Selim I (Ottoman)

Selim I was the Ottoman sultan who defeated the Mamluks and brought the Land of Israel under Ottoman control in 1517. This began about 400 years of Ottoman rule over Jerusalem and the land. For Jewish history, the Ottoman period was important because after the Spanish Expulsion of 1492, many Sephardic Jews found refuge in Ottoman lands. Jewish communities grew in places like Safed, Jerusalem, Tiberias, Hebron, and Gaza, with Safed becoming a major center of Jewish mysticism, law, and scholarship in the 16th century.