HaMeiri Dairy

Deli or food maker · Sheep's and goat's milk cheeses

The Old City, reached from Keren HaYesod Street, Safed

A family dairy in Safed's Old City that has made cheese from sheep's milk since 1840, with a Friday tour and a factory shop

By its own account HaMeiri is the first dairy in the country. Meir Arzoni, who came from Persia in 1840, three years after the earthquake that ruined Safed, founded it, and the family, which later took the name HaMeiri, has made cheese from sheep's milk in the same house ever since. The founder's will set two rules that still hold: the house passes to one son only, the one named Shlomi or Meir in his generation, and it may be neither sold nor let. The building stands on four levels of small stones gathered from the lanes of the Old City after the earthquake. Its cheeses are sold at the factory shop in the Old City and in delicatessens in Haifa, Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.