History of the Jews and Judaism in the Land of Israel
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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"It brings us both laughter and tears to see that you have not yet tired of repeating your fabricated lies that the Jews have a historical right to Palestine, as it was promised to them in the Torah. Anyone who disputes with them on this alleged fact is accused of anti-semitism. This is one of the most fallacious, widely-circulated fabrications in history. The people of Palestine are pure Arabs and original Semites. It is the Muslims who are the inheritors of Moses (peace be upon him) and the inheritors of the real Torah that has not been changed. Muslims believe in all of the Prophets, including Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad, peace and blessings of Allah be upon them all. If the followers of Moses have been promised a right to Palestine in the Torah, then the Muslims are the most worthy nation of this." --"Letter to America" "Jewish presence in the region has persisted to a certain extent over the centuries. In the 7th century CE, the Levant was taken from the Byzantine Empire by the Arabs and remained in Muslim control until the First Crusade of 1099, followed by the Ayyubid conquest of 1187. The Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt extended its control over the Levant in the 13th century until its defeat by the Ottoman Empire in 1517. During the 19th century, national awakening among Jews led to the establishment of the Zionist movement followed by immigration to Palestine."--Sholem Stein |
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The Jewish people originated in the land of Israel, and have maintained physical, cultural, and religious ties to it ever since. Although they had first emerged centuries earlier as an outgrowth of southern Canaanites, and the Jewish Bible claims that a Jewish monarchy existed starting in the 10th century BCE, the first appearance of the name "Israel" in the secular (non-Biblical) historic record is the Egyptian Merneptah Stele, circa 1200 BCE. During the Biblical period, two kingdoms occupied the highland zone, the Kingdom of Israel (Samaria) in the north, and the Kingdom of Judah in the south. The Kingdom of Israel was conquered by the Neo-Assyrian Empire (circa 722 BCE), and the Kingdom of Judah by the Neo-Babylonian Empire (586 BCE). Upon the defeat of the Babylonian Empire by the Achaemenid Empire under Cyrus the Great (538 BCE), the Jewish elite returned to Jerusalem, and the Second Temple was built.
In 332 BCE the Macedonian Greeks under Alexander the Great conquered Israel, starting a long religious struggle that split the Jewish population into traditional (orthodox) and Hellenized components.
In 165 BCE, after the religion-driven Maccabean Revolt, the independent orthodox Hasmonean Kingdom was established. In 64 BCE the Romans conquered Israel, turning it into a Roman province. Although coming under the sway of various empires and home to a variety of ethnicities, the area of ancient Israel was predominantly Jewish until the Jewish–Roman wars of 66–136 CE, during which the Romans expelled most of the Jews from the area and replaced it with the Roman province of Palaestina, beginning the Jewish Diaspora. After this time, Jews became a minority in most regions, except Galilee, and the area became increasingly Christian after the 3rd century, though the percentages of Christians and Jews are unknown, the former perhaps coming to predominate in urban areas, the latter remaining in rural areas Jewish settlements declined from over 160 to 50 by the time of the Muslim conquest. Michael Avi-Yonah calculated that Jews constituted 10–15% of Palestine's population by the time of the Persian invasion of 614, while Moshe Gil claims that Jews constituted the majority of the population until the 7th century Muslim conquest (638 CE).
In 1099 the Crusaders conquered Jerusalem and nearby coastal areas, losing and recapturing it for almost 200 years until their final ouster from Acre in 1291. In 1517 the Ottoman Empire conquered it, ruling it until the British conquered it in 1917, and ruled it under the British Mandate until 1948, when the Jewish State of Israel was proclaimed, which was made possible by the Zionist movement and its promotion of mass Jewish immigration.
See also
- List of Jewish leaders in the Land of Israel
- Time periods in the Palestine region
- Muslim history in Palestine (Islamization)
- Israeli Jews (Palestinian Jews)
- List of Jewish communities by country
- List of Yeshivas and Midrashas in Israel
- Demographic history of Palestine (region)
