History of the Jews, their nation, religion and culture
Jewish history
is the history of the
Jews
, their
nation
,
religion
, and
culture
, as it developed and interacted with other peoples, religions, and cultures.
Jews originated from the
Israelites
and
Hebrews
of historical
Israel and Judah
, two related kingdoms that emerged in the
Levant
during the
Iron Age
.
[1]
[2]
Although the earliest mention of
Israel
is inscribed on the
Merneptah Stele
around 1213?1203 BCE, religious literature tells the story of Israelites going back at least as far as c. 1500 BCE. The
Kingdom of Israel
fell to the
Neo-Assyrian Empire
in around 720 BCE,
[3]
and the
Kingdom of Judah
to the
Neo-Babylonian Empire
in 586 BCE.
[4]
Part of the Judean population was exiled to
Babylon
. The
Assyrian
and
Babylonian captivities
are regarded as representing the start of the
Jewish diaspora
.
After the
Persian Achaemenid Empire
conquered the region, the exiled Jews were
allowed to return
and
rebuild the temple
; these events mark the beginning of the
Second Temple period
.
[5]
[6]
After several centuries of foreign rule, the
Maccabean Revolt
against the
Seleucid Empire
led to an
independent Hasmonean kingdom
,
[7]
but it was gradually incorporated into
Roman
rule.
[8]
The
Jewish-Roman wars
, a series of unsuccessful revolts against the Romans in the 1st and 2nd centuries CE, resulted in the
destruction of Jerusalem and the Second Temple
,
[9]
and the expulsion of many Jews.
[10]
The Jewish population in
Syria Palaestina
gradually decreased during the following centuries, enhancing the role of the Jewish diaspora and shifting the spiritual and demographic centre from the depopulated
Judea
to
Galilee
and then to
Babylon
, with smaller communities spread out across the
Roman Empire
. During the same period, the
Mishnah
and the
Talmud
, central Jewish texts, were composed. In the following millennia, the diaspora communities
coalesced
into three major
ethnic subdivisions
according to where their ancestors settled: the
Ashkenazim
(
Central
and
Eastern Europe
), the
Sephardim
(initially in the
Iberian Peninsula
), and the
Mizrahim
(
Middle East
and
North Africa
).
[11]
[12]
Byzantine
rule over the Levant was lost in the 7th century as the newly established
Islamic Caliphate
expanded into the
Eastern Mediterranean
,
Mesopotamia
, North Africa, and later into the
Iberian Peninsula
.
Jewish culture enjoyed a golden age in Spain
, with Jews becoming widely accepted in society and their religious, cultural, and economic life blossomed. However, in 1492 the
Jews were forced to leave Spain
and migrated in great numbers to the
Ottoman Empire
and
Italy
. Between the 12th and 15th centuries, Ashkenazi Jews experienced extreme persecution in Central Europe, which prompted their mass migration to
Poland
.
[13]
[14]
The 18th century saw the rise of the
Haskalah
intellectual movement. Also starting in the 18th century, Jews began to campaign for
Jewish emancipation
from restrictive laws and integration into the wider European society.
In the 19th century, when Jews in
Western Europe
were increasingly granted equality before the law, Jews in the
Pale of Settlement
faced growing persecution, legal restrictions and widespread
pogroms
. During the 1870s and 1880s, the Jewish population in Europe began to more actively discuss emigration to
Ottoman Syria
with the aim of re-establishing a Jewish polity in
Palestine
. The
Zionist movement
was officially founded in 1897. The pogroms also triggered a mass exodus of more than two million Jews to the
United States
between 1881 and 1924.
[15]
The Jews of Europe and the United States gained success in the fields of science, culture and the economy. Among those generally considered the most famous were
Albert Einstein
and
Ludwig Wittgenstein
. Many
Nobel Prize
winners at this time were Jewish, as is still the case.
[16]
In 1933, with the rise to power of
Adolf Hitler
and the
Nazi Party
in
Germany
, the Jewish situation became severe. Economic crises, racial
antisemitic laws
, and a fear of an upcoming war led many to flee from Europe to
Mandatory Palestine
, to the United States and to the
Soviet Union
. In 1939,
World War II
began and until 1941 Hitler
occupied almost all of Europe
. In 1941, following the
invasion
of the Soviet Union, the
Final Solution
began, an extensive organized operation on an unprecedented scale, aimed at the annihilation of the Jewish people, and resulting in the persecution and murder of Jews in Europe and
North Africa
. In Poland, three million were murdered in
gas chambers
in all concentration camps combined, with one million at the
Auschwitz
camp complex alone. This
genocide
, in which approximately six million Jews were methodically exterminated, is known as
the Holocaust
.
