Chapter 4: Hebrews – Children of Israel

Of the three great monotheistic religions, Judaism is the oldest of the other two major monotheistic religions – Christianity and Islam; except in the case of Zoroastrianism. Christianity is examined in Chapter 7 and is really an extension of the story of the Jews because the founder and his disciples were Hebrew.

Hebrew Sacred Texts

The Hebrew, known as Jewish people, have a strong belief in one true God who is the creator, ruler of this world and the entire universe who knows everything and sees everything. He has revealed the sacred laws of Jews in the Torah and has chosen Hebrews and those that follow those laws and preserves the Torah and history has come to know them as the Chosen People or as Mohammed, the founder/prophet of Islam called them: “The People of the Book“.   But the first issue to discuss refers to that holy book, the sacred texts of Judaism and use it in the proper terminology used to describe the 38 books that make up the Hebrew Canon (Bible),  referred to as the Old Testament. However, this is not entirely true and has been a point of a theological discussion and argument since the inception of Christianity and Islam. And as mentioned in the title page, archaeology has been a significant aid in constructing the past in human history, and validating what scholars and historians have written about in the course of examining theological history and philosophy.

The Hebrew Scriptures are: (1) Genesis, (2) Exodus, (3) Leviticus, (4) Numbers, (5) Deuteronomy, (6) Joshua, (7) Judges, (8) Ruth, (9) First Samuel, (10) Second Samuel, (11) First Kings, (12) Second Kings, (13) First Chronicles, (14) Second Chronicles, (15) Ezra, (16) Nehemiah, (17) Esther, (18) Job, (19) Psalms, (20) Proverbs, (21) Ecclesiastes, (22) Song of Solomon, (23) Isaiah, (24) Jeremiah, (25) Lamentations, (26) Ezekiel, (27) Daniel, (28) Hosea, (29) Joel, (30) Amos, (31) Obadiah, (32) Jonah, (33) Micah, (34) Nahum, (35) Habakkuk, (36) Zephaniah, (37) Haggai, and (38) Malachi. The Apocryphal or Deuterocanonical books are not in the Hebrew Bible, but can be found in the Catholic and Protestant bibles. The New Testament concerns Jesus of Nazareth, his life and his teachings, and is not found in the Hebrew Canon.

The Old Testament points to the New Testament, in terms of prophetic paragraphs and the New Testament often refers to people and the ancient laws within the Old Testament. While the actual description and examination of Christianity is discussed in Chapter 7, as with the other ancient religions, it interacts historically with other religions and theological ideology. If we are to understand the sacred writing of Judaism, we must rid ourselves of the idea that the Old Testament or covenant has been replaced by the new, and therefore in some theological views leaves the originating religion extinct or for some – untrue. However, it is true that the New Testament reveals a new age in theology and the concept of the spiritual world versus the living world, as well as the promise or presentation that the spirit moves on beyond the physical receptacle of the earthly body at the moment of death, and not having to wait in limbo for what was referred to as the Rapture, as presented in the Old Testament and by the patriarch authorities. Rapture is also a description of what the disciples referred to as the Second Coming of Christ, which is a major part of the Christian doctrine. More of this later.

So, if the word Torah  (written law), Talmud (book of instruction)  or mentions of other sacred texts are used here, the term Hebrew Bible is meant to represent the Old Testament used in the Christian Holy Bible – the book of many books. It can all be confusing, bud did not the ancient Hebrew scholars, scribes and prophets write or originate those books found in the Old Testament? If we follow that train of thought, then we must also realize that those books in the authorized version of the Bible are not truly complete. In addition, the Torah has been kept in its original form and written language; whereas the Old Testament has been translated first into Greek, then Latin and then other languages, specifically English and further “translated” into “modern” terms. I believe that over the period of history these “translations” have caused the loss of the original intent, in some cases the meaning, and possibly left out important aspects of the original text and entire books. Books in the New Testament that have been removed and not accepted in the canonical scriptures of Christians will be examined in Chapter 7.

The most visible difference is that the books included within the Hebrew Bible and the order in which they are placed. The Catholic tradition, which is the oldest of the Christian organization known as the Church, whose original name was the Holy Roman Catholic Church in the Christian religion.

The Catholic Bible, of which I use as reference, is the Authorized Version handed down through the order of King James of England. Isn’t it a bit strange that an authorized version would have been ordered to be reproduced in England instead of where the papal seat was located in Rome? The Catholic Bible includes such texts as First Maccabees and Second Maccabees, the Wisdom of Solomon, and the Wisdom of Jesus ben Sirach as deuteroncanonical texts, while those texts have been considered as being outside the canon of the Hebrew Bible or as what is termed as the apocryphal texts by Jews who originated the Bible. As seen in Chapter 7, the results of the Protestant Reformation were the return to a specific list of books which made up the Hebrew Bible, according to its origination by the Jews. The Jewish canon of the Hebrew Bible ends up with the last verse of the Second Book of Chronicles, whose intention was to rebuild the Temple of Jerusalem, while the Christian canon of the Hebrew Bible ends with the last verse of the Prophet Malachi, which has served as a “theological bridge” between the “Old” and the New Testament with the words:

Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes.

The reader of this version of theological text just turns the page in order to find the fulfillment of this prophecy in the activities of John the Baptist of the New Testament, who is sort of identified with Elijah, who began the prophecy of a messianic king.

The most accurate term for the Hebrew Bible in the history of Judaism is in the term Tanak, which is an acronym made up of the first letters of the three parts of the Hebrew Bible: Torah, Nevi’im, and Ketuvim.  Torah is also described as the Pentateuch or the first five books, which gives reference to the revelation given to Moses at Mount Sinai. Included in this revelation of Moses is the creation text, a story of the first ancestors called patriarchs, a description of Israel’s bondage under the Egyptian rulers, the exodus from Egypt, and all the traditions of law of the community of Jews that would establish themselves as a people with a nation and that nation becoming Israel. Scholars usually refer to those five books of the Torah by their Latin titles: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, but the Jews refer them as the first major texts of the Hebrew Bible. Therefore, Genesis is actually Bereshit (in the beginning), Shemot (Names) for Exodus, Vayyikra (and he called) for Leviticus, Bamidbar (in the desert) for Numbers, and Devarim (Words) for Deuteronomy. Torah is translated to mean law, and while the Torah does contain laws, its terminology is not as we should understand it. Many section of the Torah contain texts about the life and rituals of the community and this is because ancient Israel didn’t differentiate between what we know as civil code of law and religious code of law; therefore, as in the Qu’ran of Islam, all actions of humans fall under the jurisdiction of Torah. The Torah in the history of Judaism is the authoritative text that is most binding between God and humanity. Moses received the Written Torah (torah she-beketav) and it was extended by the Rabbis from the Oral Torah (torah she-ba’al peh) blending together as a complete written sacred text. Oral traditions were put together by early Rabbis and written down in what is called Mishnah around 210 AD. This basically makes up the first section of the torah.

The second section of the Tanak is Nevi’im and is further subdivided into three divisions: the early prophets (Joshua, Judges, First and Second Samuel, and First and Second Kings; the later prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel) and the 12 smaller books of prophecy – Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi. The final section of the Tanak is Ketuvim or writings that are various forms of prose and poetic texts from different historical periods of ancient Israel. Ketuvim includes the Book of Psalms, wisdom literature such as the Book of Proverbs, the Book of Job and the Book of Ecclesiastes; dramatic literature such as the Books of Esther and Ruth; and historical texts such as Ezra, Nehemiah and the First and Second Chronicles.

The process of canonizing the texts of the Hebrew Bible was completed with the help of three periods of tragedies that eventually formed the Tanak. The oral and written traditions were formally placed together shortly after the Babylonian Exile (520 BC).

The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls (1947)  near ancient Jericho (between Israel and Jordan) and were thought to be written by a Jewish sect called Essenes , which emphasized ceremonial purity. The original authors of some of the text were recorded as biblical persons who had become famous, while the writing themselves were written long after their death. Because of this the texts/scrolls became known as Pseudepigrapha or as in the title of the book by Rutherford H. Platt, Jr. – The Forgotten Books of Eden. These books were written during the Greek, Hasmonean and Roman periods in history. Most have been dated between 200 BC and 100 AD.  Several versions of The Books of Adam and Eve have survived. The translation in The Forgotten Books of Eden came from an Egyptian edition of unknown date.

Enoch was the seventh generation after Adam and father of Methuselah, a popular person in Jewish folklore. The Book of The Secrets Of Enoch is text included in the aforementioned text collection.

  The Psalms of Solomon is also included in the collection and they refer to King Solomon, King David’s son who was said to be the author of The Psalms included in the canonized version of the Bible. The Psalms of Solomon refer to the agony the Jews went through and their faith when Pompey’s Roman legions conquered the Holy Land.

The Letter of Aristeas was written by a Jew from the Hellenic period and who lived in Egypt. It is thought he lived in Alexandria. He used the legend of how the Septuagint was written to make Judaism acceptable in the gentile community.

The Fourth Book of Maccabees is about the events of the Syrian persecution of the Jews and the Maccabean revolt, but scholars believe it resembles a sermon of Stoic philosophy.

The Story of Ahikar was found in the early 20^th century among the Aramaic papyri of the 5^thcentury BC on the island of Elephantine on the Nile River. Ahikar is a character that appears frequently in Jewish and pagan tales.

  The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs are Christian texts and are only mentioned here because they were written in an attempt to rewrite Jewish tracts of Scripture. They predate Paul because of his mention of Testament of Levi. Some of the versions were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls (Qumran Library). It is mostly about the struggle between good and evil.

The oldest translation of the Hebrew Scriptures that later became part of the canonized Bible was in Greek and is known as the Septuagint that was prepared in Egypt in the 3^rd century BC. It contains text that Jewish religious leaders rejected; later Christians preserved them but left them out of the “authorized” canonized version of the Old Testament.

 God’s Chosen People

God’s chosen people refers to the beginning of the Hebrew culture that started with Abraham, whose original name was “Abram’ – because God chose him to do so -

…a father of many nations have I made thee. 

God even changed the name of his wife from Sarai to Sarah.  Genesis tells us that humanity began with two people; Adam and Eve, by the time of Abraham humans were spread out and had organized into different cultures and with different languages. The story within Genesis, which tells the beginning and the development of human civilization, is from the Oral Torah. From Adam to Noah and then to Abraham there was what is called the Covenant, and the race of Israel was given a nation made up of tribes for the first time for the Jews. After that point of time, from Abraham to the Gospels, those that were not Jews were called Gentile. The moral history of the Gentile world is told in Romans 1:21-32 and all humanity’s moral accountability is in Romans 2:1-16, which will be discussed in Chapter 7, where Christianity makes available the worship of God to all, not just the Jews.

So, Abram (Abraham), that God changes to the name Abraham begins his covenant with God and becomes the father of the nation of Jews in Genesis 12:1-2:

Now the Lord had said unto Abram, Get the out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will show thee; And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing.

The land that is mentioned here was the land of Canaan, which later would become Israel and Palestine, and further divided after strife in a place called Judea. Even during periods of exile from their holy lands, they prayed towards the holy city of Jerusalem, the holy capital of the Hebrew people. Many centuries later, after the final blow to the nation of Israel, the Jews wandered among people of several nations until in the late 1940s they were able to return to their holy land that God had given them at the time of Abraham. Those religious yearnings brought about the birth of Zionism, which was the center of the founding of the modern State of Israel.

The Ten Commandments

Whereas Abraham was the founder of the Hebrew civilization, Moses was the Prophet of all prophets and another important figure in Hebrew history, but also revered by the Christians and Moslems. While his life story is well known as an historical figure, he is best known for his leading the Hebrews (Jews) out of Egyptian bondage and into the desert in search of the Promised Land. Then there was the miraculous escape across the Red Sea that was parted so the Hebrews could escape the approaching army of the Pharaoh. But in terms of scripture, the Ten Commandments stand out among the duties and tasks set before Moses. Called Decalogue in Greek (ten words), it was divinely revealed to Moses on Mt. Sinai during the Exodus period of the Hebrews from Egyptian servitude. The Commandments are numbered differently in a Catholic, Protestant, or Hebrew Canon scripture (Bible). It appears in the the Book of Deuteronomy 5: 6-12 and the Book of Exodus, 20: 2-17, as the following reads:

You shall have no other gods before me.
You shall not make yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them or serve them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.
You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.
Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work; but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God; in it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your manservant, or your maidservant, or your cattle, or the sojourner who is within your gates; for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.
Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land in which the Lord your God gives you.
You shall not kill.
You shall not commit adultery.
You shall not steal.
You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his manservant, or his maidservant, or his ox, or his ass, or anything else that is your neighbor’s.

In recent times there has been controversy of public display in public/government buildings of the Ten Commandments, mainly because of religious content concerning God. Mainly Atheists, they argue that the Constitution of the United States decrees that the Church (religion) should be separated from the state, when in fact it reads that the state will not sanction or support a specific religion. Most of the rules in the Ten Commandments have been established by civilized nations around the world – whatever the people’s religion. The arguments continue today and so does the efforts of removing from display the historical heritage of the United States of America with the word God mentioned in various important historical documents, including the Pledge of Allegiance where the words under God were inserted by an act of Congress and signed by President Eisenhower. The major complaints are those coming from a small minority of atheists and agnostics, and despite Gallup and other polls showing that the majority of Americans want the traditional public display of American heritage of Judean-Christian culture, the protests persist with the help of an organization called ACLU. Little complaint comes from the Hebrew organizations and American Jews about the matter.

