1838 Druze attack on Safed

The 1838 Druze attack on Safed began on July 5, 1838, during the Druze revolt against the rule of Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt. Tensions had mounted as the Druze captured an Egyptian garrison outside of Safed.[1] The local Safed militia of several hundred was heavily outnumbered by the Druze rebels, and the city was gripped in despair as the militia eventually abandoned the city and the Druze rebels entered the city on July 5.[2] The Druze rebels and a Muslim mob descended on the Jewish quarter of Safed and spent three days attacking Jews, plundering their homes and desecrating their synagogues, in scenes reminiscent of the looting and pillaging of the Jews in the city that took place four years earlier as part of the Peasants' revolt in Palestine.[3][4][5] Some Jews ended up leaving the town, moving south to Jerusalem and Acre.[6] The legacy of the riots and the earthquake led the center of Jewish life to shift from Safed to Jerusalem in the subsequent decade.[7]

Prelude

By the 19th-century, the Galilean city of Safed comprised a major Jewish center. It had become a kabbalistic centre during the 16th-century, reaching a size of about 15,000 at its peak. The number of residents had declined through the 17th and 18th centuries but it had increased from its low point to between 7,000 and 8,000 in the year before the attacks, with Jews comprising a majority of the population in 1837.[8] The Jews of Safed had been subjected to a month-long attack in 1834 during the Peasants' Revolt: More than 5,000 Arab peasant rebels had launched a revolt protesting against legislation imposed by the new Egyptian ruler Muhammad Ali, with some using the uprising as an opportunity to attack the Jews. In addition to large-scale looting, Jews were killed and raped, and their homes, synagogues and Torah scrolls were destroyed by the attackers.[9][10][11] After several months, the Egyptians managed to crush the rebellion and regain control. The Jews of Safed began to slowly recover from the devastation. Not long after, Safed was again the scene of devastation when the strong Galilee earthquake of 1837 resulted in thousands of deaths and the destruction of many buildings.[12] The northern, Jewish section of the town was almost entirely destroyed.[12] By 1838, the tense relationship between the fellahin and the Egyptian overlords was again mounting[13] and a full-scale Druze revolt erupted in January. In summer of 1838, the Druze captured a heavily outnumbered Egyptian garrison outside Safed.[1]

The attack

During the three days of the attack, murders, looting and ritual desecration of Jewish holy places took place. Many Jewish residents fled south, leaving the remaining Jewish population below a thousand. Louis Loewe recounted how the Druze mob had demanded that they be paid a ransom of 2,500 pounds and threatened the rabbinic leader of the Ashkenazi Jewish community with death by the sword if they refused to meet the demands. The community could not raise the funds required by the attackers and the rabbi, his hands and feet bound, was willing to accede and have is head cut off, after which the Druze mob agreed to allow the Jews some time to raise the ransom they wanted.[14]

Fearing an attack, the Jewish community had sought protection from the area's governor, who reassured them of their safety and sent soldiers to defend the Jewish section of the city.[7] When the attack ultimately hit Safed, the governor fled and the Jews were left unprotected.[7] Loewe wrote in his diary:[1]

We huddled together in Rebbe Avraham Dov's house... The women were hysterical and the children crying. The Rebbe asked me to write a note in Arabic to the mayor, pleading with him not to forsake us in this desperate time. I did so, but his answer was mere lip service.

According to Loewe, the Jews became "Open prey for the ravenous rebels". The Druze rebels were joined by Muslim mob and they looted the Jewish quarters, as the Druze rebels thought the Jews possessed hidden treasures and local Muslims encouraged them to attack. The plunder lasted for three days.[2]

Yisrael Bak, whose printing press had been destroyed in 1834, saw it happen a second time, leading him to leave the city.[15]

During the course of the attack, some Jews were assisted by friendly Arabs.[16] One Arab by the name of Muhammed Mustafa, had helped protect them, lending them money and providing them with food and clothing.[17] This time, Ibrahim Pasha's response was more swift.[18]

