Roman Jewish in the context of Synagogue of Dura-Europos

Safed (/ˈsɑːfɛd/ SAH-fed; Arabic: صَفَد, romanized: Ṣafad), also known as Tzfat and officially as Zefat (Hebrew: צְפַת, romanized: Ṣəp̄aṯ), is a city in the Northern District of Israel. Located at an elevation of up to 937 m (3,074 ft), Safed is the highest city in the Galilee and in Israel. In 2022, 93.2% of the population was Jewish and 6.8% was counted as other.

Safed has been identified with Sepph (Σέπφ), a fortified town in the Upper Galilee mentioned in the writings of the Roman Jewish historian Josephus. The Jerusalem Talmud mentions Safed as one of five elevated spots where fires were lit to announce the New Moon and festivals during the Second Temple period. Safed attained local prominence under the Crusaders, who built a large fortress there in 1168. It was conquered by Saladin 20 years later, and demolished by his grandnephew al-Mu'azzam Isa in 1219. After reverting to the Crusaders in a treaty in 1240, a larger fortress was erected, which was expanded and reinforced in 1268 by the Mamluk sultan Baybars, who developed Safed into a major town and the capital of a new province spanning the Galilee. After a century of general decline, the stability brought by the Ottoman conquest in 1517 ushered in nearly a century of growth and prosperity in Safed, during which time Jewish immigrants from across Europe developed the city into a center for wool and textile production and the mystical Kabbalah movement. It became known as one of the Four Holy Cities of Judaism. As the capital of the Safad Sanjak, it was the main population center of the Galilee, with large Muslim and Jewish communities. Besides during the fortunate governorship of Fakhr al-Din II in the early 17th century, the city underwent a general decline and by the mid-18th century was eclipsed by Acre. Its Jewish residents were targeted in Druze and local Muslim raids in the 1830s, and many perished in an earthquake in that same decade – through the philanthropy of Moses Montefiore, its Jewish synagogues and homes were rebuilt.

Antiquities of the Jews (Latin: Antiquitates Iudaicae; Greek: Ἰουδαϊκὴ ἀρχαιολογία, Ioudaikē archaiologia) is a 20-volume historiographical work, written in Greek, by the Roman-Jewish historian Josephus in the 13th year of the reign of the Roman emperor Domitian, which was 94 CE. It contains an account of the history of the Jewish people for Josephus's gentile patrons. In the first ten volumes Josephus follows the events of the Hebrew Bible beginning with the creation of Adam and Eve.

The second ten volumes continues the history of the Jewish people beyond the biblical text and up to the First Jewish–Roman War (66–73 CE). This work, along with Josephus's other major work, The Jewish War (De Bello Iudaico), provides valuable background material for historians wishing to understand 1st-century CE Judaism and the early Christian period.