Before and during the Holocaust, enormous numbers of Jews immigrated to Mandatory Palestine. On May 14, 1948, upon the termination of the British Mandate,
David Ben-Gurion
declared the creation of the
State of Israel
, a
Jewish and democratic state
in
Eretz Israel
(Land of Israel). Immediately afterwards, all neighbouring Arab states invaded, yet the newly formed
IDF
resisted. In 1949, the war ended and Israel started building the state and absorbing massive waves of
Aliyah
from all over Europe and
Middle Eastern countries
. As of 2022,
[update]
Israel
is a
parliamentary democracy
with a population of 9.6 million people, of whom 7 million are
Jewish
. The largest Jewish community outside Israel is the
United States
, while large communities also exist in France, Canada, Argentina, Russia, United Kingdom, Australia, and
Germany
. For statistics related to modern Jewish demographics, see
Jewish population
.
Time periods in Jewish history
[
edit
]
The history of the Jews and Judaism can be divided into five periods:
(1) ancient Israel before Judaism, from the beginnings to 586 BCE;
(2) the beginning of Judaism in the 6th and 5th centuries BCE;
[
clarification needed
]
(3) the formation of
rabbinic Judaism
after the destruction of the
Second Temple
in 70 CE;
(4) the age of rabbinic Judaism, from the ascension of
Christianity
to political power under the
emperor Constantine the Great
in 312 CE to the end of the political hegemony of Christianity in the 18th century; and
(5), the age of diverse Judaisms, from the French and American Revolutions to the present.
Ancient Israel (1500?586 BCE)
[
edit
]
The early Israelites
[
edit
]
The history of the early Jews, and their neighbours, centres on the
Fertile Crescent
and east coast of the
Mediterranean Sea
. It begins among those people who occupied the area lying between the river
Nile
and
Mesopotamia
. Surrounded by ancient seats of culture in
Egypt
and
Babylonia
, by the deserts of
Arabia
, and by the highlands of
Asia Minor
, the land of
Canaan
(roughly corresponding to modern Israel, the Palestinian Territories, Jordan, and Lebanon) was a meeting place of civilizations.
The earliest recorded evidence of a people by the name of Israel appears in the
Merneptah Stele
of
ancient Egypt
, dated to about 1200 BCE. According to the modern archaeological account, the Israelites and their culture branched out of the
Canaanite peoples
and their cultures through the development of a distinct
monolatristic
?and later
monotheistic
?religion centred on the national god
Yahweh
.
[18]
[19]
[20]
They spoke an archaic form of the
Hebrew language
, known today as
Biblical Hebrew
.
[21]
The traditional religious view of Jews and Judaism of their own history was based on the narrative of the ancient
Hebrew Bible
. In this view,
Abraham
, signifying that he is both the biological progenitor of the Jews and the father of Judaism, is the first Jew.
Later,
Isaac
was born to Abraham, and
Jacob
was born to Isaac. Following a
struggle with an angel
, Jacob was given the name
Israel
. Following a severe drought, Jacob and his twelve sons fled to
Egypt
, where they eventually formed the
Twelve Tribes of Israel
. The Israelites were later
led out of slavery in Egypt and subsequently brought to Canaan
by
Moses
; they eventually
conquered Canaan
under the leadership of
Joshua
.
Modern scholars agree that the Bible does not provide an authentic account of the Israelites' origins; the consensus supports that the archaeological evidence showing largely indigenous origins of Israel in Canaan, not Egypt, is "overwhelming" and leaves "no room for an Exodus from Egypt or a 40-year pilgrimage through the Sinai wilderness".
[23]
Many archaeologists have abandoned the archaeological investigation of Moses and the Exodus as "a fruitless pursuit".
[23]
However, it is accepted that this narrative does have a "historical core" to it.
[24]
[26]
A century of research by archaeologists and Egyptologists has arguably found no evidence that can be directly related to the Exodus narrative of an Egyptian captivity and the escape and travels through the wilderness, leading to the suggestion that
Iron Age
Israel?the kingdoms of Judah and Israel?has its origins in Canaan, not in Egypt:
[27]
[28]
The culture of the earliest Israelite settlements is Canaanite, their cult-objects are those of the Canaanite god
El
, the pottery remains in the local Canaanite tradition, and the alphabet used is early Canaanite. The almost sole marker distinguishing the "Israelite" villages from Canaanite sites is an absence of pig bones, although whether this can be taken as an ethnic marker or is due to other factors remains a matter of dispute.
[29]
According to the
Biblical narrative
, the
Land of Israel
was organized into a confederacy of twelve tribes ruled by a series of
Judges
for several hundred years.
