1747. Kefar Yasif: A New Agricultural Settlement

JEWISH MOMENTS IN THE LAND OF ISRAEL

1747.

Kefar Yasif: A New Agricultural Settlement

Around 1740, a group of families renewed a Jewish presence in Kefar Yasif in the Upper Galilee with the purpose of studying Torah while also engaging in agricultural activities. Archaeological and documentary evidence, alongside local tradition, reveal a vibrant Jewish community that flourished, declined, and revived, uniquely shaped by their commitment to the observance of the agricultural commandments pertaining to the Land of Israel.

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Kefar Yasif is today a prominent Arab village situated at the foot of the Upper Galilee mountains, approximately seven miles northeast of Acre. While its current demographic is predominantly Arab, both archaeological finds and preserved records in international collections attest to an ancient and significant Jewish presence in the area.

Local tradition maintains that the village was originally called Kefar Acco. According to this tradition, during the Jewish revolt against Rome around 68 CE, Josephus Flavius (37–c.100 CE), who served as the Jewish military commander of Galilee, fortified the village and renamed it after himself. While direct archaeological evidence for this renaming is limited, Josephus does mention fortifying villages in Galilee, and the area’s continuous habitation supports the tradition of its ancient Jewish roots.

With the Ottoman conquest of the region at the beginning of the 16th century, the city of Acre and its surroundings experienced a period of revitalization. This renewal extended to Kefar Yasif, leading to a resurgence of its Jewish community. Ottoman tax registers from the late 17th century document nineteen Jewish households in Kefar Yasif, making up a quarter of the village’s population. However, this community suffered a sharp decline: by 1702, only ten Jewish families remained, and by 1707, the Jewish presence had almost vanished, likely due to a devastating plague that swept through the region.

Despite this setback, the first half of the 18th century saw a renewed Jewish settlement in Kefar Yasif. This revival was part of a broader movement to strengthen the Jewish presence in the Galilee, encouraged by the relatively tolerant and supportive rule of Sheikh Zahir al-Omar (ruled 1730–1775), the powerful Ottoman governor of the area.

Around 1747, under the spiritual leadership of R. Shlomo Abbadi, a noted scholar and community leader originally from Damascus who had moved to Jerusalem in 1740, ten Jewish families settled in Kefar Yasif with the explicit goal of establishing a center for Torah study. Their numbers grew as additional Jewish families, displaced by the catastrophic earthquakes that struck Safed in 1759, joined the community. By 1764, the Jewish population in Kefar Yasif had risen to about twenty families.

A distinctive aspect of this community was its commitment to agricultural life, not merely as a means of sustenance but as a spiritual mission. The settlers cultivated nearby lands, enabling them to observe the agricultural commandments unique to the Land of Israel, such as tithing and the sabbatical year. Notably, the community appears to have observed its first sabbatical year in 1749, an event of both religious and historical significance, as the practical observance of these laws in the land was a rare phenomenon in the post-Temple era.

Despite their industriousness and the relative freedom, they enjoyed under Ottoman rule, the agricultural yields were insufficient for the community’s needs. Like the established Jewish centers of Jerusalem, Hebron, Safed, and Tiberias, the Jews of Kefar Yasif dispatched emissaries abroad to raise funds. This practice underscores the community’s stature and the recognition it enjoyed within the broader Jewish world, as only the most significant Jewish communities typically engaged in such fundraising missions.

Another notable development was the establishment of Kefar Yasif as the preferred burial site for Jews from Acre. This custom arose from halachic uncertainty regarding whether Acre itself lay within the biblical boundaries of the Land of Israel. As a result, wealthy Jews from Acre were carried to Kefar Yasif for burial, while the less affluent were interred just outside Acre’s eastern walls. The Jewish cemetery in Kefar Yasif, still identifiable and visitable today, stands as a poignant reminder of this tradition.

Jewish life in Kefar Yasif persisted into the early 19th century. Records from 1827 indicate the presence of fifteen Jewish families, but by 1838, the village’s population had become exclusively Arab—comprising Christian, Druze, and Muslim residents. The Jewish quarter, though no longer inhabited by Jews, remains recognized by local tradition. The cemetery continued to serve the Jews of Acre until the 1929 riots, after which Jewish burials in Kefar Yasif ceased.