Many Jews today no longer rigidly comply with the laws of the Torah, but orthodox Jews follow them in every detail. Some have tried to find a way to adapt those regulations of the Torah to life in the modern world.

Methods of Worship and Hebrew Rites

The place of worship since the fall of Jerusalem in 586 BC has been the synagogue. Synagogue is a Greek word meaning “a place of meeting” and a Hebrew translation of Bet Hakeneset. The actual origin of the synagogue is uncertain, but it came in handy after the final destruction of the Temple of Solomon in 70 AD and for those Jews who could not venture to the holy city in order to pay homage to the one true God.

A prominent feature near the pulpit of a synagogue is called the “ark” and it is a cupboard mounted on the eastern wall and faces Jerusalem. The ark, symbolic of the original Ark of the Covenant, contains the scrolls of the Law, written in Hebrew on parchment. The scrolls are covered in velvet, silk or brocade and has ornament shaped like bells, a crown and a “breastplate” of gold or some precious metal. In front of the ark is a lamp that is kept perpetually burning. In the center of the synagogue is a platform, previously described as a pulpit above, from which the service is conducted and the Law is read. The service follows a ritual written in a prayer book called the Siddur. Every Saturday during the morning service the ark is opened and the scroll of the Law is lifted and carried in a procession around the synagogue. Several portions of the scroll are read in Hebrew just as the ancient Jews did. Members of the congregation are called up to recite the traditional blessing before and after each reading. When the reading is complete, the scroll is carried around once again before returning it to the ark. Members may touch the edges of the scroll with their prayer shawl (tallit) and then kiss the fringe part of the shawl that touched the scroll as an act of devotion and reverence for the word of God. The service is led by a cantor (chazzan) instead of a rabbi. The duties of a rabbi are to instruct the congregation in the faith and to make decisions concerning Jewish law. He is entitled to be called “rabbi” only after completing studies of Jewish Law.

The Talmud is more like a manual of home medicine with anecdotes of philosophy sprinkled among the pages rather than a code of religious laws; you might look upon it as an encyclopedia of advice. But there was a reason for this – the Jews were scattered and had become isolated, poor and destitute, and was beginning to slip into ancient superstitious ways of medicine. Something was required to instruct them and help them remember the science of medicine and healing, while the instruction came from the Rabbis, he required a reference book to consult on occasion. This is what the gist of what the Talmud is all about. Therefore, the rabbis not only became a teacher and a judge within the community, but a medical advisor as well. The rabbis studied and made himself a medical expert and an expert on diet. For example, dietary wisdom begins with the teeth. These should never be extracted, no matter how they ache, for

if a man chews well with his teeth his feet will find strength. 

Hebrew Theology

In the long history of suffering of Jews they continued to believe that they were God’s “Chosen People.”

Everything created has a divine purpose: God created the snail as a cure for the scab, the fly as a cure for the sting of the wasp, and the gnat as a cure for the bite of the serpent, and the serpent as a cure for a sore. 

Between God and humans there is a continuous relationship, every step one takes is always in the sight of God, every deed or thought honors or dishonors the divine God. All humanity is descended from Adam and Eve, yet it is said that

man was created with a tail like an animal.

And

up to the generation of Enoch the faces of the people resembled those of monkeys.

Sin is natural, but guilt is not inherited.

The rabbis taught the doctrine concerning the fall of humanity through Adam and Eve, but there is neither original sin nor divine atonement. A person suffers only for his own sins, and death is a form of punishment because it came into the world because of sin.

Death is a debt owed by a sinful humanity to the author of all life.

  The Hebrew Scriptures told little of a reward or punishment after life, but the idea began to formulate in rabbinical theology. Hell was thought to be divided like Heaven into seven parts with graduated degrees of torment; but even confirmed sinners would not be punished forever.

All who go down to hell shall come up again, except these three: he who commits adultery, he who shames another in public, and he who gives another a bad name.

Heaven was called Gan Eden and is

a place of physical and spiritual beauty; the wine there would be a vintage preserved from the days of creation, perfumes would bless the air; and God himself would join the saved in a banquet whose supreme joy would be the sight of His face.

Many rabbis state that no man can say what lies beyond the grave. What kept the Jews united in their faith was not the theology of their religion, but the ritual and the fact that humility and patience was an ultimate virtue. Will Durant wrote:

  Christianity sought unity through uniform belief, Judaism through uniform ritual.

Jewish Holidays and Festivals

 New Year – The Jewish religious year includes a number of festivals and days of fasting. The first of these is New Year Day – Rosh Hashanah, which means “head of the year.” It occurs in September or October. The Hebrew prayer-book states:

This is the day that the world was called into existence. This day He causeth all creatures to stand in judgment.

A ram’s horn is blown (shophar) in synagogues to remind people to return to god, and the next ten days are set aside for meditation and repentance. It is customary to eat apple dipped in honey and to wish others a good and sweet year.

The Day of Atonement – (Yom Kippur) is considered the holiest day in the Jewish religious year. It is the conclusion of the period of penitence that begins on New Year’s Day. The day is filled with prayer, fasting and public confessions of sin. Traditionally this was the day when the high priest made sacrifice for the sins of the people of Israel and entered the holy of holies in the temple, or in earlier period, the tabernacle. Today there isn’t any temple and no sacrifice is offered, but atonement is sought through repentance. The devout worshiper fasts for twenty-four hours, spends all day in the synagogue and wears a white robe as a symbol of purity and of the grave. At the end of the day the worshiper considers himself spiritually reborn.

Tabernacles – Five days after the Day of Atonement comes the Feast of Tabernacles (Sukkot) which lasts for a week. This is one of the three harvest festivals in the Jewish year,  and has been considered the model of Christian harvest celebrations. During the festival people remember how God provided all their needs when they wandered for forty years in the wilderness. They build temporary shelters of branches that represent a tabernacle in their gardens or next to their synagogues. They eat their meals in them and sometimes sleep in them, depending upon the climate because they are not weatherproof.

Celebrating the Law – After the Feast of Tabernacles comes the “Rejoicing of the Law” (Simchat Torah). During the year the first five books of the Hebrew Bible is read in the synagogue. On this festival day the reading is completed with the last portion of Deuteronomy and begun with the first verses of Genesis. The service is conducted with great joy and the scrolls of the Law are carried in a procession around the synagogue with singing and dancing.

Festival of Lights – At about the time the Christians celebrate Christmas, Jews celebrate Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights. This commemorates the victory of Judas Maccabeus over the Syrians, and the rededication of the temple in Jerusalem in 164 BC. The festival lasts eight days and many Jewish families light an eight-branch candlestick called a menorah. It actually has nine candles; the additional one is used to light the others. One candle is lit each day of the festival until on the eighth day all are lit.

Purim – In February or March comes Purim, the festival which recalls the story of Esther. Purim means “lots” and refers to the lots cast by Haman to choose the day on which to destroy all the Jews in the Persian Empire. In the synagogue the Book of Esther is read and whenever the name of Haman is read, the boys makes a noise with rattles or stamp their feet. In the home Purim is a time for parties and for eating special pastries called Hamantaschen.

Passover – this festival is probably the best known and is called Pesach in Hebrew. It recalls the deliverance of the people of Israel from their slavery in Egypt and it was established around 1220 BC. A special meal (Seder that means “order”) is held in the home. Traditional dishes are eaten, songs are sung and the story of the deliverance from Egypt is retold. The youngest child asks the question, “Why is this night different from other nights?” and that is the father’s cue to tell of the events of the biblical book of Exodus. This reading ceremony is called Haggadah, which means “showing forth” or “telling the story.” Traditionally a place at the table is left vacant and a glass of wine is set aside for the prophet Elijah who is expected to come as the herald of the Messianic Age. One the eve of Passover a search is made in each Jewish home to ensure that no leaven (yeast) has been left anywhere. In the place of ordinary bread, flat, unleavened bread called matzah is eaten. It is a reminder of the bread of affliction which the Jewish slaves ate in Egypt.

Pentecost – A period of seven weeks of mourning follows Passover. This is associated with the failure of the Jewish revolt against Rome in the 2^nd century AD and the loss of many Jewish scholars at about the same time because of plague. The Festival of Pentecost is celebrated fifty days after the second day of Passover and commemorates the giving of the Law of God to Moses on Mt. Sinai. In the synagogue service the Ten Commandments are read and some Jews sit up all night meditating on God’s Law. The synagogue is decorated with flowers and plants, and dairy food is eaten.

Day Of Mourning – On Tishah B’Av, the ninth day of the Jewish month (July-August), the Jewish people remember the destruction of the temple in 70 AD by the Romans. Some also link the date of the destruction of the first temple by Nebuchadnezzar in 586 BC. It is a day of mourning and fasting, and all ornaments are removed from the synagogue.

One major element in the Jewish religion is the existence of a covenant between God and the Hebrew people. The first covenant between God and Noah and the gist of it is the promise made to humanity and the animal world that the flood that occurred in global proportions would not happen again. The promise even has its sign – a rainbow. Then there is the covenant between God and Abraham, the great patriarch of Israel where God promise to make Abraham the ancestor of a great nation and to give him and his descendents the land of Israel. The covenant itself is found in Genesis 15 and Genesis 17. Circumcision becomes the sign of this covenant.

More than 600 years later, this covenant is extended at Mt. Sinai with Moses who leads all of the Jews out of Egypt. In the Book of Deuteronomy the record of Moses’ farewell to Israel when the finally reach the Promised Land. Deuteronomy 5 tells of the Mt. Sinai covenant; Deuteronomy 7refers to the covenant with the patriarchs of Israel; and Deuteronomy 29 is the renewal of the covenant with all of the people. Despite Israel’s failure to comply with the conditions set, God continues to be gracious. In later historical books a covenant is recorded with David and his descendants, which is associated with the Levitical priesthood.

Hellenism and the Jews

In Chapter 2, the relationship between Greek and Jew was examined. Here, in this chapter the relationship is portrayed from historical text and the development of Hellenistic Jewish culture is examined as well.

When Abraham established a Jewish community in the Land of Canaan, several cities were named with the most prominent being the city of Salem, which later would be called Jerusalem. The Land of Canaan was divided by Hebrew tribal divisions as described in the Book of Genesis.

In 1004 BC retook the small Jebusite city of Jerusalem from the Philistines after King Saul’s death (2 Samuel), refortified it, organized and army, established an administration and renamed Jerusalem as The City of David, which established it as the capital of the first united Jewish Kingdom.  The location was on Mount Zion and the city was described by the 1^st century (AD) historian, Flavius Josephus, and appears on most early maps. Recent archaeological examinations show that David’s city was on a southeastern ridge, south of the Temple Mount.

King David was succeeded by his son, Solomon, whose reign was from 961 to 922 BC and experienced great prosperity. It became the political, economic, and religious center of the kingdom. Solomon built many public monuments, the most famous being the House of the Lord, the First Temple.

The history of Judea in the Hellenistic age changes because of an external and internal conflict: the external struggle between Seleucid Asia and Ptolemaic Egypt for Palestine and the internal struggle between the Hellenic and the Hebraic culture. As can be seen by researching these histories, Palestine has been a center of turmoil for much longer than recent times, the recent fifty years of Palestinian history.

The first conflict is what Will Durant calls dead history, although Judea loses Palestine to the Egyptians during this period. It is the internal struggle with Hellenistic Greeks that, historically speaking, is the most lasting because,

Matthew Arnold believed the second conflict to be one of the lasting cleavages of human feeling and thought.

Alexander’s empire had been divided and Judea was given to Ptolemy. Wars resulted from this because the Seleucids did not accept the decision. Ptolemy I won the war and Judea, which was the middle of the trade route between Damascus and Jerusalem, continued to be subject to the Ptolemies from 312 to 198 BC. Judea paid annual tribute and despite this burden it continued to prosper. Judea was left with some sort of self-government under the rule of the high priest of Jerusalem and the Great Assembly or Council of Elders. This hierarchy had been established by Ezra and Nehemiah two hundred years previously and consisted of both a senate and a supreme court. It had about seventy members and they were chosen from leading families of the community and also consisted of scholars (Soferim). The regulations set by the Soferim, called Dibre Soferim, became laws of orthodox Judaism from the Hellenistic age to present.

Judaism, its sacred texts, and the importance of remembering history became important in every moment of Jewish life. Morals and manners were adhered to in strict detail. Intermarriage with non-Jews was forbidden; yet celibacy was also forbidden. Despite war and famine, infanticide was forbidden and the population grew. Until the time of Caesar there were about seven million Jews in the Roman Empire. Most of the Jews were agriculturalists. Jews had not yet gained the reputation of being traders and bankers. Even Flavius Josephus said–

We are not a commercial people. …

In the Hellenistic age, the great traders were the Phoenicians, the Arabs, and the Greeks. Slavery existed in Judea as other places in the ancient world, but class war was not as common. Art did not develop in Judea, but music did. The flute, the drum, the cymbal, the trumpet (ram’s horn), the lyre, and the harp were used to accompany a singer, play a folk song, or accompany a religious ceremony. Orthodox Jews looked down upon the Greek religious rituals and would have nothing to do with images or oracles.