The Kingdoms of Israel and Judah
[
edit
]
Two Israelite kingdoms emerged during the Iron Age II:
Israel and Judah
. The Bible portrays Israel and Judah as the successors of an earlier
United Kingdom of Israel
, although
its historicity is disputed
.
[30]
[31]
Historians and archaeologists agree that the northern
Kingdom of Israel
existed by
ca.
900 BCE
[1]
: 169?195
[32]
and that the
Kingdom of Judah
existed by
ca.
700 BCE.
[2]
The
Tel Dan Stele
, discovered in 1993, shows that the kingdom, at least in some form, existed by the middle of the 9th century BCE, but it does not indicate the extent of its power.
[33]
[34]
[35]
Biblical tradition tells that the Israelite monarchy was established in 1037 BCE under
Saul
, and continued under
David
and his son,
Solomon
. David greatly expanded the kingdom's borders and
conquered Jerusalem
from the
Jebusites
, turning it into the national, political and religious capital of the kingdom. Solomon, his son, later built the
First Temple
on
Mount Moriah
in Jerusalem. Upon his death, traditionally dated to c. 930 BCE, a civil war erupted between the ten northern Israelite tribes, and the tribes of
Judah
(
Simeon
was absorbed into Judah) and
Benjamin
in the south. The kingdom then split into the Kingdom of Israel in the north, and the Kingdom of Judah in the south.
The Kingdom of Israel was the more prosperous of the two kingdoms and soon developed into a regional power.
During the days of the
Omride dynasty
, it controlled
Samaria
,
Galilee
, the upper
Jordan Valley
, the
Sharon
and large parts of the
Transjordan
.
[37]
Samaria
, the capital, was home to one of the largest Iron Age palaces in the Levant.
[38]
[39]
The kingdom of Israel was destroyed around 720 BCE, when it was conquered by the
Neo-Assyrian Empire
.
[3]
The Kingdom of Judah, with its capital in
Jerusalem
, controlled the
Judaean Mountains
, the
Shephelah
, the
Judaean Desert
and parts of the
Negev
. After the fall of Israel, Judah became a
client state
of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. In the 7th century BCE, the kingdom's population increased greatly, prospering under
Assyrian
vassalage
, despite
Hezekiah's revolt
against the Assyrian king
Sennacherib
.
[40]
With the fall of the Neo-Assyrian Empire in 605 BCE, competition emerged between
Egypt
and the
Neo-Babylonian Empire
over control of the
Levant
, ultimately resulting in Judah's rapid decline. The early 6th century BCE saw a wave of Egyptian-backed
Judahite rebellions against Babylonian rule
being crushed. In 586 BCE, King
Nebuchadnezzar II
of Babylon
conquered
Judah, and
destroyed Jerusalem and the First Temple
. The elite of the kingdom and many of their people were exiled to Babylon, where the religion developed outside the traditional temple. Others
fled to Egypt
. The defeat was also recorded in the
Babylonian Chronicles
.
[41]
[42]
Large parts of the Hebrew Bible were written during this period. This include the earliest portions of
Hosea
,
Isaiah
,
Amos
and
Micah
,
along with
Nahum
,
Zephaniah
,
most of
Deuteronomy
,
the first edition of the
Deuteronomistic history
(the books of
Joshua
/
Judges
/
Samuel
/
Kings
),
[50]
and
Habakkuk
.
The Babylonian captivity (c. 587?538 BCE)
[
edit
]
The first Judahite communities in Babylonia started with the exile of the Tribe of Judah to Babylon by
Jehoiachin
in 597 BCE as well as after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 586 BCE.
[52]
Babylonia, where some of the largest and most prominent Jewish cities and communities were established, became the centre of Jewish life. A short time after this under the reign of
Xerxes I
of Persia, the events of the
Book of Esther
took place. Babylon remained as a hub of Jewish life all the way up to the 11th century, when the cultural and scholarship centrality began to move to Europe, as anti-Jewish waves initiated a rapid decline, not in numbers, but in centrality.
[53]
It continued to be a major Jewish centre until the 13th century.
[54]
By the first century, Babylonia already held a speedily growing
[52]
population of an estimated 1,000,000 Judahites which increased to an estimated 2 million between the years 200 CE and 500 CE,
[55]
both by natural growth and by immigration of more Jews from Judah, making up about one sixth of the world Jewish population at that era.
[55]
It was there that they would write the Babylonian
Talmud
in the languages used by the Jews of ancient Babylonia?
Hebrew
and
Aramaic
.