In the wake of the attacks, many Jews fled to Acre or Jerusalem, leaving 1,000 families in Safed, leading to Jerusalem surpassing Safed as the largest Jewish city in the Old Yishuv in the subsequent decade.[7][14]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 Rossoff, David. Safed: the mystical city. p.162-165.
  2. 1 2 Schur, Nathan (October 31, 1983). תולדות צפת. עם עובד. ISBN 9789650100971 – via Google Books.
  3. ↑ Sherman Lieber (1992). Mystics and missionaries: the Jews in Palestine, 1799-1840. University of Utah Press. p. 334. ISBN 978-0-87480-391-4. The Druze and local Muslims vandalised the Jewish quarter. During three days, though they enacted a replay of the 1834 plunder, looting homes and desecrating synagogues — but no deaths were reported. What could not be stolen was smashed and burned. Jews caught outdoors were robbed and beaten.
  4. ↑ Louis Finkelstein (1960). The Jews: their history, culture, and religion. Harper. p. 679. In the summer of 1838 the Druses revolted against Ibrahim Pasha, and once more the Jews were the scapegoat. The Moslems joined the Druses in repeating the slaughter and plunder of 1834.
  5. ↑ Ronald Florence (18 October 2004). Blood libel: the Damascus affair of 1840. Univ of Wisconsin Press. p. 47. ISBN 978-0-299-20280-4. There had been pogroms against the Jews in Safed in 1834 and 1838.
  6. ↑ Emile Marmorstein (1975). Middle Eastern Studies II: "European Jews in Muslim Palestine". pg. 77.
  7. 1 2 3 4 Bostom, Andrew G. Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism, p. 598. Globe Pequot Publishing, 2011. ISBN 9781615920112. Accessed May 25, 2026.
  8. ↑ Moshe Maʻoz (1975). Studies on Palestine during the Ottoman period. Magnes Press. p. 67. ISBN 9789652235893. Up to 1837 the population of Safed showed an increase. A considerable number of sources report a population of 7000-8000, with half, or even more than half, being Jews.
  9. ↑ Schur, Nathan. Twenty Centuries of Christian Pilgrimage to the Holy Land, p. 128. Dvir Publishing House, 1992. Accessed May 25, 2026. "In Galilee the Jewish community of Safed was, for a month, subjected to a wild orgy of looting by its Moslem neighbors."
  10. ↑ Rossoff, Dovid. Safed: The Mystical City., pp. 149 ff. Feldheim Publishers, 1991. ISBN 978-0-873-06566-5. Accessed May 25, 2026. "On a sunny Friday afternoon in Sivan, 1834, hundreds of armed Druze and Arabs galloped into Safed and inaugurated a month-long pogram. They murdered, maimed, looted, and destroyed everything Jewish. The synagogues were pillaged, Torah scrolls profaned, and furniture burnt. Even tefillin straps were desecrated and used to tie their booty in bundles. Jewish homes were ransacked and lawlessness reigned."
  11. ↑ Green, Abigail. Moses Montefiore: Jewish Liberator, Imperial Hero, p. 119. Harvard University Press, ISBN 978-0-674-04880-5. Accessed May 25, 2026. "During the revolt of the Arab peasantry against Mehmed Ali in 1834, villagers from the surrounding area had sacked the Jewish quarter, assaulting and killing the men, raping the women, plundering and destroying their homes."
  12. 1 2 "The earthquake of 1 January 1837 in Southern Lebanon and Northern Israel Archived 3 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine" by N. N. Ambraseys, in Annali di Geofisica, Aug. 1997, p.933,
  13. ↑ One a day: an anthology of Jewish historical anniversaries, p. 168, Abraham P. Bloch - 1987
  14. 1 2 Bensoussan, Georges. "Pogroms in Palestine before the creation of the state of Israel (1830-1948)", Foundation for Political Innovation, April 2024. Accessed May 3, 2026. "The 1834 pogrom was repeated in August 1838. Over three days, the Druze, supported by Arabs, rebelled against Egyptian rule and once again attacked the Jewish community in Safed. The devastation mirrored that of 1834, with Jews murdered, homes plundered, synagogues desecrated, and women assaulted. Many Jews sought refuge in Saint-Jean-d’Acre or Jerusalem, resulting in fewer than a thousand families remaining in Safed. Louis Loewe, who would later serve as the secretary to the renowned English Jewish philanthropist Sir Moses Montefiore, was in Palestine at the time and can attest to these events: 'In addition to everything they had looted, the Druze demanded from the Jews a sum equivalent to 2,500 English pounds, which, of course, the Jews were unable to pay. The Druze then seized the rabbi in charge of the Ashkenazi community, an elderly man, tied his hands and feet and placed the blade of a sword on his neck. They threatened to cut off his head if the money is not paid immediately....'"
  15. ↑ Israel M. Ta-Shma (1975). The Hebrew book: an historical survey. Keter Publishing House Jerusalem. p. 151. ISBN 978-0-7065-1389-9. After the Safed earthquake in 1837 and the Druze revolt in 1838, during which his farm was despoiled and his printing press again destroyed, he moved to Jerusalem.
  16. ↑ Elia Zureik (1979). The Palestinians in Israel: a study in internal colonialism. Routledge & K. Paul. p. 32. ISBN 978-0-7100-0016-3. For example, during the Safed insurrection in 1838, in which Druze rebels rose against Turkish rule, and - in the course of the uprising - attacked Jews of Safed and even extorted money from them, it was another Palestinian Arab who came to their rescue.
  17. ↑ Emile Marmorstein (1975). Middle Eastern Studies II: "European Jews in Muslim Palestine". pg. 78.
  18. ↑ Richard I. Cohen; Judith Carp (1986). The return to the land of Israel. World Zionist Organization. p. 32. ISBN 978-965-227-035-1. As the Jews in Safed were in the process of rehabilitation, they encountered a Druze rebellion (1838) against the Egyptian rule. Druze entered Safed and began maliciously to demand of the Jews all their earthly possessions. Fortunately, Ibrahim Pasha's army was this time successful in removing the threat and forcing the Druze to return...
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