The invading Greeks brought a different culture among them, filled with temptations of wealth and things foreign to the Hebrew culture. Hellenism was devoted

…to science and philosophy, art and literature, beauty and pleasure, song and dance, drinking and feasting, athletics and courtesans and handsome boys, along with gay sophistication that questioned all morals, and an urbane skepticism that undermined all supernatural belief.

  Youthful Jews began to mock the priests and looked upon them as greedy for money and pious Jews as fools. Jews who wanted to be appointed as Greek officials had to speak Greek, live in the Greek manner, and even say good things about Greek gods and goddesses.

This powerful influence upon the intellect and the physical world of the Jews occurred during the persecution under Antiochus IV and the protection of Rome during the Judea uprisings. More religious Jews began to form sects like Chasidim, meaning the Pious. It began with something simple like abstaining from drinking wine during a certain period and later they would increase the extremes of what later would be called Puritanism, against all physical pleasure in order not to surrender their morals to Satan or the Greeks.

The Greeks looked at the Jews with wonder and classified them as strange, called the orthodox Jews gymnosophists. The common Jews were critical with the severe religious doctrine of the Chasidim and preferred to find middle ground. A compromise would have probably been established between the Jewish communities if it wasn’t for the attempt of Antiochus Epiphanies trying to force Hellenism upon Judea. The Jews felt their religion was being challenged and worried that they would be forced to change their religious ways, thereby disobeying the Law.

In 198, Antiochus III defeated Ptolemy V, and made Judea a part of the Seleucid Empire. The Jews supported Antiochus at first because they were tired of being under the thumb of Egypt, and even welcomed the capture of Jerusalem as liberation instead of captivity. But his successor, Antiochus IV, looked upon Judea only as a source of revenue to fund his campaigns. He ordered the Jews to pay one third of their grain crops and one half of the fruit from their trees as taxation. Hellenism was forced upon the Jews and when Antiochus IV was expelled by Popilus (168), and the Jews rejoiced by massacring the leaders of the Hellenistic leadership and cleaned out the Temple of pagan abominations. Antiochus was humiliated and suddenly had no funds, but managed to gather supporters and returned to Judea to take it away from the Ptolemies of Egypt. He marched into Jerusalem and slaughtered Jews, both men and women, by the thousands, desecrated and looted the Temple, and melted down its golden altar and used the other looted treasures to restore his treasury. He then ordered that all Jews will be Hellenized in 167 AD. He rededicated the Temple to Zeus and a Greek altar was built over the old Jewish one where sacrifices of swine took place. Jews were no longer allowed to keep the Sabbath and neither could they hold their religious festivals. Circumcision became a crime. Every Jew who did not eat pork or possessed the Book of the Law were jailed or killed, and when the book was found it was burned. Jerusalem lay in ruin, burned and its walls were destroyed and the Jewish population was sold into slavery. Foreign people were brought in to repopulate Jerusalem and a new fortress was built on Mt. Zion with a garrison of troops left in the city to serve the king’s wishes. At one point of time, Antiochus considered making it a requirement to worship himself as a god. As time went on persecution increased and the administrators of Antiochus put an end to all visible expression of Judaism in Jerusalem and the towns and villages of Judea. Everywhere people were given a choice between death and Hellenic worship, which included the eating of sacrificial swine. All synagogues were closed, along with Jewish schools. Jews were forced to participate in Greek festivals and pagan rites. The Chasidim still existed, living in caves and began preaching courage and the need for resistance. A detachment of the king’s troops was sent to the caves where thousands of Jews had sought refuge and ordered the Jews inside to come out. They refused and because it was Sabbath they did not move stones to block the entrance to the caves. The soldiers attacked with fire and sword, killing many of the occupants of the caves and asphyxiated those that remained with smoke from fires lit at the entrances. Women who had circumcised their newborn sons were killed by throwing them off the city walls. Stories of martyrdom began to circulate and can be found in the books of the First Maccabees and Second Maccabees and became precursor to Christian martyrdom practices. Judaism nearly became extinct during this period, between Christian converts and forcing of Hellenism upon their youth; but their religious conviction and resolve to rise again as a nation were strong.

During this period there arose a Jew by the name of Judas, whose family was called Maccabee. Judas (not to be confused with Judas Iscariot) was a warrior who was a devoted Jew both spiritually in bravery. He led a small army

…who lived in the mountains after the manner of beasts, feeding on herbs.

He and his army would send sporadic raids upon local villages to kill those who sided with the Hellenes and destroyed pagan altars and

…what children soever they found uncircumcised, those they circumcised valiantly.

Judas Maccabeus was a military genius in order to be able to win against Syrian generals like Appolonius, Seron and Gorgias, with his comparatively smaller army. He was also a hero for restoring Temple in Jerusalem and his hard core followers were determined as Judas to not only gain religious freedom but political freedom as well. In 161 AD, Judas defeated Nicanor at Adasa and made an alliance with Rome, but in the same year Judas was killed. His brother Jonathan continued the war effort and even made some progress by using diplomacy, but was captured and executed in 143 BC at Acco. The surviving brother, Simon was supported by Rome and won Judean independence and by popular decree was appointed high priest and general, whose positions were made hereditary in his family and became the founder of the Hasmonean dynasty. The first year of his reign has been known to be the beginning of a new era in Judean history and coins were issued that marked the rebirth of the Jewish state. In 135 BC, Simon and his two older sons were murdered by Ptolemy, who had married Simon’s daughter as a diplomatic gesture. Simon’s third son, Hyrcanus, was warned of the assassination plot and was able to survive and continue Simon’s plans of a prosperous kingdom. He ruled from 135 BC to 105 BC, but during the end of his reign the kingdom was split due to rivalry between Pharisees and Sadducees.

The Hasmoneans (Maccabees) spent three generations increasing Judea’s borders through diplomacy and sometimes by force. By 78 BC, Judea had conquered Samaria, Edom, Moab, Galilee, Idumea, Transjordania, Gadara, Pella, Gerasa, Raphia, and Gaza.

Palestine had been extended as far as it had been in the golden age of Solomon. In 63 BC, Roman consul Pompey and his legions came to Damascus; from there he began a campaign to take Jerusalem that was ruled by Aristobulus.

Jerusalem withstood a siege that lasted three months, but Pompey’s troops were able to mine the walls and raise mounds for his battering rams because the Jews would not fight on the Sabbath. When the city finally fell, 12,000 Jews died; but due to Roman policy, Pompey left the Temple treasures intact and instead requested 10,000 talents of gold as tribute.  The territory was now under Roman rule and Hyrcanus, who conspired with Pompey to take over Judea, was now high priest and puppet ruler of Judea. The real ruler was Antipater of Idumea who had been appointed by Pompey as a reward for his help in the campaign. The independent monarchy of Judea ended and Pompey returned to Rome triumphant.

In 54 BC, Crassus of Rome robbed the Temple of the treasures that Pompey had spared ; and when news that Crassus had been killed in battle by the Parthians at Carrhae in 53 BC, the Jews took the opportunity to once again claim their freedom by revolting. Crassus’ successor in Palestine suppressed the revolt in 43 BC and sold 30,000 Jews into slavery and sent to Rome. Many of the Jews of the Roman Church were descendants of these captives. In the same year the Parthians came out of the desert and conquered Judea, taking it from the Romans, and set up the last of the Maccabees, Antigonus II, as a puppet king. The Parthians were Indo-Europeans from Russia and Turkestan, cousins of the Hittites who had joined Mithridates in his revolt against Rome in Asia Minor, which was called Pontus then. The Parthian Empire had included Assyria and Babylonia by 100 BC.

Books of Maccabees

The books of the Maccabees consist of five Jewish books named after Judas Maccabeus, who is the hero of the first two books. The books are not in the Jewish Bible, but books 1 and 2 Maccabees are included in the Greek and Latin canon and in the Protestant Apocrypha. Books 1 and 2 provide an account of Jewish resistance to the religious suppression and Hellenistic cultural aggression of the Seleucid period (Syria) between 175 and 135 BC.

The books also contain partial records of the Hasmonean (Maccabean) dynasty, which was able to secure Jewish political independence during the resistance to the Seleucids until 63 BC. The First Book of Maccabees was written around 110 BC and gives more historical detail than the others. Maccabees 2, written just before 63 BC, is part of an earlier work by Jason of Cyrene. Maccabees 3 is an account of the persecution of Egyptian Jews by Ptolemy IV (221-204 BC) and was written around 50 BC. The last book, Maccabees 4, was originally written in Greek around 25 AD and is mostly a philosophical discussion of reason, governing by religious laws and the concept of passion. The word Maccabees does not appear in Christian Scripture. It is supposed to have come from the Hebrew word makkabah, which means “hammer.”

Originally there were five books, the fifth containing the history of the Jews from 184 to 86 BC and is a compilation made by a Jew after the destruction of Jerusalem. Only four books are presented in the apocrypha.

Flavius Josephus – Jewish Historian

 Flavius Josephus described himself as “Joseph, son of Matthias” a Hebrew and priest from Jerusalem. He fought in the First Jewish-Roman War of 66 AD, a military leader in Galilee. Josephus surrendered to the Roman forces in July 67 AD and according to Josephus he was a negotiator with the defenders during the Siege of Jerusalem. The Roman forces were led by Flavius Vespasian and his son Titus Vespasian. In 71 AD, Josephus arrived in Rome with Titus’ army and became a Roman citizen. His name then was changed to Flavius Josephus and he lived in Vespasian’s former home, receiving a pension. It was while he was in Rome that Josephus wrote his known texts. Around 70 AD, Josephus divorced his first wife and married a Jewish woman from Alexandria by whom he had two children: a son Flavius Hyrcanus and a second child that nothing is known about. Around 75 AD, he divorces again and marries, for the third time, and fathers two more sons, Flavius Justus and Simonides Agrippa.

Critics of Josephus who question some of his historical accounts are not satisfied with Josephus’ explanation of his actions during the Jewish war, like: Why did he not commit suicide in Galilee in 67 AD with his fellow Jews? Why, after he was captured did he cooperate with the Roman invaders? Some scholars consider Josephus a traitor and Roman informer, so questioned his credibility as an historian. His works are viewed by some to be nothing but Roman propaganda and smoothing over his reputation in history. Yet, archaeological discovery has backed his history.

Without question, Josephus was an important apologist for the Jewish people and their culture in the world of Romans. Josephus always looked upon himself as a loyal and law-observing Jew. He would commend Jews and Judaism to the educated Gentiles of the Graeco-Roman culture. He constantly presented Jewish culture as people who were civilized, devout and philosophical thereby compatible in the Graeco-Roman cultural world. Some scholars would disagree with this biography and state that he consorted with the Roman bureaucracy for self preservation. Still others state that he recorded the history out of guilt of his surrender to Roman authority. The latter cannot be true because Flavious was considered a Roman citizen after a certain period. Archaeological discovery would end up backing up his reputation.

According to Martin Goodman, a prestigious historian, in his book: Rome and Jerusalem, page 160-164, as an example, relates how Josephus explains being a Jew and Roman, as well as converting to Judaism was a personal endeavor:

Conversion to Judaism was not just a theoretical possibility. … For most such converts, the precise mechanisms by which thye became Jewish is not known, but in the unique case of the conversions of Izates, king of Adiabene in northern Mesopotamia, and of his mother Helena, a quitee full and illuminating narrative preserved by Josephus … The lact of any single external authority to define who was a Jew had most impact in such cases of conversion from gentile to Jewish status …

  The works of Josephus provides information about the First Jewish-Roman War and an important literary source for understanding the Dead Sea Scrolls (Qumran Library) and the post-Second Temple period of Judaism. Before the 20^th century, scholars focused upon Josephus’ relationship with the sect of the Pharisees and portrayed him as a member of the sect and a traitor of his own nation. In the middle of the 20^th century, this view was reexamined by a new generation of scholars who formulated a different concept of Josephus and restored his reputation as an historian. This came mostly from new archaeological evidence based upon what Josephus wrote.

  Josephus gives information about individuals, groups, customs and geographical places. His writing gives important information about the Maccabees, the Hasmonean dynasty, and the rise of Herod the Great. He made references to the Sadducees, Jewish High Priests of the time, Pharisees and Essenes, the Herodian Temple, Quirinius and the Zealots. He also mentions Pontius Pilate, Agrippa Iand Agrippa II, John the Baptist, James the Just  and a brief reference to Jesus of Nazareth that has been disputed since Josephus texts have been recovered. Recently scholarly findings have compared what Josephus had written to original texts of the Gospel of Luke and have shown that Josephus correctly included Jesus of Nazareth in the annals of Hebrew history.  However, scholarly analysis reveals that certain portions were either incorrectly copied/written or was purposely included some time after Origen. It is a debatable argument, which will be examined at Chapter 7.