The Jews established
Talmudic Academies in Babylonia
, also known as the
Geonic Academies
, which became the centre for Jewish scholarship and the development of Jewish law in Babylonia from roughly 500 CE to 1038 CE. The two most famous academies were the
Pumbedita Academy
and the
Sura Academy
. Major yeshivot were also located at
Nehardea
and Mahuza.
[56]
After a few generations and with the conquest of Babylonia in 540 BCE by the
Persian Empire
, some adherents led by prophets
Ezra
and
Nehemiah
, returned to their homeland and traditional practices.
[
citation needed
]
Other Judeans
[57]
did not return.
Deuteronomy was expanded and earlier scriptures were edited during the exilic period. The first edition of
Jeremiah
, the
Book of Ezekiel
, the majority of
Obadiah
, and what is referred to in research as "
Second Isaiah
" were all written during this time period as well.
The Second Temple period
[
edit
]
The
Persian period (c. 538?332 BCE)
[
edit
]
Following their return to Jerusalem after the return from the exile, and with Persian approval and financing, construction of the
Second Temple
was completed in 516 BCE under the leadership of the last three Jewish Prophets
Haggai
,
Zechariah
and
Malachi
.
The final Torah is widely seen as a product of the
Persian period
(539?333 BCE, probably 450?350 BCE).
This consensus echoes a traditional Jewish view which gives
Ezra
, the leader of the Jewish community on its return from Babylon, a pivotal role in its promulgation.
[59]
After the death of the last Jewish prophet and while still under Persian rule, the leadership of the
Jewish people
passed into the hands of five successive generations of
zugot
("pairs of") leaders. They flourished first
under the Persians
and then under the Greeks. As a result, the
Pharisees
and
Sadducees
were formed. Under the Persians then under the Greeks, Jewish coins were minted in Judea as
Yehud coinage
.
[
citation needed
]
The Hellenistic period (c. 332?110 BCE)
[
edit
]
In 332 BCE,
Alexander the Great
of
Macedon
defeated the Persians. After Alexander's death and the division of his empire among his generals, the
Seleucid Kingdom
was formed.
The Alexandrian conquests spread Greek culture to the Levant. During this time, currents of Judaism were influenced by
Hellenistic philosophy
developed from the 3rd century BCE, notably the
Jewish diaspora
in
Alexandria
, culminating in the compilation of the
Septuagint
. An important advocate of the symbiosis of Jewish theology and Hellenistic thought is
Philo
.
The Hasmonean Kingdom (110?63 BCE)
[
edit
]
A deterioration of relations between Hellenized Jews and other Jews led the Seleucid king
Antiochus IV Epiphanes
to issue decrees banning certain
Jewish religious rites and traditions
. Subsequently, some of the nonhellenized Jews revolted under the leadership of the
Hasmonean
family (also known as the
Maccabees
). This revolt eventually led to the formation of an independent Jewish kingdom, known as the
Hasmonaean Dynasty
, which lasted from 165 BCE to 63 BCE.
[60]
The Hasmonean Dynasty eventually disintegrated as a result of civil war between the sons of
Salome Alexandra
;
Hyrcanus II
and
Aristobulus II
. The people, who did not want to be governed by a king but by theocratic clergy, made appeals in this spirit to the Roman authorities. A Roman campaign of conquest and annexation, led by
Pompey
, soon followed.
[61]
The Roman period (63 BCE ? 135 CE)
[
edit
]
Judea had been an independent Jewish kingdom under the
Hasmoneans
, but it was
conquered and reorganized as a client state by the Roman general Pompey in 63 BCE
.
Roman expansion
was going on in other areas as well, and it would continue for more than a hundred and fifty years. Later,
Herod the Great
was appointed "King of the Jews" by the
Roman Senate
, supplanting the Hasmonean dynasty. Some of his offspring held various positions after him, known as the
Herodian dynasty
. Briefly, from 4 BCE to 6 CE,
Herod Archelaus
ruled the
tetrarchy of Judea
as
ethnarch
, the Romans denying him the title of King. After the
Census of Quirinius
in 6 CE, the
Roman province of Judaea
was formed as a satellite of
Roman Syria
under the rule of a
prefect
(as was
Roman Egypt
) until 41 CE, then
procurators
after 44 CE. The empire was often callous and brutal in its treatment of its Jewish subjects, (see
Anti-Judaism in the pre-Christian Roman Empire
). In 30 CE (or 33 CE),
Jesus of Nazareth
, an itinerant
rabbi
from
Galilee
, and the central figure of
Christianity
, was put to death by
crucifixion
in Jerusalem under the Roman prefect of
Judaea
,
Pontius Pilate
.
