Tiberias

Tiberias was founded around 20 CE by Herod Antipas, the Roman client ruler of the Galilee, and named for the emperor Tiberius. Built partly over a burial ground, it was avoided by observant Jews at first, but after the failed revolts against Rome the centre of Jewish life moved north into the Galilee, and Tiberias became its capital. The Sanhedrin sat there, much of the Jerusalem Talmud was compiled in the city, and in the early medieval centuries scholars known as the Masoretes fixed the vowel and accent system still used in the Hebrew Bible.

The town changed hands repeatedly. It passed to the Arab caliphates in the seventh century, was taken by the Crusaders, who made it the seat of a principality, and fell to Saladin in 1187, in the same days as the battle of Hattin, fought about 10 kilometres west of the town. Earthquakes and neglect reduced it to a village, and it was rebuilt in the 18th century by Daher al-Umar, whose black basalt walls still show along the lakefront. The Galilee earthquake of 1837 wrecked the walls and many houses and killed hundreds of people, after which the town was rebuilt.

Under Ottoman and then British rule Tiberias had a mixed Jewish and Arab population; in 1948 its Arab residents were evacuated by British troops and refused re-entry after the war, and the town was resettled, while malaria control and drainage of the surrounding marshes made the lake shore habitable year-round. Since the 1960s it has lived largely on tourism, with hotel building along the waterfront, periods of decline, and repeated attempts to renew the promenade and the old core.

Tiberias is counted as one of Judaism's four holy cities, along with Jerusalem, Hebron and Safed, and pilgrimage shapes much of its life. The tomb of Maimonides draws visitors all year, and other revered graves in and around the town bring groups of worshippers, particularly on anniversaries, when buses fill the streets and singing carries late into the night. A substantial religious population lives in the town, and Shabbat is observed visibly in the centre.

For Christians the town is a base rather than a destination: the shoreline sites where the Gospels place much of Jesus's ministry lie within a short drive north, so pilgrim groups stay in Tiberias and travel out each day. The result is a place where Hebrew, Arabic, English, Russian and Spanish are all heard along one promenade.

Alongside this runs a plainly secular holiday culture. Israeli families come for the water, the hot springs and the cheap winter sun, and the promenade in summer is given over to ice cream, arcade games, music and boat trips. The town has a reputation for being both very traditional and very touristic at once, with local pride in the lake, the fish and the view of the Golan across the water, and long-running debate about the state of the waterfront.

About 52,000 people live in Tiberias, a mixed population that includes families descended from immigrants from North Africa, Iraq and the former Soviet Union, together with a growing religious community. The town is the service centre for the lakeside kibbutzim and moshavim, the Jordan valley farms and the villages of the eastern Galilee, and its hospital serves a wide area.

Tourism and hospitality are the main employers, alongside health care, local government, farming in the valleys and commuting to Haifa or the Jezreel Valley. Wages are below the national average, unemployment has been persistent, and the town has long argued that its hotel strip underperforms compared with Eilat or the Dead Sea. The lake's level, which falls in dry years and is watched closely, matters to farming and to the look of the shoreline.

The rhythm follows the heat: early mornings at the market and on the water, shuttered afternoons in summer, and evenings outdoors on the promenade. Fridays end early as the town closes for Shabbat, and the streets fill again on Saturday night. Since 2023 the Galilee's border tensions and, from 2026, the war have cut visitor numbers heavily, which is felt directly in a town that lives on tourism.

The dish associated with Tiberias is the whole grilled tilapia sold along the lakefront as St Peter's fish, served with chips, tahini and a spread of salads. Some of what reaches the table comes from fish farms rather than the lake, but the ritual of eating fish facing the water is fixed. Musht, the local name for the same family of fish, appears on menus in both Hebrew and Arabic.

Beyond the fish, the food is standard Israeli and Levantine: hummus eaten warm for breakfast, falafel and shawarma in pita from the streets behind the promenade, grilled skewers with grilled onion and pickles, and mezze salads of aubergine, beetroot, cabbage and tahini. Many hotels serve the large Israeli buffet breakfast of eggs, cheeses, salads, herring and pastries, and kosher kitchens keep meat and dairy apart, which shapes what is on offer where.

The market supplies dates and citrus from the Jordan valley, olives and olive oil from the Galilee hills, and fresh herbs. Sweet shops sell knafeh and baklava, coffee is drunk either as strong Arabic coffee with cardamom or as espresso, and beer and Galilee wines are served on the promenade in the evening, with arak drunk alongside mezze in the Arab-style restaurants of the area.