Galilee

Galilee, Hebrew Ha-galil, northernmost region of ancient Palestine, corresponding to modern northern Israel. Its biblical boundaries are indistinct; conflicting readings leave clear only that it was part of the territory of the northern tribe of Naphtali.

The frontiers of this hilly area were set down by the Roman-Jewish historian Josephus (1st century ad). They were: ʿAkko (Acre) and Mount Carmel on the west; Samaria and Bet Sheʾan (Scythopolis) on the south; Transjordan on the east; and a line running through ancient Baca (probably modern Bezet) on the north, that line generally corresponding to the modern Israeli-Lebanese boundary. Some geographers extend Galilee’s border northward to the Nahr al-Līṭānī (Leontes River).

Galilee is divided into two parts: Upper and Lower. Upper Galilee (chief city: Ẕefat) has higher peaks separated by narrow gorges and defiles. Lower Galilee (chief city: Nazareth) is a region of lower hills.

When the Israelites took possession of Palestine, the Canaanites were strongly entrenched in Galilee. The Book of Judges (1:30–33) suggests that even after Joshua’s conquest, Jews and Canaanites lived together there. During the reigns of David and Solomon (10th century bc), Galilee was part of their expanded kingdom; subsequently, it came under the northern kingdom of Israel.

In 734 bc much of Galilee’s Jewish population was exiled after the victory of the Assyrian king Tiglath-pileser III over the Israelite kingdom. Later, the region became known as Jesus’ boyhood home and, thereafter, the site of most of his public ministry. Most of the miracles recounted in the New Testament were performed in Galilee. After the destruction of the Second Temple (ad 70) by the Romans, the centre of Jewish scholarship in Palestine moved to Galilee.

Galilee became impoverished after the Arab conquest (636). In the Middle Ages Ẕefat was the principal centre of Kabbala, an esoteric Jewish mysticism.

The region’s revival in modern times is a result of Zionist colonizations. Beginning with the village of Rosh Pinna (Hebrew: “cornerstone”) in 1882, a string of settlements was set up; these proved to be key bargaining points in the inclusion of all Galilee in the British mandate (1920).

The United Nations partition plan (November 1947) envisioned the division of Galilee between Israel and the never-created Arab state in Palestine, but it all went to Israel after the 1948–49 Arab–Israeli war.

A major change in Palestine’s physical geography was effected in Galilee in the 1950s when swampy Lake Ḥula, north of the Sea of Galilee, was drained; the Ḥula Valley was converted into fertile farmland and the upper course of the Jordan River straightened.