[62]
In 66 CE, the Jews
began to revolt
against the Roman rulers of Judea. The revolt was defeated by the future Roman emperors
Vespasian
and
Titus
. In the
Siege of Jerusalem
in 70 CE, the Romans destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem and, according to some accounts, plundered artifacts from the temple, such as the
Menorah
. Jews continued to live in their land in significant numbers, the
Kitos War
of 115?117 CE notwithstanding, until
Julius Severus
ravaged Judea while putting down the
Bar Kokhba revolt
of 132?136 CE. Nine hundred eighty-five villages were destroyed and most of the Jewish population of central Judaea was essentially wiped out, killed, sold into slavery, or forced to flee.
[63]
Banished from Jerusalem, except for the day of
Tisha B'Av
, the Jewish population now centred on
Galilee
and initially in
Yavne
. Jerusalem was renamed
Aelia Capitolina
and Judea was renamed
Syria Palestina
, to spite the Jews by naming it after their ancient enemies, the
Philistines
.
[
dubious
–
discuss
]
[
citation needed
]
The diaspora
[
edit
]
The
Jewish diaspora
began during the Assyrian conquest and it continued on a much larger scale during the Babylonian conquest, during which the Tribe of Judah was exiled to Babylonia along with the dethroned King of Judah,
Jehoiachin
, in the 6th century BCE, and taken into captivity in 597 BCE. The exile continued after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 586 BCE.
[52]
Many more Jews migrated to Babylon in 135 CE after the
Bar Kokhba revolt
and in the centuries after.
[52]
Many of the Judaean Jews were sold into
slavery
while others became citizens of other parts of the
Roman Empire
.
[
citation needed
]
The book of
Acts
in the
New Testament
, as well as other
Pauline
texts, make frequent reference to the large populations of
Hellenised Jews
in the cities of the Roman world. These Hellenised Jews were affected by the
diaspora
only in its spiritual sense, absorbing the feeling of loss and homelessness that became a cornerstone of the Jewish creed, much supported by persecutions in various parts of the world.
Of critical importance to the reshaping of Jewish tradition from the Temple-based religion to the rabbinic traditions of the Diaspora, was the development of the interpretations of the Torah found in the
Mishnah
and
Talmud
.
Cochin Jewish tradition holds that the roots of their community go back to the arrival of Jews at
Shingly
in 72 CE., after the
Destruction of the Second Temple
. It also states that a Jewish kingdom, understood to mean the granting of autonomy by a local king, Cheraman Perumal, to the community, under their leader Joseph Rabban, in 379 CE. The first synagogue there was built in 1568. The legend of the founding of Indian
Christianity in Kerala
by
Thomas the Apostle
relates that on his arrival there, he encountered a local girl who understood Hebrew.
[64]
Late antiquity
[
edit
]
The Jews of Judaea
[
edit
]
The relations of the Jews with the Roman Empire in the region continued to be complicated.
Constantine I
allowed Jews to mourn their defeat and humiliation once a year on
Tisha B'Av
at the
Western Wall
. In 351?352 CE, the Jews of Galilee launched
yet another revolt
, provoking heavy retribution.
[65]
The Gallus revolt came during the rising influence of early Christians in the Eastern Roman Empire, under the
Constantinian dynasty
. In 355, however, the relations with the Roman rulers improved, upon the rise of Emperor
Julian
, the last of the Constantinian dynasty, who unlike his predecessors defied Christianity. In 363, not long before Julian left Antioch to launch his campaign against Sasanian Persia, in keeping with his effort to foster religions other than Christianity, he ordered the Jewish Temple rebuilt.
[66]
The failure to rebuild the Temple has mostly been ascribed to the dramatic
Galilee earthquake of 363
and traditionally also to the Jews' ambivalence about the project. Sabotage is a possibility, as is an accidental fire. Divine intervention was the common view among Christian historians of the time.
[67]
Julian's support of Jews caused Jews to call him "Julian the
Hellene
".
[68]
Julian's fatal wound in the Persian campaign and his consequent death had put an end to Jewish aspirations, and Julian's successors embraced Christianity through the entire timeline of Byzantine rule of Jerusalem, preventing any Jewish claims.
In 438 CE, when the Empress
Eudocia
removed the ban on Jews' praying at the
Temple site
, the heads of the Community in Galilee issued a call "to the great and mighty people of the Jews" which began: "Know that the end of the exile of our people has come!" However, the Christian population of the city, who saw this as a threat to their primacy, did not allow it and a riot erupted after which they chased away the Jews from the city.