Along with Philo of Alexandria, Josephus is an important source for studies concerning the Post-Temple Judaism and the world of early Christianity. Josephus writes after his examination/explanation of the Jewish-Roman War a twenty volume work entitled Antiquities of the Jews, which was completed in 93 AD. He claims that he began the work because he was asked by interested persons to relate in Latin Jewish history. Josephus begins with the story of Creation and outlines Jewish history from Abraham, who was professed to teach science to the Egyptians, who in turn taught the Greeks. The great figures of the biblical stories are presented as philosophical leaders, such as Moses who is depicted as a senatorial priestly aristocrat. At an appendix there is an autobiography which defends Josephus’ actions at the end of the war when he cooperated with the Roman forces. A defense or was it a self-imposed justification based upon his own conscious?  A traitor or scholar? (or both)

Josephus’ Against Apion is a two-volume defense of Judaism as a classical religion and philosophy being stressed in its value in antiquity. Maybe it was written in guilt of being part of the Roman campaign against the insurgent Jews who fought against Roman rule, a personal amends for being a traitor to his own people. I believe he wanted to write a history of his people in Latin to inform Romans. Myths accredited to Manetho and anti-Judean allegations by the Greek writer Apion are exposed in these texts.

Josephus divided Judeans into three main groups:

Sadducees – Priestly and aristocratic families who interpreted the Law more literally than the Pharisees; and who dominated Temple worship and its rites, including the sacrificial cult. The Sadducees recognized the immortality of the soul, the resurrection of the body, and the existence of angels. They were unpopular with the common people.

Pharisees – Unlike the Sadducees, they maintained the oral as well as the written Law. They were flexible in interpretations and adapted the Law to change with current events. They believed in an afterlife and the resurrection of the dead. By the 1^st century AD, the Pharisees represented the beliefs and practices of the majority of Palestinian Jews.

Essenes – were a separatist group, some formed a monastic community and kept to themselves in the wilderness of Judea. They shared material possessions and occupied most of their time with study, worship and work. They practiced ritual immersion, which later would be called Baptism and ate their meals together as a group instead of individual families. One particular monastic branch forbade marriage. The Essenes are thought to be have been the authors of the Dead Sea Scrolls. That particular community has come to be known, after archaeological research, as the Qumran Community and the scrolls found are part of the Qumran Library found in a series of caves at the archaeological site. A Judean revolt occurred in 66 AD and the Qumran fell to the Roman legions around 68 AD, followed by the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD. Masada, the famous revolt where the Roman legions were held off for a long period of time because of their location on a strategic plateau finally died at their own hands after the long siege in 73 AD.

 The following studies are important in the examination of Hebrew life and the Qumran Library, just as important as reading the works of Flavius Josephus who lived during the time of the fall of the Temple in Jerusalem to the early period of Christianity. Scriptures and biblical texts have been produced due to a remarkable 20^th century archaeological find just after World War II.

Qumran Dead Sea Scrolls

  In the spring of 1947 Bedouin goat herders were searching the cliffs along the Dead Sea for a lost goat, or for treasure, depending on who is telling the story, when they found a cave that contained jars filled with manuscripts. The sensation in the community of scholars and the public caused almost as much excitement as when King Tutankhamen’s tomb was found. But the scholars didn’t find about the discovery until 1948, when seven of the scrolls were sold by the Bedouin to a cobbler and antiquities dealer called Kando. He then sold three of the scrolls to Eleazer L. Sukenik of the Hebrew University, and four to Mar Athanasius Yeshue Samuel of the Syrian Orthodox monastery of St. Mark. Mar Athanasius brought four scrolls to the American School of Oriental Research, where American and European scholars could study them.

As far as the site, it wasn’t until 1949 that the cave was identified as Qumran Cave 1. From there the explorations by archaeologists in the area of Khirbet Qumran began. Meanwhile, after further exploration in Cave 1, pottery, cloth and wood were found as well as additional manuscripts, but were only fragments. It was these further investigations that proved that the scrolls were ancient and authentic and not just a hoax created by an antiquities dealer.

Between 1949 and 1956 it became a race between Bedouin, who already made money finding the first scrolls, and the archaeologists to find ten more caves in the hills around Qumran that had several more scrolls, as well as thousands of fragments of scrolls. There were approximately 800 manuscripts dating from approximately 200 BC to 68 AD.

The manuscripts of the Qumran caves included early copies of biblical books in Hebrew and Aramaic, hymns, prayers, Jewish writings known as Pseudepigrapha  and texts that represented beliefs of a particular Jewish group that may have lived at the site of Qumran. Most scholars believe, as mentioned previously, that the Qumran community was Essenes or a group similar to them. Essenes, as you recall, was one of four Jewish philosophical groups described by Josephus, the 1^st century Jewish historian.

No one knows who the author or authors were that wrote the scrolls, but scholars believe they were part of the priesthood and the group was led by priests who were probably disapproved by the Jerusalem priesthood, much like the situation with Jesus of Nazareth. The community held a strict and pious way of life and expected a confrontation between good and evil in the near future.

The Qumran Library, what the Dead Sea Scrolls are now referred to by scholars, has been invaluable as far as information. From the texts there is a greater understanding of biblical texts already known, scholars (and now the public) learned more about the development of early Judaism, and obtained an insight into the culture out of which emerged the Rabbinic movement of Judaism and the concepts in Christianity.

The Qumran site was excavated by Pere Roland de Vaux, a French Dominican, in an effort to find the place where the authors of the scrolls lived. The excavations uncovered a complex of structures, 262 by 328 feet which de Vaux described as a monastic community. It was believed it was the wilderness retreat of the Essenes of the Second Temple Period.

After de Vaux’s excavation was interpreted by ancient historians, they came to the conclusion that the Essene community wrote, copied, or collected the scrolls at Qumran and then put them in caves in the hills. Others dispute this and claim that either the scroll sect was Sadducees; that the site was no monastery but rather a Roman fortress or a winter villa; that the Qumran site has nothing to do with the scrolls; or that the evidence available does not support a definite conclusion.

Whatever the habitat was built for, evidence indicates that the excavated settlement was built about 150 BC, during the time of the Maccabees, a priestly family that ruled Judea in the 2^nd and 1^st centuries BC. Archaeologists discovered evidence of a huge earthquake that disrupted the occupation of the site. Qumran was abandoned about the time of the Roman sweep to quell an uprising in 68 AD, two years before the collapse of Jewish self-government in Judea and the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem in 70 AD. The following describes the text from the scrolls and reprint of translation by the Israel Antiquities Authority and other sources are given at footnotes.

Calendrical Document

Written on parchment and copied c.50-25 BC. Found in Qumran Cave IV:

A significant feature of the community was its calendar, which was based on a solar system of 364 days, unlike the common Jewish lunar calendar, which consisted of 354 days. The calendar played a weighty role in the schism of the community from the rest of Judaism, as the festivals and fast days of the group were ordinary work days for the mainstream community and vice versa. According to the calendar, the New Year always began on a Wednesday, the day on which God created the heavenly bodies. The year consisted of fifty-two weeks, divided into four seasons of thirteen weeks each, and the festivals consistently fell on the same days of the week. It appears that these rosters were intended to provide the members of the “New Covenant” with a time-table for abstaining from important activities on the days before the dark phases of the moon’s waning and eclipse.

Serekh ha-Yahad (The Community Rule)

Parchment copied late 1^st century BC – early 1^st century AD, English translation:

And according to his insight he shall admit him. In this way both his love and his hatred. No man shall argue or quarrel with the men of perdition. He shall keep his council in secrecy in the midst of the men of deceit and admonish with knowledge, truth and righteous commandment those of chosen conduct, each according to his spiritual quality and according to the norm of time. He shall guide them with knowledge and instruct them in the mysteries of wonder and truth in the midst of the members of the community, so that they shall behave decently with one another in all that has been revealed to them. That is the time for studying the Torah (lit. clearing the way) in the wilderness. He shall instruct them to do all that is required at that time, and to separate from all those who have not turned aside from all deceit. These are the norms of conduct for the Master in those times with respect to his loving and to his everlasting hating of the men of perdition in a spirit of secrecy. He shall leave to them property and wealth and earnings like a slave to his lord, (showing) humility before the one who rules over him. He shall be zealous concerning the Law and be prepared for the Day of Revenge. He shall perform the will [of God] in all his deeds and in all strength as He has commanded. He shall freely delight in all that befalls him, and shall desire nothing except God’s will…

Books of Judaism

Through the turmoil of their history, the Jews were able to maintain their tradition of scholarship and the love of it produced literature that has lasted throughout the ages. Near the close of the 3^rdcentury a Jewish poet composed the beautiful Song of Songs, where Greek verse is adapted from Sappho to Theocritus and applied to Hebrew literature. Hellenistic Jews who lived in places like Jerusalem, Alexandria and other cities of the eastern Mediterranean, wrote in Hebrew, Aramaic or Greek – such masterpieces as Ecclesiastes, Daniel, part of Proverbs and Psalms, and most of the Apocrypha. They wrote histories like Chronicles, novelettes like Esther and Judith, and stories of family life like the Book of Tobit. The Soferim changed the Hebrew script from the old Assyrian to the square Syrian style, which has survived to modern times. Most of the Jews in the Near East spoke Aramaic instead of Hebrew, the scholars explained in Aramaic Targums (interpretations). Schools were built to study the Torah (Law) and explained the moral codes to Jewish youth. By the end of the 3^rd century the scholars of the Great Assembly had completed the editing of the older literature and made official the canonized New Testament. To them the age of prophets had ended and the inspiration of religious literature had ended with it.

The prologue of Ecclesiasticus describes it as a Greek translation that was completed in 132 AD that was written two generations before him by the translator’s grandfather, Jesus, the son of Sirach (not of Nazareth). His given/whole name was Joshua ben Sirach and was a scholar, and after traveling about the known world he decided to settle down and make his home a school for students, to whom he wrote essays on the wisdom of life. He denounces the rich Jews who have abandoned their faith in order to deal with the world of the Gentiles. Joshua was not as strict as the Chasidim and believed in harmless pleasure.

In Chapter 24 of Ecclesiasticus he conveys that

Wisdom is the first product of God, created from the beginning of the world.

This idea of delegated intelligence dominated Jewish theology in the last centuries before Christ.

In the Book of Enoch that was written by several authors in Palestine between 170 and 66 BC, according to scholars, emphasizes the hope of heaven; the success of power over the wicked and the misfortunes of the pious Hebrew people. Emphasis is made on the writings during this period of the coming of a Messiah who will establish the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth, and will reward those who are virtuous with everlasting happiness after death.

In the Book of Daniel the story of the terror under the rule of Antiochus IV is told. Around 166 BC, when the faithful were persecuted to the death for their beliefs, more large enemies were advancing upon the Maccabean band of rebels and the Chasidim renewed the courage of the people and described the sufferings and prophecies of Daniel in the days of Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon. Copies were made and passed secretly among the Jews for inspiration and hope even though it concerned a prophet who had lived 370 years before.

The Jewish writings of this period are described by scholars as

mystic or imaginative literature of instruction, edification, and consolation.

To the Jews religion was not an escape from the affairs of the world, but a demonstration and drama of faith; ruled by a powerful God that sees and knows all things that rewards the virtuous and punishes those that follow the path of evil. The Captivity had repressed this belief, yet the restoration of the Temple had restored faith. One again their faith broke down under the rule of Antiochus and pessimism became dominate; yet in the writings of the Greeks the Jews found stories of injustice and tragedies of life that compared to theirs. Meanwhile, Jewish contact with Persian philosophy and theology concerning heaven and hell was a believable struggle between good and evil. Triumph of the good didn’t offer an escape from their despair, and perhaps the idea of immortality that had been available to Jews in Alexandria which had inspired the Jews during the Greek and Roman periods. This allowed them to continue to pursue the dream of once again having their own state and rebuilding their Temple. From the Jews, Egyptians, Persians, and even the Greeks, developed the idea of eternal reward and punishment that created a stronger faith that would help them tackle the problems of the world.

The Talmud

After what was called the Dispersion of 70 AD, the Jews had become scattered among other nations. Previously, in the Temple, the synagogues and the schools of Palestine and Babylonia the scribes and rabbis put together texts of law and comments known as the Palestinian and Babylonian Talmuds. It was composed of both the oral and written Law and the Sadducees of Palestine questioned the divine authenticity of the oral Law until they disappeared after 70 AD. The Bible was the literature and religion of the ancient Hebrews, and the Torah was the Hebrew Bible of medieval Jews. Because the Law of the Pentateuch was written, it could not meet the needs of Jerusalem that did not govern itself or Judaism without a nation. So it was the job of the Sanhedrin teachers before the Dispersion and the rabbis afterwards to interpret the legislation passed down from Moses for the guidance of a new age where Jews were scattered around the ancient world. In the first six generations after Christ the rabbis were called tannaim – “teachers of the oral Law.” They became the experts of the Law and were both teachers and judges within the Jewish community. The oral teaching became known as the Mishnah and from this the rabbis developed written commentaries, which gave the completed Babylonian Talmud.

The word Talmud means teaching. The stories developed in written material is called Haggadah and was eventually incorporated into the Talmud with bits of biographies, history, medical texts, astronomy, astrology, magic and theosophy that accompanied the Law. It might be pictured as a textbook covering several subjects for the use of rabbis to teach members in their communities that would standardize Judaism no matter where Jews may have lived.

The Babylonian Talmud runs to 1947 folio leaves, or some 6,000 pages of 400 words each. The Mishnah is divided into six sedarim (orders), each of these into mishmayoth (teachings). Modern editions of the Talmud usually include: (1) the commentary of Rashi (1040-1105), which appears on the interior margins of the text; and (2) tosaphoth (additions), discussions of the Talmud by French and German rabbis of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, which appear on the exterior margins of the text. Many editions add the Tosefta or Supplement – remnants of the oral Law omitted from the Mishnah of Jehuda Hanasi.

