The intensification of Jewish settlement in Eretz Israel in the wake of expulsions and messianic stirrings brought together outstanding figures whose individual and collective achievements left an enduring imprint on Jewish life. The renaissance in sixteenth-century Eretz Israel, particularly in Safed, produced one of the most remarkable and creative moments in Jewish intellectual, religious, and cultural history. Refugees from Spain and Portugal, as well as from Italian and German lands, wended their exile-weary way to the Holy Land. Fueled by a new, more favorable Ottoman administration and unprecedented economic opportunities, the conditions were set for the renewal of Jewish cultural life. Abraham David's book To Come to the Land is not primarily about the processes of immigration to the land, although a brief chapter is devoted to that subject at the beginning. It focusses on specific aspects of Jewish life in sixteenth-century Eretz Israel, primarily in Jerusalem and Safed.