for moral reasons as for fear that the expulsion of thousands of Christians from the city would trigger an outcry of protest among the Christian populations of many great powers. After the war, the population of Nazareth experienced a rapid boom due to the arrival of large numbers of refugees from the main cities and villages of the Galilee.
1950s and 1960s
During the first years of the incorporation of Nazareth into the State of Israel, the main problems of the city had to do with the confiscation of land, internally displaced persons and the harshness of the martial law that Israel applied to all Arab towns until 1966, which included curfews and movement restrictions. Attempts to address these issues were largely unsuccessful, leading to a sense of frustration among Nazareth's residents which in turn led to political protests in the city. As the largest Palestinian-populated city in Israel, Nazareth became at the center of the Palestinian nationalist movement. Since the Communist Party was the only legal party that took up many of the Palestinian claims, it gained weight and importance in Nazareth. The political organization of the Palestinians in Nazareth, and that of the Palestinians in Israel in general, was strongly hampered. by the state until a few years ago. Palestinian nationalist sentiment continues to influence political life in Nazareth.
In 1954, some 1,200 dunams (about 120 hectares) of Nazareth municipal land that the city council had reserved for future expansion of the city were expropriated by state authorities for the construction of government offices and, three years later, for the construction of an ethnically Jewish city known as Natzrat Illit (נצרת עילית, Upper Nazareth). This new city was built as part of the government's efforts to Judeize the Galilee and thus diminish the majority of Palestinians in this region. Parliamentarian Seif el-Din el-Zoubi, who represented Nazareth, actively opposed the move. the Absentee Property Law, which allowed the state to expropriate land from citizens of Palestinian origin who had been expelled or fled during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, and who were not allowed by the State of Israel to return to their homes once once the war is over. Zoubi argued that the IDPs could not be considered absent, since they still lived in the country, were Israeli citizens, and wished to return to their homes. Israel offered financial compensation to these IDPs, but most of them refused aid out of fear. that its acceptance meant declining their right of return. Tensions between the inhabitants of Nazareth and the state came to a head during a demonstration on May 1, 1958, in which demonstrators demanded that internally displaced persons be allowed to return to their villages, an end to the land confiscation and the Palestinian right to self-determination. Many protesters were arrested for throwing stones at security forces. Martial law ended in 1966.
On January 5, 1964, Pope Paul VI included Nazareth in the first-ever papal visit to the Holy Land.
From the 1970s to now
From 1942 until the early 1990s, both the British Mandatory Palestine and the State of Israel authorities rejected all development plans made by the Nazareth City Council, which has left many people voting in municipal elections and receive public services from Nazareth outside the jurisdiction of the city. Among these neighborhoods are those of Sharqiya and Jabal el-Daula, which came to be within the jurisdiction of Nazaret Illit and whose residents had to apply for building permits in this other city. Another example is the neighborhood of Bilal, in the Safafra neighborhood, which has been placed in the jurisdiction of Reineh. In 1993, the inhabitants of Bilal officially became the inhabitants of Reineh. Before the construction of Nazareth Illit, Nazareth's urban expansion plans were projected to the north and east, areas currently occupied by the neighboring city. There are very close Arab towns to the north, west and southwest. Therefore, the only areas of expansion available for the city of Nazareth are to the northwest and south, where the topography of the land greatly restricts urban growth. After an intense negotiating effort by Seif el-Din el-Zoubi, especially with the Ministry of the Interior and in the Knesset, some land to the northwest was annexed to the city.
In the 1980s, the government began attempts to unify the neighboring village of Ilut and Nazareth, although this move was met with opposition from the residents of both towns and from the Nazareth City Council. Ilut were framed as part of the electorate of Nazareth for the municipal elections of 1983 and 1989, for which the vast majority of these boycotted the elections, as well as for the national elections of 1988. In 1991, the Ministry of the Interior declared Ilut as a separate municipal entity. The Israeli government has established a Nazareth metropolitan area that includes the towns of Jafa an-Naseriyye to the south, Reineh, Mashhad and Kfar Kanna to the north, Iksal and Nazareth Illit to the east and Migdal HaEmek to the north. West.