Herod the Great

Caesar Augustus , now Princeps of the Roman Empire after the death of Julius Caesar, appointed Herod, son of Antipater, king of Judea, and financed his Jewish army with Roman money. Herod drove out the Parthians, protected Jerusalem from pillage, sent Antigonus to Antony for execution, killed all the Jewish leaders who had supported the puppet government, and the rest is well known in history, his reign lasting from 37 to 4 BC.

Herod was an intellectual ruler, but without morals and was much like the Caesars of Rome in several ways. He enforced his orders through his military among the people, his realm grew bigger and more prosperous, more by force than by trade. According to the historian, Josephus, Herod was brave and strong. He was

a great marksman with javelin and bow and a mighty hunter who killed forty wild beasts in one day.

Despite having strong enemies like Antony, Augustus, and Cleopatra; he outlived them all. It seemed from every crisis he just grew richer and more powerful. Yet, he had become king and grew wealthy because of Rome. The Jewish people he ruled hated him and wanted to break free from him and Roman rule. The economy had grown weak because of his huge taxation policy; yet he built great buildings that Judea had not seen since Solomon. He enlarged the Temple of Zerubbabel because it was too small, he claimed, much to the anger of the people. His Temple was destroyed by Titus Vespasian in 70 AD.

His own family must have hated him. Herod’s sister convinced him that his favorite wife, Mariamne, was trying to poison him. He put her on trial and then executed her. He jailed other family members and executed others. As an old man he suffered from dropsy, ulcers, convulsions, and it is thought cancer finally killed him. Hated by his people, he died a broken man at the age of 69. Scholars have

…said that he stole his throne like a fox, ruled like a tiger, and died like a dog.

The kingdom was divided among his three sons: Philip, Herod Antipas, and Archelaus.

Roman Empire to Roman Catholic Church

While the history of Judea and Israel is long and complex, the Roman period of Judea is also complex in itself. Because Chapter 7 deals with Christianity, not much is written here concerning the Jews from the Messiah era up to Constantine the Great, who was the first Christianized ruler of Rome, and after all, Jesus of Nazareth is part of Jewish history; however the background of the Christian movement and formation of the first organized Church is in the chapter concerning Christianity.

For the Jews, the medieval period began with the reign of Constantine the Great (306-337 AD). He was the first Roman emperor to issue laws that limited the rights of Jews as citizens of the Roman Empire. This was due to the Christians growing power within the Roman Empire and the influence upon its rulers. Most of the imperial laws that dealt with the Jews since the days of Constantine are found in the Latin Codex Theodosianius of 438 AD, and the Latin and Greek code of Justinian of 534 AD.  These texts allow the researcher to trace the history of the progressive deterioration of Jewish rights.

The laws of Constantius (337-361), forbade intermarriage between Jewish men and Christian women. Jews were also not allowed to have slaves. Actually, this prohibition was to keep slaves at minimum, as well as keep from slaves converting to Judaism; but whatever be the case, it was detrimental to the economic life of the Jew - giving Christians an edge as far as the economy.

The law of Theodosius II (408-410) prohibited Jews from holding any office of honor in the Roman state. The building of new synagogues was forbidden, which was really an official rule that was already established previously. In the Eastern Roman Empire anti-Christian laws were stricter against Jews and persecution was greater because they believed that the Messiah was returning in 440 and therefore stayed close to Jerusalem where they thought Christ would return. This sort of treatment of the Jews carried on into the historical period when the Muslims took over the region. The Christian Church looked upon Judaism as an old rival, mostly because it was the Pharisees that had caused the death of Jesus of Nazareth, the prophet-teacher-Messiah whose name was used for their religion. Some later would blame the Jewish people, oddly disregarding the fact that Jesus the Christ was himself, a Jew, who even followed the old ways of Passover during his preaching of a new era in the life of humanity. Just as his parents, Jesus of Nazareth heeded the tradition of Passover and encouraged it. Constantine in 325 changed the celebration of Easter on the calendar so that it did not coincide with the Jewish Passover.

The Latin law of Justinian (527-565) did not allow a Jew to bear witness in court against an orthodox Christian; therefore, as early as the 6^th century, the Jews were already being persecuted within the social, economic, civil, political, and religious aspects of places where they lived.

The laws went to the extremes, like in October of 315; Constantine the Great enacted the following:

We wish to make it known to the Jews and their elders and their patriarchs that if, after the enactment of this law, any one of them dares to attack with stones or some other manifestation of anger another who has fled their dangerous sect and attached himself to the worship of God, he must speedily be given to the flames and burn together will all his accomplices.

This law was absurd because the Jews worshiped the same God as the Christians, for whom Jesus Christ proclaimed to be his heavenly father. And the law is against Jews converting anyone to Judaism; and to add further injuries: Moreover, if any one of the population should join their abominable sect and attend their meetings, he will bear with them the deserved penalties.

  At first the law was as the following, where Jews were forbidden to have Christian slaves and later they were forbidden to have any slaves whatsoever:

If any one among the Jews has purchased a slave of another sect or nation, that slave shall at once be appropriated for the imperial treasury. 
If, indeed, he shall have circumcised the slave whom he has purchased, he will not only be fined for the damage done to that slave but he will also receive capital punishment. If, indeed, a Jew does not hesitate to purchase slaves – those who are members of the faith that is worthy of respect, then all these slaves who are found in his possession shall at once be removed. No delay shall be occasioned, but he is to be deprived of the possession of those men who are Christians.

  Christians, it appears, had forgotten what it was like to be persecuted before Rome became Christianized.

  In 379 AD, St. John Chrysostom and St. Ambrose in Milan wrote vicious things about Jews:

The Jews are the most worthless of all men. They are lecherous, greedy, and rapacious. They are perfidious murderers of Christ. They worship the Devil. Their religion is a sickness. The Jews are the odious assassins of Christ and for killing God there is no expiation possible, no indulgence or pardon. Christians may never cease vengeance, and the Jew must live in servitude forever. God always hated the Jews. It is essential that all Christians hate them.

St. John Chrysostom was called the Bishop with the Golden Tongue. St. Ambrose, Bishop of the Church offered to burn the synagogue himself. Apparently, neither “Saint” had read Deuteronomy 14:2 –

For thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God, and the Lord hath chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto himself, above all nations that are upon the earth.

  St. Gregory of Nyssa in sermons and writing characterized Jews in 395 as

assassins of the Prophets, companions of the Devil, a race of vipers, a Sanhedrin of Demons, enemies of all that is beautiful, hogs and goats in their lewd grossness.

In 415, Bishop Severus burned the synagogue in the village of Magona. Bishop of Alexandria, St. Cyril, expelled Jews from Alexandria and the mob took Jewish property. Also Jews were accused of ritual murder during their holy Purim and so Christians confiscated synagogues in Antioch. Behind these atrocities were famous Church fathers, Augustine, Jerome, Ambrose, St. Chrysostom and St. Cyril.

  In 1096, the First Crusade took place against the conquering Islamic forces, but the Jews were attacked along the way to Jerusalem. Crusaders massacred the Jews of the Rhineland.

  In 1144, the first recorded blood libel occurred in Norwich, England where it was alleged that the Jews had

…bought a Christian child before Easter, tortured him with all the tortures wherewith our Lord was tortured and on Friday hanged him on a rood in hatred of our Lord.

  This absurd allegation of ritual murder is based on the assumption that blood is used for the Passover or other rituals; when in fact, blood rituals of such description that goes back to ancient times is strictly forbidden in Judaism. While the early Church advertised this propaganda against the Jews, these same false accusations have been taught children by Islamic Fascists in Palestine and other Islamic nations to justify their aggression against the Jewish people.

  The Jews were also blamed for the Black Death (plague) in 1348, absurd because Jews died of the terrible disease as well, and they were also charged to have poisoned the wells to kill Christians.

In the 14^th and 15^th centuries the Inquisition (also see Spanish Inquisition) was more intent upon Jewish persecution and it is then that the Church and State had joined forces to guarantee their persecution.

The Reformation age began around 1544 and at the end of Martin Luther’s life, the German reformer passed pamphlets around depicting violence against the Jews. Luther was a German nationalist from Germany. The road to modern persecution had been established and the Jews continued to have problems, especially in Europe.

The medieval Jew in the Middle Ages was no different than the Moslems and Christians when it came to replacing reality with superstition, stories of miracles, practiced magical incantations and charms; and crowded the skies with angels, witches and demons.

Jewish mysticism is as old as the Hebrew religion. It was influenced by Zoroastrian dualism of light and dark; from Neo-Platonist ideas of creationism, from Gnostic theosophies of Syria and Egypt, from the apocrypha of early Christianity, from the poets and mystics of India, Islam, and the medieval Church. But the basic sources was from traditions and the Jewish mind. The Essenes had secret writings which were guarded from being found. If one knew the names of the angels he could control the forces of nature. Necromancy, bibliomancy, exorcism, amulets, incantations (also see Merseburg Incantations) divination, and casting of lots were used in Jewish life, just like the Christians. In the first century AD a book in Babylonia was written called Sefer Yezira – The Book of Creation. The gist of the book was that the Hebrew alphabet determined the forms through which the creation could be understood by the human mind. The book has been seriously commented on up to the 19^th century.

JUDAISM AND ISLAM

Christians began persecuting Jews because they insisted that they had been murderers of Christ. Moslems persecuted Jews mainly because they were considered nonbelievers and had fallen away from the faith of Abraham. Both religions had forgotten what it was like to be persecuted.

In the medieval age, the Jews had stubbornly held onto their rituals, but because of their situation also found strength in philosophy and theosophy. Among the three faiths that became the followers of philosophy, the least of them was Islam because of its wealth, the Christians becoming second because of their initial persecution and less wealth, and Judaism being last in the concept of philosophy and theosophical belief because they had the least. Jewish philosophy did not find itself until the Jews prospered in Moslem Spain.

Medieval Jewish philosophy developed from two sources: Hebrew religion and Moslem thought. Most Jews began to think that religion and philosophy were similar, an ideology that may have been resurrected from the Hellenic age of the Greeks. Knowledge of Greek philosophy from Arabic translations, of which Islam had accepted and obtained knowledge from what was left of the Alexandria Library before its final destruction; and because the Jews had become translators for the Moslems from Greek to Arabic, Jewish scribes began to assimilate philosophical thought. In a way, Hebrew philosophy saved their religion, keeping it whole and allowed it to survive the attempts to exterminate Judaism by other cultures – specifically the Christians during the Medieval period of history. Hebrews had closer ideology to Islam than they did with Christianity. Islam considered Abraham to be the father of unification, something that Mohammed could relate to in his endeavor to remove paganism from Arabia and replace it with the religion of the one true God, Allah. Islam continued sacrificing lambs when Jews had given up the practice, and Christians denounced it altogether stating that Jesus the Christ had been the only necessary sacrifice required for spiritual salvation, and thus the mystical aspect of Christianity formed in ideology such as the Holy Trinity and the mystical aspects of Jesus’ birth and death.

The concept of Jewish philosophy is described aptly by Will Durant in his book, The Age of Faith:

The life of the mind is a composition of two forces: the necessity to believe in order to live, and the necessity to reason in order to advance. In ages of poverty and chaos the will to believe is paramount, for the courage is the one thing needful; in ages of wealth the intellectual powers come to the fore as an offering preferment and progress, consequently a civilization passing from poverty to wealth tends to develop a struggle between reason and faith. … In an age of faith, where hardship makes life unbearable without hope, philosophy inclines to religion, uses reason to defend faith, and becomes a disguised theology.

Islam’s views toward the Jews can be gleaned from the holy book, the Qu’ran (often miswritten as “Koran.”). I would also like to add a footnote here that in the Qu’ran and the Hadith there is a difference between Children of Israel and Jews.

The term Israel or Children of Israel refers to the twelve sons of Jacob and their descendants. Jews almost had never referred to themselves as Jews – at least not until after the 13^th century. In the Hebrew Bible, the Holy Bible, Prayer Book, and the Talmud they call themselves Children of Israel, Children of Jacob, but never Jews. The word Jews comes from the roman term Judea which described the area that was given to the tribe of Judah that included Jerusalem. It was used in reference to the militant zealots who fought against Rome. According to Josephus, the zealots belonged to a Temple cult and were against the Rabbinical Jewish authority, and some of them were Idumean who had converted to Judaism. In this sense of usage, Jews or Judeans meant militants. Even in the New Testament, references to Jews was used like the labeling of Jesus at his trial as King of the Jews, which meant King of the Militants to the Romans, and not King of Israel. After the Islamic conquest the Children of Israel came to mean the Jewish people who kept the commandments, and the Jews as those who abandoned or rejected them. Over a period of time these terms and the concept/ideology set forth by Mohammed became cluttered, misinterpreted and misused by Islamic fundamentalists, just as the Christians did with the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth; as will be explained later. Modern Islamists have only stressed the term of Jews as an evil stereotype.

