In 1777, a wave of European Jews began immigration to Tzfat.  First, in 1777, the Hassidim arrived, and shortly afterward, the non-Hassidic Litvaks (Lithuanian anti-Hassidic school) began to come.  Life for these people was extremely difficult -- journals of those years speak of raw sewage running down the streets, struggles to please the Turkish rulers, excessive taxation and difficulties in making a living. 

In addition, the Jewish communities which lived in the town had difficulties with each other. The Sephardim, who had been the majority of the Jewish residents until then, spoke Arabic, and could not communicate with the Ashkenazim (Eastern Europeans).  The Hassidim and Litvaks avoided each other.   Sephardim looks down on Ashkenazim and practicing unauthentic Judaism, and vice-versa. 

When the earthquake of 1837 struck, all communities were equally devastated, but could not work together to rebuild.  Tzfat struggled along throughout the coming decades, suffering from Arab massacres along with the grinding poverty. 

But the last straw came about during WWI, when the Turks, fearing that the Jews would support the British, reduced the city to near famine. Young men fled as many were coerced into forced service in the Turkish army, and hundreds, maybe thousands, of Tzfat residents, left for America, Australia, South America, and  other lands, leaving the poorest and least-able to leave to struggle on.

With the British rule and the Palestine Mandate of 1918, the Jews rejoiced at the end of Turkish rule, but their happiness was short-lived, as the British soon demonstrated their intention to appease the Arabs at the expense of the Jews.  The British set up their headquarters in the Saraya building on the edge of Tzfat's Arab quarter, and allowed the Arabs free reign. 

This was most apparent during the riots of 1929, when Arab marauders spilled over the marketplace that divided the two quarters and entered the Jewish quarter, slaughtering, pillaging, raping, and setting fire to the quarter.  The Jews who were able to escape ran to the Saraya, where, even there, under British "protection", the Arabs managed to kill Jews huddled inside.  The British allowed the Arabs to continue their riot for 3 days, and when the Jews returned, most of the Jewish quarter had been ransacked.

This was the same time period of the Hebron pogrom, when 67 Hebron Jews were hacked to death. The Hebron Jewish community ceased to exist -- the survivors of that attack fled to Jerusalem, never to return.  But the Tzfat Jews had nowhere nearby to reestablish themselves, and so they began to arm themselves and organize self-defense.  This served them well in 1936, when the Arabs of the area again rioted.

As the War of Independence approached, both the Arab forces and the Jewish forces declared that Tzfat would be their "Capitol of the North.

Outgunned and outmanned, the Tzfat Jews nevertheless refused to evacuate the city when the departing British advised them to do so.  The British turned over all the high points of the city to the Arabs and then, as the British Mandate ended, left the country.

Tzfat civilians huddled in their homes as the battles raged day after day, but an old Czech artillery piece, renamed the Davidka, frightened the Arab population of the city with its tremendous noise.  The Arabs became convinced that the Jews had acquired the Atom Bomb after one post-Davidka blast rainfall, and they fled the city.  Days before the State of Israel was proclaimed, Tzfat was liberated.

Over the following decades, Tzfat absorbed refugees from Europe and North Africa.  Some of Israel's finest artists set up galleries in Tzfat, and the Artist Quarter put Tzfat on the map as a thriving tourist center.  In recent years, large numbers of English-speaking and Ethiopian immigrants have joined the community, and the city today is a bastion of multi-cultural Jewish traditions, practices, and beliefs.