Zimrath Ha’aretz ["The Song of the Land": history of settlement of Tiberias]

BEIRAV, JACOB

Sa'adoun, Molcho and Associates

Livorno

1820

Second Edition. Text in Hebrew and Ladino (Judeo-Espanol). With haskamah of R. Isaac ben Chaim Abulafia.

Vinograd, Livorno 646; Yaari, Ladino 356

In 1740, R. Chaim Abulafia founded a colony in Tiberias. In this work first published in Mantua in 1745, Abulafia's son-in-law R. Jacob Beirav records the trials and tribulations and the ultimate triumph of establishing the new settlement. The purpose of the book was to call attention to the importance of settling Tiberias, one of the Four Holy Cities of the Land of Israel. Appended are twelve poems composed by the Author in Hebrew and Ladino all in praise of the resettlement of Tiberias. Until recently, they were sung by the Jews of the Balkans.