The Qiyamah (also see Al-Qiyamah), Yawmul Deen, also known as the Day of Judgment, Day of Gathering, Day of Meeting God, the Resurrection, and the Great Announcement, is a theme and promise that is written in the Qu’ran, but can also be found in other religious scripture. This event has been traditionally linked to the Day of Judgment, both in Judeo-Christian traditions as well as in the Qu’ran and it is the time of the return of the Children of Israel to the Holy Land. Holy Qu’ran, Sura 17:4 –

And we gave warning to the Children of Israel in the Book, that twice would they do mischief on the earth and be elated with mighty arrogance and twice would they be punished. Holy Qu’ran, Sura 17:104 -  

And we said thereafter to the Children of Israel, “Dwell securely in the land of promise” but when the second of the warnings came to pass, we gathered you together in a mingled crowd.

Another term used in the Qu’ran for Hebrews is People of the Book – but the term is confusing in Mohammed’s various writings to some because he also referred to the Christians as the People of the Book. Children of Israel, Christians and Moslems are considered People of the Book. Holy Qu’ran, Sura 59:2 –

It is He who got out the unbelievers among the People of the Book from their homes at the first gathering. Little did ye think that they would get out, and they thought their fortresses would defend them from Allah. But the Wrath of Allah came to them from quarters from which they little expected, and cast terror into their hearts, so that they destroyed their dwellings by their own hands of the Believers, take warning, then O ye with eyes to see!

Also, according to the Qu’ran, Allah chose the Children of Israel above all the nations … Holy Qu’ran, Sura 2:40 –

O Children of Israel! Call to mind the special favor which I bestowed upon you, and fulfill the covenant with Me as I fulfill My covenant with you, and fear none by Me.

And … Holy Qu’ran, Sura 2:47 –

Children of Israel! Call to mind the special favor which I bestowed upon you, and that I preferred you to all other.

And … Holy Qu’ran, Sura 2:83 –

And remember We made a covenant with the Children of Israel parents and kindred, and orphans and those in need; speak fair to the people; be steadfast in prayer; and practice regular chastity. Then did ye turn back, except a few among you, and ye backslide even now.

Holy Qu’ran, Sura 2:121 –

Those to whom We have sent the Book study it as it should be studied. They are the ones that believe therein. Those who reject faith therein, the loss is their own.

Holy Qu’ran, Sura 2:122 –

O Children of Israel! Call to mind the special favor which I bestowed upon you, and that I preferred to you all others for My message.

Another term used in the Qu’ran is Yahudis, which means Judeans, the “Jews” – more specifically the militant inhabitants of Medina. Once again, Jews is referring to the militants and not the Children of Israel in this Sura: Holy Qu’ran, Sura 5:51 –

O ye who believe! Take not the Jews and the Christians for your friends and protectors. They are but friends and protectors to each other. And he amongst you that turns to them for friendship is of them. Verily Allah guideth not a people unjust.

Modern research of the Jewish Kingdom of Saudi Arabia called Himyarand that was destroyed during the rise of Islam, indicates that the crescent symbol used by Islam originates from the Hebrews. It was mostly used by Idumean converts to Judaism, associated with the Temple cult supported by the Herodian Dynasty who rebuilt and controlled the Temple. The symbol represented the calculation of the calendar that was the appearance of the New Moon (crescent moon) and was announced by the Temple. Signal fires were lit to announce the New Moon on high places like mountain tops. The Idumean converts took the crescent symbol with them to Jordan and later to Southern Arabia when they were forced to move eastward by the Roman invasion in 135 AD. The convert king, Joseph Dhu Nuwas, was the last Jewish king to reign in southern Arabia and was killed sometime during the life of the Islamic Prophet Mohammed. The Qu’ran refers to the Jewish converts of Himyar. 

The Star of David is a more recent Jewish symbol, formerly a Roman symbol and wasn’t used for religious use until the 17^th century in Prague. The term Magen David first appeared in the 13^th century Qabala (Kabalah) and refers to the five-pointed Star of David.

The history of the Children of Israel is not just history of a people, but also a religion, which is Hebrew (this term refers to the traditional language), and now Jewish. Hebrews were the first historians, as some scholars/historians write. They became a people with no nation, a people of many nations, wanderers in constant persecution, and today the Jewish religion is not comprised of the original Semitic peoples, but includes converts and followers through mixed marriages, that are faithful followers of the Hebrew religion of old. Israel was reborn in the 1940s as a nation, and as of old still has its enemies that seek its destruction, and there are still Christians who persecute Jews forgetting that the personage of Jesus of Nazareth that became Jesus the Christ was a member of the Children of Israel, not a Jew/militant as the Romans depicted the Judeans of old, but a reformer of the Hebrew faith.

Hebrews – Wandering People

The Jews began to wander and travel to find new lives in may places. Here is a list of places where Jews have been found in history, and a short history of each:

America -

The earliest history of American Jews was in the colonial period that dates back to the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam when refugees from the Dutch colony of Recife in Brazil arrived on January 26^th, 1654. The Dutch authorities had been liberal with the Jews, but the Dutch governor of New Amsterdam, Peter Stuyvesant was not favorable to the Jews. Over the next ten years, until the British seized New Amsterdam, the Jews fought for and won civil rights as other colonies enjoyed. Despite the fight only one of the Jews remained after the ten year battle for civil rights. New Amsterdam had become poor and had food shortages, so most left for other places. The sole remaining Jew was Asher Levy, a kosher butcher, who fought for the right to participate in the defense of the colony, despite the governor’s opposition. After the British took over the colony in 1664, the small Jewish community that developed lived in peace and harmony. In the early to middle 19^thcentury, Jews arrived to America from Germany because of growing anti-Semitism. Also, the Napoleonic wars caused the Jews to migrate, some of them showing up in America. From that time until 1870, Jewish immigration and the Jewish population quadrupled in America within 20 years between 1850 and 1870. From 1881 to 1924, Russian Jews would flee the persecution of the Russian Empire and two million Jews immigrated to the United States by 1924. After that period, Jewish immigration was not as large as these historical periods, especially after World War II when the Jews decided to repatriate back to the Holy Land and establish a new Israel.

Caribbean and the New World

When the Jews were expelled from Spain, settlements in the New World looked promising, almost as their ancestors did when wandering with Moses across the desert in search of the Promised Land. In 1492, the Jews were expelled from Spain, the same year Columbus sailed in search of the New World, and they settled in Portugal. But in 1497 the Portuguese government banished the Jews from there as well. Many of them fled to other European countries that would accept them, places like Holland, England and France – the countries that would be in competition with Spain to colonize the New World. Some Jews sailed to Brazil that was part of the Portuguese territory and set up trade routes between Portugal and Brazil, started farming,, and some became wealthy plantation owners. The Inquisition still existed, so the Jews in Brazil were forbidden to practice Judaism in public. Meanwhile, back in Portugal, the authorities were taking children from their Jewish parents and sending them to Brazil to be raised as Catholics. Secret groups in Brazil taught these children about their true heritage and therefore kept the Jewish faith in Brazil. Sugar cane soon became the foundation of the Caribbean economy, founded by the Jewish plantation owners in Brazil. In Holland, when the Dutch decided they should start colonies in the New World, sent 600 Jews from Amsterdam in 1642 and prospered as well as they did in Holland. Under the Portugese the Jews were forced to pretend they were Catholic, but when the Dutch took over, Jews were no longer required to worship secretly. In 1654, the Portuguese sent a fleet to reconquer their lost Brazilian colony and the siege lasted ten years. The Jews fought on the side of the Dutch, while native Brazilian Indians and Portuguese who had settled there fought on the side of Portugal. Peace was declared in 1664 and Portugal being the victor, conducted an Inquisition like that in Spain – if a citizen would not profess to be a Catholic, he was branded a heretic and either expelled or killed. During the reign of the Dutch, the Jews had openly worshiped their religion, so they could no longer return to secret societies. The Portuguese gathered 16 ships to remove Jews from Brazil. Many who left Brazil returned to Amsterdam, including Isaac Aboab de Fonseca, the first American Rabbi, and Moses de Aguilar, the first American cantor. The rest settled on the nearby islands in the Caribbean, one boat even made it to New Amsterdam, which later would become New York under British rule. Jews began to show up in Dutch colonies like Surinam and Curacao, British colonies like Jamaica and Barbados, and French colonies such as Martinique. A synagogue was established in Barbados in the 1650s. The original Barbados synagogue building is still standing but no longer used for worship. The adjoining cemetery is crumbling, but the inscriptions on the headstones were copied in order to be preserved, which will be valuable for historical and genealogical researchers. The Jewish graveyard in Barbados is believed to be the oldest Jewish cemetery in the Western Hemisphere that date back to the 1660s. The British attracted Jews to their colonies in Jamaica and there were settlements in Kingston and Spanish Town. Despite their success, the citizens of Jamaica petitioned the British government to expel all members of the Hebrew community. Governor Lynch of Jamaica opposed this petition and it was not enacted, but the citizens were able to obtain a special tax against the Jews in 1693. In 1703, Jews were banned from using Christian indentured servants, and in 1783, they were taxed again and previous exemptions of duty on the Sabbath were taken away, and Jews were no longer allowed to hold public office. The British Empire declared equal rights for Jews living in any colony under British control in the early 19^th century, which made up 10% of the white population in Jamaica. There is a small group on an island at the eastern end of the Caribbean, and because of its small size, its history is sketchy. It is known that Jews settled on the island in the 1600s.

China 

Archaeological evidence suggests that Jews were in China as early as the 8^th century and had most likely arrived there from Persia along the trade route called Silk Road. In 1163 the Emperor of China ordered the Jews to live in Kaifeng, where the first Chinese synagogue was built. Marco Polo recorded that Kublai Khan celebrated the festivals of Muslims, Christians and Jews, which meant there must have been a significant amount of Jews in China in the 13^th century in order for this to happen. A Ming Emperor gave Jews seven surnames of: Ai, Lao, Jin, Li, Shi, Zhang and Zhao. Even today, if one can find Jews in China, those seven surnames are used. At least one synagogue was constructed and the community was active for about eight centuries. In the Vatican library, there are letters from Jesuits in the 18^th century that describes the life and religion of Jews in Kaifeng, including drawings of their synagogue. The Kaifeng Jews lost contact with the West in the middle of the 1700s, and it was not until 1900 that contact resumed with them. The development of the port city of Shanghai was due to the Jewish population and rivaled the prosperity, at one time, with Hong Kong. By 1903 there were three synagogues in the city of Shanghai, and the Jewish population totaled to 30,000. But most of them fled when the Communists took over in 1959. The Chinese government presently recognizes Jews as an official Chinese ethnic group. On September 29^th2000, Rosh Hashanah services were held at the Ohel Rachel Synagogue for the first time in almost 50 years. There is a Jewish library and a Jewish museum in Shanghai as well.

Ethiopia

Once Ethiopia was ruled by great kings, one of the rulers was a great queen known as Bathsheba. In the mountain highlands around Lake Tana lived one-half million Jews. They called themselves Beta Israel – House of Israel. They used the Torah to guide their prayers and memories of the heights of Jerusalem as they lived in their hatched huts. Their neighbors called them Falasha, meaning the alien ones or the invaders.And after three hundred years of rule and black features like the people around them, they seemed to have secured their position in this homeland. For centuries the world Jewish community was not even aware of the existence of Jews in Ethiopia, located in the northern province of Gondar. Their story goes back to the days of King Solomon as a people. Christianity spread through the Axum dynasty of Ethiopia in the 4^th century BC and by the 7^th century Islam had taken over, separating Ethiopia from its Christian African neighbors. Beta Israel had enjoyed relative peace and independence through the Middle Ages, their reign was threatened in the 13^thcentury under the Solomonic Empire and sporadic fighting continued for the next three centuries with other tribes. In 1624, the Beta Israel fought their last battle for independence against Portuguese-backed Ethiopians. Jews captured were sold into slavery, forced to be baptized, and denied the right to own land. The first modern contact with the suppressed community came in 1769 when Scottish explorer, James Bruce, stumbled upon them while searching for the source of the Nile River. He reported that there was a population of Beta Israel at about 100,000, decreased from a population of a half-million from centuries before. Little contact was made after that with the Beta Israel until 1935 when the Italian army marched into Ethiopia. Ethiopia’s ruler, Emperor Haile Selassie fled and took refuge in Jerusalem for a short time. Selassie returned to power in 1941. In 1947, Ethiopia abstained on the United Nations Partition Plan vote for the British Mandate of Palestine, which reestablished the State of Israel. By 1955, the Jewish Agency of Israel constructed schools and a teacher’s seminary for the Beta Israel in Ethiopia. In 1956, Ethiopia and Israel established consular relations and this improved in 1961 when the two countries established full diplomatic ties. Positive relations between Israel and Ethiopia existed until 1973, when after the Yom Kippur War, Ethiopia and 298 African nations broke diplomatic relations with Israel under the threat of an Arab oil embargo. In the early 1980s, Ethiopia forbade the practice of Judaism and the teaching of the Hebrew language. Several members of the Beta Israel were imprisoned under trumped up charges of being “Zionist spies“and Jewish religious leaders were harassed and monitored by the government. Forced subscription in the Ethiopian army at the age of 12 took many Jewish boys from their parents, some were never heard from again. With constant threat of war, famine, and horrible health conditions, the Beta Israel’s future looked bleak. The government began to soften its treatment of the Jews, but during the mid-1980s a terrible famine occurred ruining the economy. Ethiopia had to accept famine relief from Western nations, including the United States and Israel, which gave leverage for the release of the Beta Israel. Over 8,000 Beta Israel came to Israel between 1977 and 1984, but Operation Moses in 1984 surpassed those numbers by a great margin. Operation Moses ended on January 15^th 1985. About 15,000 Jews remained in Ethiopia because the Sudan government forbade Jews from entering to go to Israel. In 1985, President George H. Bush arranged a CIA-sponsored mission that compared to Operation Moses and was called Operation Joshua that brought 8,000 more Jews to Israel from Beta Israel in Ethiopia. The new arrivals to Israel were now separated from their families and spent between six months to two years in learning centers learning Hebrew, being trained for Israel’s industrial society, and learning how to live in a modern society. Some were so depressed they committed suicide, something unheard of in Ethiopia. Over 1600 lived separated from families, not knowing the fate of their parents, brothers, sisters, and other members of family and friends. Because much of the Beta Israel’s history has been passed orally from generation to generation, we may never know their origins. Four main theories exist as to the beginnings of the Beta Israel:

(1)   The Beta Israel may be the lost tribe of Dan.

