as the acknowledged Torah center of the world, Aid and speed the ingathering of the Jewish exile, and Expand the currently settled areas of the Land of Israel. The perushim migrated in three groups. The first group left in 1808 led by Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Shklov, and the following two in 1809, led by Rabbi Sa'adya Ben Rabbi Noson Nota of Vilna, and Rabbi Yisroel ben Shmuel of Shklov. They traveled via Constantinople on foot and by horse and wagon, and then sailed by boat to Acre. The trips lasted about fifteen months, and the travelers suffered many hardships, including starvation. The journey was made all the more dangerous because of the Napoleonic Wars that were raging across Europe. Safed Reaching the shores of Palestine, however, was not the end of their journey. When the perushim first arrived, they faced a ban on Ashkenazi Jews settling in Jerusalem. The ban had been in effect from the early 18th century when, as a result of outstanding debts, the Ashkenazi synagogues of the Old City had been forcibly closed and many Ashkenazim were forced out of the city and barred from returning. While some managed to evade the ban by entering Jerusalem disguised as Sephardi Jews, most of the perushim journeyed on to Safed, where they joined a strong Sephardi community that was already there. Besides the Sephardim, the community included many Hasidic Jews, with whom the perushim had an ongoing feud. However, the two groups set aside their ideological differences and worked hand in hand to settle the land and develop their community and eventually intermarried. Because flourishing agriculture was seen as a sign of Redemption, the immigrants had brought agricultural implements with them, so that they could observe the biblical commandments connected to working the soil in the Holy Land. Safed in the first quarter of the 19th century was a bustling town of over five thousand Jewish inhabitants, but was still struggling to recover from the devastating Near East earthquakes of 1759. The physical and economic conditions under which its inhabitants lived were extremely harsh. The community was nearly destroyed by a horrific plague in 1812, and they continued to suffer murderous attacks by Arabs and Druze. The community was further diminished by the catastrophic Galilee earthquake of 1837, which killed thousands of people throughout the region. It leveled the city of Safed and seriously damaged Tiberias. Over