Amuka is a community settlement near Safed in the Upper Galilee in northern Israel. It belongs to the Merom HaGalil Regional Council. It is named for the Biblical city of the same name, which is presumed to be located near the present-day settlement. In it had a population of.

History

Amuka (meaning deep from the Hebrew) is in a deep valley about 8 kilometres from Safed. Buried there is the sage Rabbi Yonatan Ben Uziel who was a student of Hillel the elder, of the first century B.C.E., and authored an Aramaic translation to the Prophets that is printed in the Tanach. There is a community that has grown there because of the close proximity to the grave.

Education

Children in the community attend schools in the nearby city of Safed or other nearby villages: "Nof Harim" elementary school in Sasa, "Anne Frank" high school in Sasa, "Har VeGai" high school, and Einot Yarden high school.

Synagogue

There is a large ruined building above the burial place of Jonathan ben Uzziel. In the 19th century, the explorer Victor Guérin saw there "the base of a pillar and a number of hewn stones - the remnants of an old structure, possibly a synagogue." Tzvi Ilan writes that today some of the hewn stones are centralized in the center of the ruin like a platform for worship. West of the platform is a rectangular area of 20 by 30 meters appropriate for a synagogue. In the past there was a marble board with a figure of a grapevine.

Notable people