(2)   They may be descendants of Menelik I, son of King Solomon and Queen of Sheba.

(3)   They may be descendants of Ethiopian Christians and pagans who converted to Judaism centuries ago.

(4)   They may be descendants of Jews who fled Israel for Egypt after the destruction of the First Temple in 586 BC and eventually settled in Ethiopia.

Germany

In June 1849, in the last days of the revolutionary German National Assembly, the vice president, Gabriel Riesser, one of its seven Jewish members, made this statement concerning the debate on civil rights:

We are not immigrants – we were born here – and so we cannot claim any other home: either we are Germans or we have no homeland. Whoever disputes my claim to this my German fatherland disputes my right to my own thoughts, my feelings, my language – the very air I breathe. Therefore, I must defend myself against him as I would against a murderer.

Compared to other European countries, Germany had been considered to be the best in chances of success for the Jews. In Russia there was the pogroms, France had anti-Jewish feelings during the Dreyfus case, and as late as 1900, the British had imposed limits on Jewish immigration, and in 1916 Jews were denied scholarships if they were of Polish origin. But the general welfare of the Jew started to crumble when the economic crash of 1873 under French reparation payments for the recent war and other failures and corrupt dealings between the government and the railroad tycoon, Bethel Strousberg. Of course, Jews were many of the stockbrokers and victims of the bad economy started a wave of anti-Semitism not seen since the medieval period. Years later anti-Semitism even found its way into Christian sermons, like the court chaplain, Adolf Stöcker, who insisted that

…if we wish to hold fast to our German national character, we must get rid of the poisonous Jewish drop in our blood.

In an article in the Preussische Jahrbücher by historian Heinrich Von Treitschke, in which he declared that

…the Jews are our national misfortune.

Emperor William III became annoyed with both men and demoted the chaplain and Treitschke was attacked by is colleagues and after than attacks upon the Jews became less frequent. This, unfortunately, was only temporary because during World War I scapegoat rhetoric returned more extreme than before. When the war was going badly for the Germans, complaints began to be heard that it was the rich Jews who hadn’t made enough money from the war and the army’s strength was weakened because Jews were dodging the draft. This, of course, was not true. In October 1916, 3,000 Jews had already died in service of Germany and more than 7,000 had been decorated. As a result, when Germany was defeated in 1918, the theory the Jews were responsible for the woes of Germany became embedded in German minds. Everything about the Weimar Republic government after WWI was disliked and soon the Germans started calling it the Judenrepublik in which Alfred Döblin wrote:

It is a republic without proper instructions for use. … every unsolved problem and all the world’s evils from the crucifixion of Christ to capitalism, Communism, syphilis, and the lost war were projected onto a a tiny minority representing 0.9% of the population. 

But the Jews still insisted they were Germans, even in the last days before Hitler’s Final Solution.

India

The histories of Jews in India are divided into three groups: theBene Israel, the Cochin Jews, and the White Jews  (Paradesi) from Europe. Each group practiced Judaismand had synagogues, The Sephardic a rite of ancient times is predominating among Indian Jews. The Bene Israel (Sons of Israel) lived primarily in Bombay, Calcutta, Old Delhi, and Ahmadabad. The native language of the Bene Israel was Marathi, while the Cochin Jews of southern India spoke Malayalam. The Bene Israel claim to be descended from Jews who escaped the persecution in Galilee in the 2^ndcentury BC. The Bene Israel resembles the non-Jewish Maratha people in appearance and customs, which shows that intermarriage between Jews and Indians, was not forbidden. However, they maintained the practices of Jewish dietary laws, such as not eating pork meat or byproducts. The Bene Israel say their ancestors were oil pressers in Galilee and they are descended from survivors of a shipwreck. In the 18^thcentury they were “discovered” by traders from Baghdad. At that time the Bene Israel were practicing Judaism from oral Law, because they had no scholars among them. Teachers from Baghdad and Cochin taught them Judaism in the 18^th and 19^th centuries. Jewish merchants from Europe traveled to India in the medieval period for trading, but it is not known if they formed permanent settlements in India or South Asia. The first reliable evidence of Indian Jews comes from the early 11^th century, but the history is vague. The first Jews in Cochin (southern India) were called “Black Jews,” who spoke the Malayalam tongue. White Jews settled there later, when they came from Western nations like Holland and Spain. There was a Spanish and Portuguese settlement in the 15^th century, but it eventually disappeared. In the 17^th and 18^thcenturies, Cochin had a number of Jewish settlers arrive from the Middle East, North Africa, and Spain. The Jews of Cochin claim they cam to Cranganore (south-west coast of India) after the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD. In 1524, the Moors, backed by the ruler of Calcutta attacked the Jews of Cranganore claiming they were “tampering” with the pepper trade. Most Jews fled to Cochin under the protection of the Hindu Raja there. He granted them a site to build a town and named it Jew Town – which is still what it is called today. The Jews of Cochrin were persecuted by the Portuguese until the Dutch drove them out in 1660. In 1795, Cochin was under British influence. In the 19^thcentury, Cochin Jews lived in towns of Cochin, Ernakulam, and Parur. Today most of the Cochin’s Jews have immigrated to Israel. Near the end of the 18^thcentury a third group of Jews appears in India. They are the middle-eastern Jews who came to India through the trade routes. Under British rule the Jews of India prospered and the Indians were tolerant and the Jews of Calcutta enjoyed their home there.  The first generation of Calcutta Jews spoke Judeo-Arabic at home, and by the 1890s they mostly spoke English. After WWII, Indian nationalism made Jews feel uncomfortable because they were identified with the English by the Indians. Starting in the 1940s the Jewish population began to decline as they began to immigrate to Israel. An interesting Jewish community by the name of Bnei Menashe, with a population of about 7,000, is members of the Kuki-Chin-Mizo tribe who lives in northeast India near the border of Burma. For generations they kept the Jewish traditions and claim to be descended from the tribe of Menashe, one of the ten lost tribes of Israel that were exiled by the Assyrians in the 8^th century BC and who have disappeared into the pages of history. At the beginning of the 20^th century, tribe members converted to Christianity, but about 30 years ago some of the Jewish community began moving back to Judaism.

Iran 

After the Assyrian conquest, the ten lost tribes were moved to the east toward the Persian Empire. Babylon, former main city of Judaism, was an Iranian province for more than 1,000 years, including the period which the Talmud was written. Based upon historical evidence, the first Jews exiled from their homeland settled in Iran and from there they moved to other countries such as India, China and Russia.

Poland

The date of the arrival of the first Jews in Poland is unknown. Ibrahim ibn Jakub, a Jewish merchant and diplomat from Tortosa, Spain, in the account of his journey in 965, mentioned Krakow being a city in Poland where Jews had migrated. While some traveled through Poland to escape persecution, some settled there permanently. Jews would later come to Poland in later times when countries banished them, or they had become victims of social and religious strife, or just looked for a better way of life.

Polish dukes and kings, such as Boleslaw Pobozny (1221-1279) appreciated their talents in commerce and crafts, and so granted the Jews privileges and conditions for a peaceful life. Boleslaw Pobozny created a Charter of Kalisz in 1264 that guaranteed in writing the security of Jews, their communities, and their property.

The major influx of Jews into Poland took place between the 12^th and 15^thcenturies. This was the period when the Crusades and the Holy Inquisition led to the persecutions of Jews in the countries of Western Europe and forced them to move eastward in search of asylum.  Poland, over time, came to be the largest concentration of Jews in Europe and the center of Jewish culture. Poland became home to the Jews from Central and Eastern Europe (Ashkenazi), and Southern European Jews that included 15^th century Spain and Portugal, called the Sephardi. There was a diversity of various religions, from Chassidim to the progressive movement of the Enlightenment, called the Maskilim.

A major role in the industrialization of Poland was instituted by Jewish entrepreneurs, bankers, industrialists, and merchants. Jews had become good business men. Jews were in the forefront of modern banking, industry like sugar refining, textile, paper and mechanical. They were masters at commerce in the export and import trading, and transportation as well. One of the first polytechnic colleges in Poland was founded by the Wawelberg and Rotwand Jewish families. The Jews were also prominent in the fields of publishing, photography, and motion pictures; as well as music and the fine arts. Adam Muncheimer and Ludwik Grossman directed the Warsaw Opera for a time during the 19^th century. One of the founders of the Warsaw Philharmonic that opened in 1901 was Aleksander Reichman, and its director for many years between the two World Wars was Grzegorz Fitelbe. Numerous Jews, both writers and poets, made their mark in Polish history: Jolian Tuwim, Boleslaw Lesmian, Antoni Slonimski, Mieczyslaw Jastrun, Wlodzimierz Slobodnik, Arnold Slucki, and Jan Brzechma. Just before World War II, Jewish culture grew and Jewish schools, both secular and religious, could be found all over Poland. Jews actively participated in national uprisings that took place in Poland. A colonel of the Polish Army, Berek Joselewicz, formed a Jewish cavalry regiment in 1794 that took part in the Kosciuszko Insurrection. Jews participated in other national conflicts: the November Insurrection (1830-1831) and the January Insurrection of 1863. Many Jews enlisted in the Legions, which fought for independence and finally achieved in 1918. At the start of World War II there were 100,000 Jewish soldiers in the ranks of the Polish Army.  During the period between the two World Wars, Jews made up 10% of the Polish population.

Russia 

In the late 19^th century, Russian Jewish communities were founded in Harbin, Tianjin and other places in Russia. The Russian government was eager to provide incentives to minorities, like the Jews, to settle in Harbin and constructed a Russian railway from Harbin to East Asia. In the early years of the 20^th century, Jews that had fled from a place called the Pale of Settlement joined the Jews in Harbin during the Russo-Japanese war and the population increased to 8,000 by 1908. The Russian Revolution of 1917 caused Harbin Jews to increase to double that size and became a community of Zionist activists. Japanese annexation in 1931 increased restrictions of life for the Jews and some left for other countries, like America, to be free of persecution. Most of the Russian Jews who remained in Russia at the end of World War II emigrated to the West. Some were repatriated, voluntarily and involuntarily, to the Soviet Union after Russian troops freed inmates of certain Nazi death camps.

Zionism

As you can see thus far, the history of the Hebrews is complex and can be confusing; indeed, just the terminology alone can throw one off. The Hebrew is called Jews, Children of Israel, Israelites, and Chosen People and in the modern age – Zionists. But what is Zionism?

Zionism is the Jewish national movement that gets its name from the name of a hill in Jerusalem. It includes the political movement such as the socialist Zionists. Zionist ideas have evolved over time and were influenced by social and cultural movements that were popular in Europe at different periods in history and encompass socialism, nationalism and colonialism; therefore there isn’t any official Zionist ideology. It all began in 1897 when Jews had continued the connection with Palestine, both spiritually and physically. This mentality continued after the Kochba revolt in 135 AD, when many Jews were exiled from Roman Palestine, their ancient national home. Under Muslim rule, there were as many as 300,000 before the Crusades around 1,000 AD. The Crusaders killed most of the Jewish population of Palestine or forced them into exile, so that only 1,000 families were left after the reconquest of Palestine by Saladin.

In the Diaspora, religion was what preserved Jewish culture and Jewish ties to the ancient land. Jews prayed several times a day for the rebuilding of the Temple, celebrated agricultural feasts and called for rain according to the seasons of ancient Israel, even as far as Russia. Religion is what binded the Jews together no matter what part of the world they were forced to flee to. In tradition and religious rites the concept of Diaspora remained through thought and writing. It was not just the religion that united them or kept them as a people, but the hope for a Messiah, despite the fact that a proclaimed one appeared from Nazareth. It wasn’t nationalism, in terms of the modern sense, but the longing for their land of Israel continued through the centuries.

During the course of this historical period, groups of Jews would settle in Palestine for one reason or another; sometimes to answer a rabbinical or Messianic message or just to flee persecution in Europe. Beginning around 1700, groups of pilgrims led by rabbis would reach Palestine from Europe and the Ottoman Empire domain. In one case, Rabbi Yehuda Hehasid and his followers settled in Jerusalem about 1700, but the rabbi died and in time an Arab mob, angered over unpaid debts, destroyed the synagogue the group built and banned all European Jews from Jerusalem.

Oddly, between the Roman exile and the rise of Zionism was there a movement to settle the holy land and make it once again the state of Israel (Judea during the Roman period). Many Jews through this history were attracted to false Messiahs such as Shabetai Tzvi, who promised to restore Jews to their land. To most Jews returning to their ancient land and Jerusalem became a cultural and spiritual desire and it all keyed upon the coming of the Messiah at some time in the future.