[69]
[70]
During the 5th and the 6th centuries, a series of
Samaritan insurrections
broke out across the
Palaestina Prima
province. Especially violent were the third and the fourth revolts, which resulted in almost the entire annihilation of the Samaritan community. It is likely that the Samaritan
Revolt of 556
was joined by the Jewish community, which had also suffered a brutal suppression of Israelite religion.
In the belief of restoration to come, in the early 7th century the Jews made an
alliance
with the
Persians
, who invaded Palaestina Prima in 614, fought at their side, overwhelmed the
Byzantine
garrison in Jerusalem, and were given Jerusalem to be governed as an autonomy.
[71]
However, their autonomy was brief: the
Jewish leader
in Jerusalem was shortly assassinated during a Christian revolt and though Jerusalem was reconquered by Persians and Jews within 3 weeks, it fell into anarchy. With the consequent withdrawal of Persian forces, Jews surrendered to Byzantines in 625 or 628 CE, but were massacred by Christian radicals in 629 CE, with the survivors fleeing to Egypt. The Byzantine (Eastern Roman Empire) control of the region was finally lost to the Muslim Arab armies in 637 CE, when
Umar ibn al-Khattab
completed the conquest of Akko.
The Jews of pre-Muslim Babylonia (219?638 CE)
[
edit
]
After the fall of Jerusalem,
Babylonia
(modern day Iraq) would become the focus of Judaism for more than a thousand years. The first Jewish communities in Babylonia started with the exile of the Tribe of Judah to Babylon by
Jehoiachin
in 597 BCE as well as after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 586 BCE.
[52]
Many more Jews migrated to Babylon in 135 CE after the
Bar Kokhba revolt
and in the centuries after.
[52]
Babylonia, where some of the largest and most prominent Jewish cities and communities were established, became the centre of Jewish life all the way up to the 13th century. By the first century, Babylonia already held a speedily growing
[52]
population of an estimated 1,000,000 Jews, which increased to an estimated 2 million
[55]
between the years 200 CE and 500 CE, both by natural growth and by immigration of more Jews from Judea, making up about 1/6 of the world Jewish population at that era.
[55]
It was there that they would write the Babylonian
Talmud
in the languages used by the Jews of ancient Babylonia:
Hebrew
and
Aramaic
. The Jews established
Talmudic Academies in Babylonia
, also known as the Geonic Academies ("Geonim" meaning "splendour" in Biblical Hebrew or "geniuses"), which became the centre for Jewish scholarship and the development of Jewish law in Babylonia from roughly 500 CE to 1038 CE. The two most famous academies were the
Pumbedita Academy
and the
Sura Academy
. Major yeshivot were also located at
Nehardea
and Mahuza. The Talmudic
Yeshiva
Academies became a main part of Jewish culture and education, and Jews continued establishing Yeshiva Academies in Western and Eastern Europe, North Africa, and in later centuries, in America and other countries around the world where Jews lived in the Diaspora. Talmudic study in
Yeshiva
academies, most of them located in The United States and
Israel
, continues today.
These Talmudic
Yeshiva
academies of Babylonia followed the era of the
Amoraim
("expounders")?the sages of the Talmud who were active (both in Judah and in Babylon) during the end of the era of the sealing of the
Mishnah
and until the times of the sealing of the Talmud (220CE ? 500CE), and following the
Savoraim
("reasoners")?the sages of beth midrash (Torah study places) in Babylon from the end of the era of the Amoraim (5th century) and until the beginning of the era of the
Geonim
. The Geonim (Hebrew: ??????) were the presidents of the two great rabbinical colleges of Sura and Pumbedita, and were the generally accepted spiritual leaders of the worldwide Jewish community in the early medieval era, in contrast to the
Resh Galuta
(Exilarch) who wielded secular authority over the Jews in Islamic lands. According to traditions, the
Resh Galuta
were descendants of Judean kings, which is why the kings of
Parthia
would treat them with much honour.
[72]
For the Jews of late antiquity and the early Middle Ages, the yeshivot of Babylonia served much the same function as the ancient
Sanhedrin
?that is, as a council of Jewish religious authorities. The academies were founded in pre-Islamic Babylonia under the Zoroastrian Sassanid dynasty and were located not far from the Sassanid capital of Ctesiphon, which at that time was the largest city in the world. After the conquest of Persia in the 7th century, the academies subsequently operated for four hundred years under the Islamic caliphate. The first gaon of Sura, according to
Sherira Gaon
, was Mar bar Rab Chanan, who assumed office in 609. The last gaon of
Sura
was
Samuel ben Hofni
, who died in 1034; the last gaon of Pumbedita was
Hezekiah Gaon
, who was tortured to death in 1040; hence the activity of the Geonim covers a period of nearly 450 years.