As the political center of the Palestinian citizens of Israel, Nazareth is the scene of annual demonstrations to commemorate events such as Land Day, Nakba Day and May Day. of the Palestinian cause. During the First Intifada (1987-1993), May Day protesters often chanted slogans in favor of the Palestinian uprising. On December 22, 1987, a strike called in solidarity with the Intifada led to riots. On January 24, 1988, a massive demonstration was organized in Nazareth involving between 20,000 and 50,000 people who came from Nazareth itself and from many other nearby Palestinian-populated cities. On May 13, a match against the Nahariya soccer team; In clashes between fans of both teams, a Jew was stabbed and 54 people were arrested, most of them of Palestinian origin. Six days later, during a demonstration in Nazareth, thousands of demonstrators protested the "racist attacks" against Palestinian fans and against discriminatory anti-Arab policies in general.
As the Pope's 2000 visit became official and preparations began for his stay, numerous community tensions came to light regarding the Basilica of the Annunciation. Permission was granted in 1997 to build a paved plaza in which to accommodate the thousands of Christian pilgrims expected to visit. A small group of Muslims protested and occupied the site, where tradition has it that a nephew of Saladin, Shihab al-Din, is buried. The Ottoman authorities had already built a school in the area, in addition to the Shihab-Eddin shrine and other shops owned by the waqf. In turn, the approval by the Israeli government of the construction of a large mosque in this area generated protests from some Christian leaders. In 2002, a special government commission definitively stopped the construction of the mosque.
In March 2006, a Jewish man and his Christian wife and daughter interrupted a mass by launching fireworks inside the church, sparking major public protests. In July 2006, in the context of the Second Invasion from Lebanon by the Israeli army, a missile launched by the Shiite Hezbollah militia killed two children in Nazareth.
Today more than a million visitors (almost half of the tourists that come to Israel) come to Nazareth. Its Christian temples are recognized as "the largest theme center in the Middle East".
Geography
Modern Nazareth lies in a natural valley that reaches 320 meters above sea level to 448 meters on the largest of its hills. Nazareth lies about 25 kilometers from the Sea of Galilee and about 9 kilometers of Mount Tabor. The major cities of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv are approximately 146 and 108 kilometers away respectively. The Nazareth Range, on which the city is located, is the southernmost of a series of parallel mountain ranges running east-west, characteristic of the Lower Galilee plateau.
Demographics
Nazareth is the largest Arab city in Israel. In 2009, the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics established that the Muslim population accounted for 69% of the total population of Nazareth, while 30.9% were Christians The Nazareth metropolitan area had a total population of 210,000 at that time, of whom 125,000 were of Palestinian origin (59% of the total) and 85,000 were Jews (41%). It is the only an urban area of Israel with more than 50,000 inhabitants and with a majority population of Palestinian origin. The Nazareth metropolitan area includes Nazareth itself, Nof HaGalil (until 2019 called Nazareth Illit; Nazareth Above), Yafa an-Naseriyye, Reineh, Migdal HaEmek, Ein Mahil, Ilut, Kafr Kanna, Mashhad and Iksal.
Demographic history
During the latter part of Ottoman rule over Palestine, the majority religion in the city was constantly changing. In 1838, 325 Christian families (half of whom were Greek Orthodox, while the rest belonged to various branches of Christianity) and 120 Muslim families lived in Nazareth. In 1856 the population was estimated at 4,350, including Muslims accounted for 52% and the remaining 48% were made up of various Christian denominations. In 1862, the estimate of the population was lower (3,120 inhabitants) and Christians represented a large majority of these: 78%. The population grew to 5,660 in the 1862 census, of whom approximately two-thirds were Christians and one-third Muslims. Most likely, these calculations made during the late Ottoman period represented raw figures.
A population list from around 1887 gave a figure of 6,575 inhabitants, of whom 1,620 were Muslims, 2,485 were Greek Orthodox, 845 Catholics, 1,115 Latinos, 220 Maronites and 290 Protestants.
For most of the British Mandate for Palestine, Nazareth had a largely Christian (mostly Orthodox) population and a smaller portion of the Muslim population.
In 1918, Nazareth had approximately 8,000 inhabitants, two-thirds of whom were Christians. Muslims and approximately 1% Jews. In the 1931 census, the city's population had grown to 8,756 and the percentage of Muslims had risen to 37%. The largest Christian community at that time was that of the Greek Orthodox, followed by the Catholics and the Melkites. Small communities of Anglicans, Maronites, Syrian Catholics, Protestants and Copts were also registered.