The French Revolution and the rise of Napoleon helped the European Jews, who were no longer kept in ghettos of European cities to become citizens everywhere else. After the enlightenment of the 18^th century and the emancipation of the 19^th century the Jews split into several groups. Orthodox Jews who kept to the old ways continued to remain in the culture of the ghetto, which meant they were excluded from mingling with modern society or gaining a modern education. A second group attempted to mix in with the European society, some converting to Christianity and eventually lost their Jewish identity. A third group believed they could integrate as modern citizens, with equal rights and still maintain their Jewish faith, yet renounced their allegiance to Judaism. Their Judaism became something like the Protestant religion separating from the Roman Catholic Church. They formed new identities and they became known as Hebrews or Germans of the Mosaic faith. The last group was the one that founded the Reform Judaism movement. The concept was that once Jews “became like everyone else” they would be accepted into society as equals and would become Germans, Italians, Englishmen, or Frenchmen. However, during the 19^th century that sort of assimilation would not work out too well. Most likely because the anti-Jewish sentiment prevailed, and despite there new identities as Christians and “Germans of the Mosaic Faith” they found themselves the object of increasing anti-Jewish sentiment, which changed to the title of anti-Semitism in German in the 19^th century.

In 1836, Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Kalischer petitioned Anschel Rothschild to buy Palestine or at least the Temple Mount for the Jews. In 1839 and 1840, Sir Moses Montefiore visited Palestine and negotiated with the Khedive of Egypt to allow Jewish settlement and land purchase in Palestine. However, the negotiations led to no deal, most likely because of the anti-Semitic blood feud in Damascus.

British Zionism

British intellectuals for religious and practical reasons took up the idea of Jewish restoration to the Holy Land in the 1840s by Lord Shaftesbury and Lord Palmerston, who thought that a Jewish colony in Palestine would help stabilize and revive the county. Writers like Lord Byron, Benjamin Disraeli, George Eliot, and Walter Scott also voiced the support of such an idea.

Sephardic Jews

While the idea of Zionism was led in Europe, the Sephardic (Spanish) Jews and Jews in Arab lands kept a close tie with the Holy Land and with the Hebrew language. In fact, the Sephardic Jews influenced and participated in the Zionist movement from the beginning. Judah ben Solomon Hai Alkalai (1798-1878) is considered to be the founder of modern Zionism. He believed that return to the land of Israel was a way to redeem the Jewish people.

Early Zionists

Modern Zionism was not based upon religious ideals. While the Jews left the ghettos of Europe, some converted to Christianity, and integrated within the society. Others who were able to achieve higher education, dropped their religious beliefs, but understood that both they and the others considered them to be Jews. The term “Jew” no longer became a name for a religion, but a race. German racists invented a racial theory that lacked no scientific evidence, as written above. Socialists gave the Jews there own class structure and labeled it a caste. Zionists declared that the Jews are a people, but a people without a country. According to Zionist ideology the Jews were guests everywhere and at home nowhere.

Aliya

The first groups of immigrants who came to the Holy Land with the idea to turn into a national state or home for the Jews are known as the Aliya, which means “going up.” Among the first arrivals of the first Aliya was Eliezer ben Yehuda (Perelman) and arrived in 1881. He worked at reviving the Hebrew language. Later he founded and published the Hatzvi newspaper and was the founder of the revival of Hebrew as a modern language.

Early Jewish Settlers

The Dreyfus Affair, which developed in France beginning in 1894, made Western European Jews conscious of their national identity. A young Vienna journalist, Theodore Herzl, wrote a pamphlet Der Judenstaat  and another entitled The Jewish State  that was published in 1896. Herzl took upon himself to seek a practical plan of Zionism, a plan for creating a Jewish State, which led to the first Zionist Congress in Basle, Switzerland in August, 1897.

After the first Basle Congress, Herzl wrote in his diary:

Were I to sum up the Basle Congress in a word – which I shall guard against pronouncing publicly – it would be this: ‘At Basle, I founded the Jewish State. If I said this out loud today, I would be answered by universal laughter. If not in 5 years, certainly in 50, everyone will know it.

Theodore Herzl, 1860-1904, is considered to be one of the founders of the Zionist movement.  He believed that diplomatic negotiations would be the main way to obtain the Jewish homeland. Herzl tried to get a charter from the Sultan of Turkey for the to establish a Jewish state in Palestine, which was then ruled by the Ottoman Empire. In 1898 he also met with German Kaiser, Wilhelm II, in Istanbul and Palestine, but these meetings did not obtain anything. Herzl negotiated with the British for possibly settling the Jews on the island of Cyprus, the Sinai Peninsula, the El Arish region and Uganda. After the Kishinev pogroms, Herzl visited Russia in July of 1903. He tried to persuade the Russian government to help the Zionists transfer Jews from Russia to Palestine. At the Sixth Zionist Congress, Herzl proposed settlement in Uganda, which the British offered as a temporary refuge. The idea was opposed, especially from the Russian Jews that Herzl was trying to help. The congress passed the plan, but it wasn’t taken seriously and the whole thing died away. Herzl tried to find a political solution and met with the king of Italy, who was friendly about the idea and with the Pope, who was opposed to it.

Second Aliya and Socialist Zionism

The political approach was tried by Montefiore, Pinsker, and Herzl, but the attempt to obtain a Jewish homeland from colonial governments failed. At the same time the socialist movement was rising and the Zionists inspired several of the movements.

Practical Zionism

In 1907 an economist by the name of Arthur Ruppin, was sent to Palestine to study the conditions of the Yishuv. He formed the second Aliya and established a future for the Zionist settlement, as well as the promise of Britain to help make Palestine a Jewish national state.

Third Aliya

This Aliya consisted mostly of Eastern European and Russian Jews included some who left or were expelled by the Turks during the war. This immigration began around 1919 when Palestine was still under British military rule and ended around 1923. About 35,000 to 40,000 Jews came to Palestine during this period.

Fourth Aliya

A mandate was established that produced immigration quotas and applicants had to prove they had enough money to begin life in Palestine. This Aliya lasted from 1924 to 1932 and consisted mostly of Polish Jews who came to Palestine because of the anti-Zionist regime and the immigration quotas imposed in the United States. In 1932 German Jews immigrated to Palestine because of the Nazi. About 60,000 to 70,000 Jewish immigrants came to Palestine during this time.

Fifth Aliya

The British White Paper closed the gates of Palestine from 1933 to 1939 because of an Arab revolt and international Arab pressure on Great Britain. About 200,000 to 250,000 Jews arrived during this time, 174,000 came between 1933 and 1936. Many of them were German Jews escaping the Nazi. The Germans allowed the Jews to leave because of the “hesder” agreement where the property Jews took with them was treated as “export goods” in return for a ransom paid to the Reich.

Jewish Agency

The Jewish Agency as set up in 1929 through the efforts of Chaim Weizmann and others in accordance with the League of Nations  mandate that

…an agency comprised of representative of world Jewry assist in the establishment of the Jewish National Home.

The Jewish Agency was not a Zionist organization because it was set up by the World Zionist Organization and non-Zionist groups and leaders that included Leon Blum, Felix Warburg and Louis Marshall.

Zionism and Arabs

When Zionism first began in the 19^th century there were about 200,000 Arabs living in the countryside of the West Bank and Galilee. Palestine was, in the eyes of the West, a country without a nation, as Lord Shaftesbury wrote. By 1914, there were over 500,000 Arabs in Palestine, a population that grew faster than the Jewish population.

Colonialism was “fashionable” and early Zionist leaders saw nothing wrong in the idea of socialism, utopianism and nationalism.

David ben Gurion headed the Executive Committee of the Zionist Yishuvin Palestine and would later become the first Prime Minister of Israel thought that the Arabs would benefit from Jewish immigrations and would welcome it. He was wrong. Others, such as Eliezer ben Yehuda envisioned instead the removal of the Arabs from Palestine.

One of the earliest warnings about the Arab problem came from the Zionist writer, Ahad Ha’am (Asher Ginsberg), who wrote in his 1891 essay, “Truth from Eretz Israel” that the Palestine “it is hard to find tillable land that is not already tilled.”

Arab resentment of the Jews grew after 1900. In his book, “Reveil de la Nation Arab” in 1905, Najib Azouri stated that

the Jews want to establish a state stretching from Mt. Hermon to the Arabian Desert and to the Suez Canal. Azoury wrote: Two important phenomena of the same nature but opposed, are emerging … They are awakening of the Arab nation and the latent effort of the Jews to reconstitute on a very large scale the ancient kingdom of Israel. These movements are destined to fight each other continually until one of them wins.

Rashid Khalidi noted that beginning about 1908, Palestinian newspapers gave evidence of anti-Zionist conflicts. Problems arose because the Zionists purchased large tracts of land. Unfortunately the land purchased was involved with tenant farmers and had to be evicted. The former tenants received compensation but insisted that the land was theirs and tried to take it back by force. One case involved Al-Fula, where Zionists purchased land from the Sursuq family of Beirut. Local officials took the side of the Arab peasants against the Zionists and against the Ottoman government. In March 1911, 150 Palestinians cabled the Ottoman government to protest land sales to Jews. Azmi Bey, Turkish governor of Jerusalem stated:

We are not xenophobes; we welcome all stranger. We are not anti-Semites; we value the economic superiority of the Jews. But no nation, no government, could open its arms to groups … aiming to take Palestine from us.

Following World War I, Palestine was under British rule and even before they had conquered Palestine from the Ottoman Turkish Empire, the British declared its intention of allowing Zionist to settle there were laid out in the Balfour Declaration. The Arabs were not happy with the prospect of living in a country dominated by a Jewish majority and was afraid they would lose property they had passed from generation to generation. By 1919, representative of the Jaffa Muslim-Christian council were saying:

We will push the Zionists into the sea or they will push us into the desert.

Arabs opposed the Zionist infiltration not based upon economic or social issues, but because they viewed the Jews as second class citizens. By the 1920s, it was also motivated by Western anti-Semitism.

The Arabs saw themselves as helpless victims of powerful British and Jewish policies and the Zionists had the opposite view:

The matter is not … an issue between the Jewish people and the Arab inhabitants of Palestine, but between the Jewish people and the Arab people. The latter, numbering 25 million, has territory equivalent to half of Europe, while the Jewish people, numbering ten million and wandering the Earth, hasn’t got a stone … Will the Arab people stand opposed? Will it resist? Will it insist that they shall have it all for ever and ever, while he who has nothing shall forever have nothing?

Zionism during Holocaust

The relationship between the Holocaust and Zionism was an issue where the Zionists have been accused of indifference to the plight of European Jews. The Zionists managed to save over 200,000 European Jews before World War II. When the British suspended Jewish immigration to Palestine, the Zionists attempted to rescue Jews from the Nazi that was organized illegal immigration.

  The Zionists wanted to fight Fascism and rescue European Jews, but they could not do that without the permission of the British government. The Jewish Agency proposed to send hundreds of Jewish commandos into occupied Europe. Reports of Nazi atrocities began to become more frequent and with more details. The Holocaust was a warning that Jews could not integrate into European society. As has been stated, early Zionists envisioned colonialism. This only reflects the influence of the 19^thcentury European culture, when colonialism was acceptable. It only shows that Zionist leaders wanted to sell their idea to the great powers of Europe to support a Jewish colonization that would support German or British or French nations in the Middle East. The Socialist-Zionist movement did not like the idea of colonialism and were opposed to it and imperialism. An idea probably inspired by the writings of Najib Azouri, that Zionists envisioned that the expended Jewish state would fulfill the promise of the Old Testament – the Nile and Tigris Euphrates rivers – often thought to be the location of Eden. Though there are some religious and national extremists in Israel who would like to see that happened, Zionists never intended to pursue such a program. The map of Zionist borders presented by Zionists to the Paris conference of 1919 was larger than modern Israel of today. It covered parts of what are now Jordan and Lebanon and Syria, which ended west of the Damascus-Hejaz railway.

The Zionist organization has continued to function after the establishment of the Jewish state. It has helped bring millions of new immigrants to Israel, encouraged teaching of Hebrew and Jewish culture home and elsewhere. Zionism has come to represent the support for the settlement of Jews in territories occupied by Israel in the six-day war. In recent times the conflict with Palestinians has brought about the development of Palestine to be recognized as a sovereign state, and recently the Palestinians have voted for representatives of their new government. Unfortunately, Palestine is run by terrorist organizations that are made up of Islamic fanatics whose intentions are not just having a sovereign state and separation from Israel, but to annihilate the Jews and chase any left out of the entire Middle East region. It is all such a sad state of affairs that the Jews cannot remain where their ancestry began and that the Arabs who are basically cousins to Jews, as far as race, and who have the same historical background based upon Abraham and Moses should be fighting over religious ideology. While Israel has been criticized for retaliation against dastardly attacks upon its people and nation, it is the Moslems of Palestine and surrounding Arab nations that do not want to live and let live. The Arabs’ hateful ideology is so ingrained it will take a long period of time in order to achieve any level of peace.

The next chapter deals with the New World (Mesoamerica and North American indigenous people), its people and their religion. Bibliography for this and all other chapters is at Appendix A.

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