Safed plunder

The 1834 looting of Safed (Hebrew: ביזת צפת בשנת תקצ"ד‎, "Plunder of Safed, 5594 AM") was prolonged attack against the Jewish community of Safed, Palestine, during the 1834 Peasants' Revolt. It began on Sunday June 15 (7 Sivan), the day after the Jewish holiday of Shavuot, and lasted for the next 33 days. Most contemporary accounts suggest it was a spontaneous attack which took advantage of a defenceless population in the midst of the armed uprising against Egyptian rule. The district governor tried to quell the violent outbreak, but failed to do so and fled. The event took place during a power vacuum, whilst Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt was fighting to quell the wider revolt in Jerusalem.

Accounts of the month-long event tell of large scale looting, as well as killing and raping of Jews and the destruction of homes and synagogues by local Druze. Many Torah scrolls were desecrated and many Jews were left severely wounded. The event has been described as a pogrom or "pogrom-like" by some authors. Hundreds fled the town seeking refuge in the open countryside or in neighbouring villages. The rioting was quelled by Lebanese Druze troops under the orders of Ibrahim Pasha following the intervention of foreign consuls. The instigators were arrested and later executed in Acre.

By the 19th-century, Safed had long been inhabited by Jews. It had become a kabbalistic centre during the 16th-century and by the 1830s there were around 4,000 Jews living there, comprising at least half the population. Throughout their history, the Jews of Safed, though supported by the Porte, had been the target of oppressive exactions by corrupt local officials. In 1628 the Druze seized the city, and holding it for several years, despoiled the local community, and the Jewish population declined as Safed Jews moved to Hebron and Jerusalem. and again in the 1660 destruction of Safed. The 1831 annexation of Palestine to Egypt by Muhammad Ali rendered life relatively more secure than had been the case under the Ottomans. In 1833, however, at the approach of Ibrahim Pasha, the Jewish quarter of Safed was plundered by the Druze, although the inhabitants managed to escape to the suburbs.

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