The War on the Mixed Cities: The Depopulation of Arab Tiberias and the Destruction of its Old, 'Sacred' City (1948-9)

The Old City of Tiberias was one of the most beautiful and ancient cities in Palestine. With a mixed population of Palestinian Arabs and (largely) Mizrahi and Sephardic Jews until the 1948 Palestinian Nakba, Tiberias – in which Maimonides is buried – is, according to Jewish tradition, among the four 'sacred' cities in the country. Shortly after Israel was established, the secular Zionist establishment decided to raze the Old City to its foundations. As a result of this policy, the Old City, with all its historical buildings and nearly all its historical walls, was entirely erased, and in its place today there are parking lots and modern high-rise hotels. This article traces the story of the destruction of Old Tiberias and examines the attitudes of the secular Labour Zionist leadership to a 'sacred' Jewish city and the reactions to these attitudes of the local Sephardic and Mizrahi public.