One of principal seats of Babylonian Judaism was
Nehardea
, which was then a very large city made up mostly of Jews.
[52]
A very ancient synagogue, built, it was believed, by King Jehoiachin, existed in Nehardea. At Huzal, near Nehardea, there was another synagogue, not far from which could be seen the ruins of Ezra's academy. In the period before Hadrian, Akiba, on his arrival at Nehardea on a mission from the Sanhedrin, entered into a discussion with a resident scholar on a point of matrimonial law (Mishnah Yeb., end). At the same time there was at Nisibis (northern
Mesopotamia
), an excellent Jewish college, at the head of which stood
Judah ben Bathyra
, and in which many Judean scholars found refuge at the time of the persecutions. A certain temporary importance was also attained by a school at
Nehar-Pekod
, founded by the Judean immigrant Hananiah, nephew of
Joshua ben Hananiah
, which school might have been the cause of a schism between the Jews of Babylonia and those of Judea-Israel, had not the Judean authorities promptly checked Hananiah's ambition.
The Byzantine period (324?638 CE)
[
edit
]
Jews were also widespread throughout the Roman Empire, and this carried on to a lesser extent in the period of Byzantine rule in the central and eastern Mediterranean. The militant and exclusive Christianity and
caesaropapism
of the
Byzantine Empire
did not treat Jews well, and the condition and influence of diaspora Jews in the Empire declined dramatically.
It was official Christian policy to convert Jews to
Christianity
, and the Christian leadership used the official power of Rome in their attempts. In 351 CE the Jews revolted against the added pressures of their Governor,
Constantius Gallus
. Gallus put down the revolt and destroyed the major cities in the Galilee area where the revolt had started. Tzippori and Lydda (site of two of the major legal academies) never recovered.
In this period, the Nasi in Tiberias,
Hillel II
, created an official calendar, which needed no monthly sightings of the moon. The months were set, and the calendar needed no further authority from Judea. At about the same time, the Jewish academy at Tiberius began to collate the combined Mishnah,
braitot
, explanations, and interpretations developed by generations of scholars who studied after the death of
Judah HaNasi
. The text was organized according to the order of the Mishna: each paragraph of Mishnah was followed by a compilation of all of the interpretations, stories, and responses associated with that Mishnah. This text is called the
Jerusalem Talmud
.
The Jews of Judea received a brief respite from official persecution during the rule of the Emperor
Julian the Apostate
. Julian's policy was to return the Roman Empire to Hellenism, and he encouraged the Jews to rebuild Jerusalem. As Julian's rule lasted only from 361 to 363, the Jews could not rebuild sufficiently before Roman Christian rule was restored over the Empire. Beginning in 398 with the consecration of
St. John Chrysostom
as
Patriarch
, Christian rhetoric against Jews grew sharper; he preached sermons with titles such as "Against the Jews" and "On the Statues, Homily 17," in which John preaches against "the Jewish sickness".
[73]
Such heated language contributed to a climate of Christian distrust and hate toward the large Jewish settlements, such as those in
Antioch
and
Constantinople
.
In the beginning of the 5th century, the
Emperor Theodosius
issued a set of decrees establishing official persecution of Jews. Jews were not allowed to own slaves, build new synagogues, hold public office or try cases between a Jew and a non-Jew. Intermarriage between Jew and non-Jew was made a capital offence, as was the conversion of Christians to Judaism. Theodosius did away with the
Sanhedrin
and abolished the post of
Nasi
. Under the
Emperor Justinian
, the authorities further restricted the civil rights of Jews,
[74]
and threatened their religious privileges.
[75]
The emperor interfered in the internal affairs of the synagogue,
[76]
and forbade, for instance, the use of the Hebrew language in divine worship. Those who disobeyed the restrictions were threatened with corporal penalties, exile, and loss of property. The Jews at Borium, not far from Syrtis Major, who resisted the Byzantine General
Belisarius
in his campaign against the
Vandals
, were forced to embrace Christianity, and their synagogue was converted to a church.
[77]
Justinian and his successors had concerns outside the province of Judea, and he had insufficient troops to enforce these regulations. As a result, the 5th century was a period when a wave of new synagogues were built, many with beautiful mosaic floors. Jews adopted the rich art forms of the Byzantine culture. Jewish mosaics of the period portray people, animals, menorahs, zodiacs, and Biblical characters. Excellent examples of these synagogue floors have been found at Beit Alpha (which includes the scene of Abraham sacrificing a ram instead of his son Isaac along with a zodiac), Tiberius, Beit Shean, and Tzippori.
