Eclectic Topics in no Particular Order
Various Topics Discussed
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Of course not!
Some Jews never left at all! Jews were often forbidden to live in Eretz Yisrael (the land of Israel) although some managed to survive forced exile and murder... In 131, Emperor Hadrian banned Jews from Jerusalem. He killed about 580,000 Jews in the process. In 136 CE R' Akiva was murdered by the Romans who killed him by flaying him alive with hot combs. Jewish leadership moved to Yavneh Israel (Palestine) after the failure of the Bar Kochba revolution, and continued to work on the Talmud (Mishna). Hadrian renames the province of Judea to Syria Palaestina. Jerusalem became a Christian city in the 4th century and Jews were still banned from living there. Later in the 4th century Jews were allowed to return, and thousands did return. Jews lived in at least forty-three Jewish communities in Palestine: twelve towns on the coast, in the Negev, and east of the Jordan, and thirty-one villages in Galilee and in the Jordan valley. History of the Jews and Judaism in the Land of Israel, Wikipedia. In the early 7th century the Byzantines won the land and banned the Jews from the Byzantine Empire including Israel, thousands of Jewish refugees fled to Egypt. They returned later that century and historical sources say 300,000 and 400,000 Jews lived in Jerusalem. This story continued -- being banned, being allowed to live there under one ruler or another. Muslim dynasties, the Crusaders, more Muslim overlords until the Ottoman Empire conquered Israel (Palestine). The Ottoman Empire survived some 600 years (it amazes me how many people never heard of the Ottoman Empire!). The Ottomans ruled Palestine for 401 years. During this time, a full thousand years after the fall of the Jewish state, there were Jewish communities all over the country. Jewish communities included Jerusalem, Tiberius, Ramleh, Ashkelon, Caesarea, and Gaza. The Jews almost alone defended Haifa, Israel against the crusaders holding out for a month (June–July 1099). The first Crusade was 1096-1099. In 1099 the Crusaders conquered Jerusalem and nearby coastal areas, losing and recapturing it for almost 200 years until their final ouster from Acre in 1291. The Crusaders murdered most of the Jews in Jerusalem, rounding them up and burning them to death in the Synagogue... According to the Muslim chronicle of Ibn al-Qalanisi, "The Jews assembled in their synagogue, and the (Christians) burned it over their heads." Survivors were sold into slavery, some were beheaded and others thrown alive into the sea... Then the Muslims took over again. Ayyubid Sultan Saladin allowed Jews to return (late 12th century). At times the Muslims forbid Jews from living in the land, and at others they could live there but not have Synagogues... The second Crusades (1147-1149) found many vibrant Jewish communities in Israel. From the Jewish Virtual Library "Benjamin of Tudela and Pethahiah of Regensburg , who visited the crusading kingdom around 1160 and 1180 respectively, found well-established Jewish communities in Ashkelon , Ramleh , Caesarea , Tiberias , Acre , among other localities, with scattered individuals living elsewhere: it seems that the Jewish settlement of Jerusalem was restricted to a handful of individuals." The Crusades, Jewish Virtual Library. The third Crusade was 1189-1192. Judah Alḥarizi (1216) found a prosperous Jewish community living in Jerusalem. In 1211 300 rabbis from Western Europe went to Israel. This was during the third Crusade. Around 1220 Al-Mu'azzam Isa ordered much of Jerusalem burnt -- and many Jews left yet again. The Rambam (Maimonides, Moshe ben Maimon) arrived as an exile on May 23, 1165... But the land was very desolate, very few people lived there. Prominent rabbis established communities in Safed (Tzfat), Jerusalem and throughout Israel during the next 300 years. The Ramban, Nachmanides, the 13th-century, worked to resettle Jerusalem with Jews. Many Jews from Egypt and other countries would come for holidays... In 1517 the Ottoman Empire conquered it. They held it until the British took control in 1917. By the early 19th century-years before the birth of the modern Zionist movement-more than 10,000 Jews lived throughout what is today Israel. When Jews began to immigrate to Palestine in large numbers in 1882, fewer than 250,000 Arabs lived there, and the majority of them had arrived in recent decades. If memory serves about 20% of the population was Christian... The famous novelist Mark Twain wrote of the land of Israel in 1867: “….. A desolate country whose soil is rich enough, but is given over wholly to weeds… a silent mournful expanse…. a desolation…. we never saw a human being on the whole route…. hardly a tree or shrub anywhere. Even the olive tree and the cactus, those fast friends of a worthless soil, had almost deserted the country....Jerusalem itself, the stateliest name in history, has lost all its ancient grandeur, and is become a pauper village...A fast walker could go outside the walls of Jerusalem and walk entirely around the city in an hour. I do not know how else to make one understand how small it is...Palestine is desolate and unlovely.” Chapters 45-56 of Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain. By the time Mark Twain visited my family lived there. Some lived in Jerusalem and some in the countryside. The Jerusalem estimated population the year Twain wrote the above? 14,000. The first mass return of European Jews (and some from Yemen) began with the first aliyah from 1882 - 1903. The Ottomans wouldn't allow Jews to purchase land, but as soon as Jews were allowed to do so they began buying land. Jews bought about 907 kilometres of land as of 1945. Jewish land purchase in Palestine, Wikipedia. At this time there were also about 800,000 Jews living in Arab lands (some had lived in Babylon since the exile there). In July, 1922 Britain gave 77% of "Palestine" to the Arabs, most of which today is modern Jordan. Jews had purchased land in parts of this land, and they lost the rights to that land. Today 70% of Jordan's population is Arab Palestinian... British Palestine Mandate: History & Overview, (1922 - 1948), Jewish Virtual Library. After the United Nations authorized two states: one Arab and one Jewish many of the Jews who had lived thousands of years in Arab lands were exiled -- some 800,000. Most fled to Israel, although about 200,000 fled to Europe or America. Jewish Refugees from Arab Countries, Virtual Jewish Library. Jewish Virtual Library: "After the Arabs rejected the United Nations decision to partition Palestine ...the Jews of the Arab lands became targets of their own governments’ anti-Zionist fervor. As Egypt’s delegate to the UN in 1947 chillingly told the General Assembly: “The lives of one million Jews in Muslim countries will be jeopardized by partition. "Throughout 1947 and 1948, Jews in Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Libya, Morocco, Syria, and Yemen (Aden) were persecuted, their property and belongings were confiscated, and they were subjected to severe anti-Jewish riots instigated by the governments. In Iraq, Zionism was made a capital crime. In Syria, anti-Jewish pogroms erupted in Aleppo and the government froze all Jewish bank accounts. In Egypt, bombs were detonated in the Jewish quarter, killing dozens. In Algeria, anti-Jewish decrees were swiftly instituted and in Yemen, bloody pogroms led to the death of nearly 100 Jews.” Jewish Refugees from Arab Countries, Virtual Jewish Library. In the 2000 years since Jerusalem was burned in 68 CE it remained a small, depressing place -- through Crusades, Ottoman Empire and other wars. . . until the Jews began returning to the land en-mass and revitalized the city. Today it is a vibrant, growing city with a population of 857,800. Israel itself has a population of 8,655,535. 76% of the population is Jewish. 1.9 million are Arabs (there are Arabs in the Knesset, the Israeli Parliament). A Brief History of Israel and the Jewish People, Israel Science and Technology Directory.
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