Sanhedrin Relocates to Tzippori

After the Bar Kokhba revolt the Sanhedrin moved from Usha to Shefar'am and to Beit She'arim, and then to Tzippori (Sepphoris), the chief city of the Galilee, under Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi. In Tzippori, where by tradition he spent his last seventeen years, Rabbi Yehudah completed the Mishnah, the first written collection of the Oral Torah.

Tzippori was a mixed city of Jews and pagans, with a theater and rich villas such as the one with the "Mona Lisa of the Galilee" mosaic. A later synagogue there, paved with a zodiac and the vessels of the Temple, shows how Jewish life went on flourishing in the city.