Near Tiberius- Old City

There are two sites just outside the old city that we saw. Both are dedicated to women.


One was part of the Donna Gracia Museum (that's her on the coin -an internet image). This woman bribed the Sultan to give her Tiberias and she used much of her fortune to help Spanish and Portuguese Jews escape Europe for Israel and Turkey. We didn't tour the museum since they wanted a large amount for a 10 minute tour in Hebrew and we would have to wait for an hour until the tour.

The story is that Akiba was 40 years old and wanted to learn but was embarrassed to go to a class where the other students were 7 or 8 years old. The other site is the tomb of Rachel, wife of Akiba. This is beyond the south edge of the old city. Rachel told him to plant vegetables in a cart and take it into town and show it off. Akiba did and everybody laughed at him. Rachel told him to do it the next day. Akiba did and some people laughed at him. Akiba did it the next day and nobody laughed. This taught Akiba that even though people would laugh at him the first day he was studying with young kids, soon he would be accepted. He was and became a famous scholar.