In 1946, Nazareth had a population of 15,540, of whom approximately 60% were Christian and 40% Muslim. The 1948 Arab-Israeli war led to an exodus of the Palestinian population and many of the Muslim inhabitants of the Galilee and the Haifa area who were expelled or fled their homes found refuge in Nazareth. At one point, some 20,000 Muslim internal refugees were quantified in the city. At the end of the war, internal refugees from Shefa 'Amr, Dabburiya, Ilut and Kafr Kanna returned to their homes. However, those who came from destroyed towns such as Ma'lul, al-Mujaydil, Saffuriya, Balad al-Sheikh (in the Haifa area), as well as those from the cities of Acre, Haifa, Tiberias and Baisan, had to to remain in Nazareth because they could not return to their homes. During the war and in the months that followed, internal refugees from Saffuriya created the neighborhood of Safafra, whose name came from that of that town. Around 20% of the native population of Nazareth left Palestine during the war. In a July 1948 Israeli army census, Nazareth had a population of 17,118, of whom 12,640 were native inhabitants and 4,478 were internal refugees. In 1951, the town's population was recorded at 20,300, 25% of whom were internal refugees. These refugees came from more than twenty localities, although the majority were originally from al-Mujaydil, Saffuriya, Tiberias, Haifa, Ma'lul and Indur.
Today, Nazareth still has a significant proportion of its Christian population made up of various denominations. The Muslim population has grown due to a number of historical factors including the city's role as an administrative center during the British Mandate of Palestine and the flow of internal Palestinian refugees that the city absorbed during the 1948 war.
Economy
In 2011, Nazareth had more than 20 Palestinian-owned high-tech companies, most of them in the field of software development. According to the Israeli daily Haaretz, the city has been dubbed "the Silicon Valley of the Arab community" for its potential in this field of technology.
The Israeli military industry employs “about 300” people in the Nazareth munitions factories.
Archaeological studies
The oldest epigraphic reference to Nazareth corresponds to a marble fragment found in 1962 in the Cesárea Marítima synagogue, dated between the 2nd and 4th centuries, whose transcription reads:
The tenth eighth priestly division (called) Hapizzes, located in Nazareth.
Possibly refers to one of the families of temple priests (divided into 24 "divisions") who migrated after the Bar Kochba Rebellion in Hadrian's period in 135.
According to Brown and Meier, archaeological investigations indicate that the town was continuously occupied from the 7th century BCE. C.
“Area of worship” near the Basilica of the Annunciation
Although a series of excavations carried out before 1931 in the Franciscan “cult area” (the side of the hill known as Jabal Nebi Sa'in, which extends to the north of the Basilica of the Annunciation) did not reveal any traces of Greek or Roman settlement on the site, during the demolition of the Catholic Church of Nazareth in 1955 in order to expand it, new archaeological studies were carried out in the city. Between 1955 and 1960 the Franciscan priest Bellarmino Bagatti published the discovery of numerous caves and cavities, most of them tombs from the Bronze Age adapted as cisterns for water, grain or oil deposits. He also discovered significant amounts of Roman and Byzantine artifacts attesting to the undoubted presence of a settlement from the 2nd century AD. C. onwards. This discovery was reported as "the village of Jesus, Mary and Joseph" printing religious connotations making the study something possibly little objective. Few were the evidences of human settlements apart from the already mentioned necropolis.
In 1996-1997, Stephen Pfann—head of the Department of Biblical Studies and History at the University of the Holy Land—initiated an investigation of agricultural terraces on the grounds of the Nazareth hospital. However, the evidence found by this researcher was so little that he led him to conclude that "Nazareth was tiny, with two or three clans living in 35 houses on an area of 2.5 hectares". In the same sense, John Dominic Crossan, a prestigious academic specializing in the New Testament, pointed out that Bagatti's archaeological plans indicate how small the town really was, that it must have been little more than an insignificant village.
