Galilee
The streams and waterfalls, the latter mainly in Upper Galilee, along with vast fields of greenery and colourful wildflowers, as well as numerous towns of biblical importance, make the region a popular tourist destination.
Hiram, to reciprocate previous gifts given to David, accepted the upland plain among the Naftali Mountains and renamed it "the land of Cabul" for a time.
[8][9] Yardenna Alexandre discovered minor short-lived Israelite settlements in the Naḥal Ẓippori basin, which were built by survivors of the Assyrian conquest.
[12] Up until the end of the Hellenistic period and before the Hasmonean conquest, the Galilee was sparsely populated, with the majority of its inhabitants concentrated in large fortified centers on the edges of the western and central valleys.
Based on archeological evidence from Tel Anafa, Kedesh, and ash-Shuhara, the Upper Galilee was then home to a pagan population with close ties to the Phoenician coast.
Sites including Yodfat, Meiron, Sepphoris, Shikhin, Qana, Bersabe, Zalmon, Mimlah, Migdal, Arbel, Kefar Hittaya, and Beth Ma'on have archeological-chronological evidence for this settlement wave.
[13] Josephus, who based his account on Timagenes of Alexandria, claimed that Aristobulus I had forcibly converted the Itureans to Judaism while annexing a portion of their territory.
Archaeological evidence from multiple sites reveals Jewish customs, including the use of limestone vessels, ritual baths for purity, and secondary burial practices.
According to Josephus, the Syrian governor Publius Quinctilius Varus responded by sacking Sepphoris and selling the population into slavery, but the region's archaeology lacks evidence of such destruction.
Although his palace was decorated with animal carvings, which many Jews regarded as a transgression against the law prohibiting idols, his coins bore only agricultural designs, which his subjects deemed acceptable.
A massive gap existed between the rich and poor,[21] but lack of uprisings suggest that taxes were not exorbitantly high and that most Galileans did not feel their livelihoods were being threatened.
Diseases like malaria were rampant, internal migration between urban and rural areas were frequent and women generally gave birth at young ages while married to older men.
Despite opposition, Josephus managed to secure internal peace and fortified nineteen cities in preparation for the Roman invasion; nearly half of them were uncovered by archaeologists.
According to rabbinic sources, Judah ha-Nasi's political leadership was at its strongest in relation to the Jewish community in Syria Palaestina, the Diaspora, and the Roman Authorities during this time.
The Jerusalem Talmud, the principal work of the amoraim in Palestine, is primarily discussions and interpretations of the Mishnah, and according to academic research, most of it was edited in Tiberias.
[25][13] Demographically, during the fourth century the entire region witnessed a significant population decrease, resulting in the abandonment of several notable settlements.
[32] According to Moshe Gil, Jews in rural Galilean areas frequently succeeded in upholding community life during and for decades after the Umayyad period.
[citation needed] According to Moshe Gil, during the periods of Fatimid and Crusader rule, the rural Jewish population of Galilee experienced a gradual decline and flight.
He supports his argument by referring to 11th-century Cairo Geniza documents related to transactions in Ramla and other areas in central Palestine, where Jews claimed to have ancestral ties to places like Gush Halav, Dalton, or 'Amuqa, suggesting that Jewish flight from Galilee occurred during that time.
In the mid-17th century Galilee and Mount Lebanon became the scene of the Druze power struggle, which came in parallel with much destruction in the region and decline of major cities.
The kibbutzim around the Sea of Galilee were sometimes shelled by the Syrian army's artillery until Israel seized Western Golan Heights in the 1967 Six-Day War.
During the 1970s and the early 1980s, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) launched multiple attacks on towns and villages of the Upper and Western Galilee from Lebanon.
From 1985 to 2000, Hezbollah, and earlier Amal, engaged the South Lebanon Army supported by the Israel Defense Forces, sometimes shelling Upper Galilee communities with Katyusha rockets.
The southern part of the Galilee, including Jezreel Valley, and the Gilboa region are nearly 100% Jewish, with a few small Arab villages near the West Bank border.
Jews form a small majority in the mountainous Upper Galilee, with a significant minority Arab population, mainly Druze and Christians.
The Galilee attracts many Christian pilgrims, as many of the miracles of Jesus occurred, according to the New Testament, on the shores of the Sea of Galilee—including his walking on water, calming the storm, and feeding five thousand people in Tabgha.
Numerous sites of biblical importance are located in the Galilee, such as Megiddo, Jezreel Valley, Mount Tabor, Hazor, Horns of Hattin, and more.
[44] Many kibbutzim and moshav families operate Zimmerim, from the Yiddish word for 'room', צימער, from 'Zimmer' in German, with the Hebrew ending for plural, -im; the local term for a Bed and breakfast.
Fish is filled with thyme and grilled with rosemary to flavor, or stuffed with oregano leaves, then topped with parsley and served with lemon to squash.
Galilean kubba is usually flavored with cumin, cinnamon, cardamom, concentrated pomegranate juice, onion, parsley and pine nuts and served as meze with tahini dip.
