Nazareth
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Findings unearthed in the neighboring Qafzeh Cave show that the area around Nazareth was populated in the prehistoric period. Nazareth was a Jewish village during the Roman and Byzantine periods, and is described in the New Testament as the childhood home of Jesus. It became an important city during the Crusades after Tancred established it as the capital of the Principality of Galilee. The city declined under Mamluk rule, and following the Ottoman conquest, the city's Christian residents were expelled, only to return once Fakhr ad-Dīn II granted them permission to do so. In the 18th century, Zahir al-Umar transformed Nazareth into a large town by encouraging immigration to it. The city grew steadily during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when European powers invested in the construction of churches, monasteries, educational and health facilities.
Since late antiquity, Nazareth has been a center of Christian pilgrimage, with many shrines commemorating biblical events. The Church of the Annunciation is the considered one of the largest Christian sites of worship in the Middle East. It contains the Grotto of the Annunciation, where, according to Catholic tradition, angel Gabriel appeared to Mary and announced that she would conceive and bear Jesus. According to Greek Orthodox belief, the same event took place at the Greek Orthodox Church of the Annunciation, also known as Church of Saint Gabriel. Other important churches in Nazareth include the Synagogue Church, St. Joseph's Church, the Mensa Christi Church, and the Basilica of Jesus the Adolescent.
As the largest Arab city in Israel, Nazareth is a today a cultural, political, religious, economic and commercial center of the Arab citizens of Israel, and became also a center of Arab and Palestinian nationalism.
Map - Nazareth
Map
Country - Israel
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| Flag of Israel | |
The Southern Levant, of which modern Israel forms a part, is on the land corridor used by hominins to emerge from Africa and has some of the first signs of human habitation. In ancient history, it was where Canaanite and later Israelite civilizations developed, and where the kingdoms of Israel and Judah emerged, before falling, respectively, to the Neo-Assyrian Empire and Neo-Babylonian Empire. During the classical era, the region was ruled by the Achaemenid, Macedonian, Ptolemaic and Seleucid empires. The Maccabean Revolt gave rise to the Hasmonean kingdom, before the Roman Republic took control a century later. The subsequent Jewish–Roman wars resulted in widespread destruction and displacement across Judea. Under Byzantine rule, Christians replaced Jews as the majority. From the 7th century, Muslim rule was established under the Rashidun, Umayyad, Abbasid and Fatimid caliphates. In the 11th century, the First Crusade asserted European Christian rule under the Crusader states. For the next two centuries, the region saw continuous wars between the Crusaders and the Ayyubids, ending when the Crusaders lost their last territorial possessions to the Mamluk Sultanate, which ceded the territory to the Ottoman Empire at the onset of the 16th century.
Currency / Language
| ISO | Currency | Symbol | Significant figures |
|---|---|---|---|
| ILS | Israeli new shekel | ₪ | 2 |
| ISO | Language |
|---|---|
| AR | Arabic language |
| EN | English language |
| HE | Hebrew language |