Early Roman house
In 2009 remains of a house dating to the early Roman period were discovered. These remains are located near the Basilica of the Annunciation and can be visited at the International Marian Center of Nazareth. According to the Israel Antiquities Authority, "the artifacts recovered from the interior of the building were few and most of them were fragments of ceramic vessels from the early Roman period (1st and 2nd centuries AD) (...) More remains of ceramics from the period early Roman found themselves in another excavated shaft whose entrance was apparently camouflaged.” Archaeologist Yardenna Alexandre adds that “based on the excavations she carried out in other villages in the area, it is likely that the Jews dug this pit in preparation for the Great Revolt of AD 67. against the Romans."
Tombs of Kokh
Interestingly, all of the post-Iron Age tombs in the Nazareth area (approximately two dozen) are of the kokh type or later; Such tombs probably appeared in the Galilee in the mid-I century d. The Kokh tombs in the Nazareth area have been excavated by B. Bagatti, N. Feig and Z. Yavor, and annotated by Z. Gal.
Old Baths of Pozo de María
In the mid-1990s, a Nazareth shopkeeper discovered tunnels under his shop, located near the Pozo de Maria. The tunnels turned out to be the hypocaust of some bathrooms. Excavations carried out between 1997 and 1998 revealed remains from the Roman, Crusader, Mamluk and Ottoman eras.
Nazareth Archaeological Museum
The Museum is located in the north area of the Basilica of the Annunciation. It preserves a collection of pieces found during archaeological investigations.
Sports
The city's main soccer club, Ahi Nazareth, currently plays in the second division of Israeli soccer, the Leumit League. The club spent two seasons in the first division, 2003-2004 and 2009-2010. It plays its home games at the Ilut Stadium, in the nearby city of Ilut. Other local clubs are Al-Nahda Nazareth, Beitar al-Amal Nazareth, Hapoel Bnei Nazareth and Hapoel al-Ittihad Nazareth.
Health
There are three main hospitals in Nazareth, known as the English Hospital (officially called the Nazareth Hospital), the French Nazareth Hospital and the Italian Nazareth Hospital.
Religion
Christianity
Nazareth is home to dozens of monasteries and churches, many of them in the Old City.
Catholic Churches
- The Basilica of Annunciation is the largest Catholic church in the Middle East. In the Catholic tradition, it marks the place where the Archangel Gabriel announced the future birth of Jesus to the Virgin Mary (Luke 1:26-31).
Basilica of the Annunciation. - The synagogue Church is a Greek-Catholic church in the traditional place of the synagogue where Jesus preached (Luke 4).
- The Church of San José marks the traditional place for the San José workshop.
- The Church of the Mensa Christi, led by the Franciscan religious order, commemorates the traditional place where Jesus raised with the Apostles after his Resurrection
- The Basilica of Jesus Adolescent, directed by the religious order of the Salesians, on the top of the hill that dominates the city from the north.
- The Church of Our Lady of the Pavor marks the place where it is said that Mary has seen Jesus be taken to a cliff by the congregation of the synagogue "Camino de Jesus"
- The Greek-Catholic Church of Nazareth is a Catholic temple of Byzantine Rite (Melquita Greek-Catholic Church) located in the north of the city of Nazareth
Orthodox churches
- The Church of Saint Gabriel is an alternative Greek Orthodox site for Annunciation.
Anglican Churches
- The Church of Christ is an Anglican church in Nazareth.
In addition, the pilgrimage route known as "the trail of Jesus" it connects many of the religious sites in Nazareth on a 37-mile (60 km) trail that ends in Capernaum.
Islamic
Muslim holy sites in Nazareth include:
- The Sanctuary of Sheikh Amer.
- The Makam al-Nabi Sain Mosque.
- The Shrine of Shihab ad-Din.
There are also other interesting places of Muslim worship, including:
- The White Mosque (Masjid al-Abiad), the oldest mosque in Nazareth, located in the Harat Alghama (“barrio de la mosque”), in the centre of the Old Market.
- The Mosque of Peace (Masjid al-Salam).
Featured Characters
Twinned cities
New Brandenburg, Germany
Florence, Italy- Loreto (Italy): the Basilica of the Annunciation of Nazareth and the Sanctuary of the Holy House of Loreto are sisterly.
Nablus (Palestine)
Saint-Denis (France)
The Hague, Netherlands
Czestochowa (Poland)
Baguio (Philippines)
Beirut, Lebanon
Harrisonburg, United States
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