The precarious existence of Jews under Byzantine rule did not long endure, largely due to the explosion of the Muslim religion out of the remote Arabian peninsula (where large populations of Jews resided, see
History of the Jews under Muslim Rule
for more). The
Muslim
Caliphate
ejected the Byzantines from the Holy Land (or the
Levant
, defined as modern Israel, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria) within a few years of their victory at the
Battle of Yarmouk
in 636. Numerous Jews fled the remaining Byzantine territories in favour of residence in the Caliphate over the subsequent centuries.
The size of the Jewish community in the Byzantine Empire was not affected by attempts by some emperors (most notably Justinian) to forcibly convert the Jews of Anatolia to Christianity, as these attempts met with very little success.
[78]
Historians continue to research the status of the Jews in Asia Minor under Byzantine rule. (for a sample of views, see, for instance, J. Starr
The Jews in the Byzantine Empire, 641?1204
; S. Bowman,
The Jews of Byzantium
; R. Jenkins
Byzantium
; Averil Cameron, "Byzantines and Jews: Recent Work on Early Byzantium",
Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies
20 (1996)). No systematic persecution of the type endemic at that time in Western Europe (pogroms, the stake, mass
expulsions
, etc.) has been recorded in Byzantium.
[79]
Much of the Jewish population of
Constantinople
remained in place after the conquest of the city by
Mehmet II
.
[
citation needed
]
Perhaps in the 4th century, the
Kingdom of Semien
, a Jewish nation in modern
Ethiopia
was established, lasting until the 17th century.
[80]
The Medieval period
[
edit
]
The Islamic period (638?1099)
[
edit
]
In 638 CE the Byzantine Empire lost control of the Levant. The Arab
Islamic Empire
under
Caliph Omar
conquered Jerusalem and the lands of
Mesopotamia
,
Syria
, Palestine and Egypt. As a political system, Islam created radically new conditions for Jewish economic, social, and intellectual development.
[81]
Caliph Omar
permitted the Jews to reestablish their presence in Jerusalem?after a lapse of 500 years.
[82]
Jewish tradition regards
Caliph Omar
as a benevolent ruler and the Midrash (Nistarot de-Rav Shimon bar Yo?ai) refers to him as a "friend of Israel."
[82]
According to the Arab geographer
Al-Muqaddasi
, the Jews worked as "the assayers of coins, the dyers, the tanners and the bankers in the community".
[83]
During the
Fatimid
period, many Jewish officials served in the regime.
[83]
Professor
Moshe Gil
believes that at the time of the Arab conquest in the 7th century CE, the majority of the population was Christian and Jewish.
[84]
During this time Jews lived in thriving communities all across ancient Babylonia. In the Geonic period (650?1250 CE), the Babylonian Yeshiva Academies were the chief centres of Jewish learning; the
Geonim
(meaning either "Splendor" or "Geniuses"), who were the heads of these schools, were recognized as the highest authorities in Jewish law.
In the 7th century, the new Muslim rulers institute the
kharaj
land tax, which led to mass migration of Babylonian Jews from the countryside to cities like
Baghdad
. This in turn led to greater wealth and international influence, as well as a more cosmopolitan outlook from Jewish thinkers such as
Saadiah Gaon
, who now deeply engaged with Western philosophy for the first time. When the
Abbasid Caliphate
and the city of
Baghdad
declined in the 10th century, many Babylonian Jews migrated to the
Mediterranean
region, contributing to the spread of Babylonian Jewish customs throughout the Jewish world.
[85]
The Jewish Golden Age in early Muslim Spain (711?1031)
[
edit
]
The golden age of Jewish culture in Spain coincided with the
Middle Ages
in Europe, a period of
Muslim rule
throughout much of the
Iberian Peninsula
. During that time,
Jews
were generally accepted in society and Jewish religious, cultural, and economic life blossomed.
A period of tolerance thus dawned for the Jews of the
Iberian Peninsula
, whose number was considerably augmented by immigration from Africa in the wake of the Muslim conquest. Especially after 912, during the reign of
Abd-ar-Rahman III
and his son,
Al-Hakam II
, the Jews prospered, devoting themselves to the service of the
Caliphate of Cordoba
, to the study of the sciences, and to commerce and industry, especially to trading in silk and slaves, in this way promoting the prosperity of the country. Jewish economic expansion was unparalleled. In
Toledo
, Jews were involved in translating Arabic texts to the
Romance languages
, as well as translating Greek and Hebrew texts into Arabic. Jews also contributed to botany, geography, medicine, mathematics, poetry and philosophy.
[86]
[87]
Generally, the Jewish people were allowed to practice their religion and live according to the laws and scriptures of their community. Furthermore, the restrictions to which they were subject were social and symbolic rather than tangible and practical in character. That is to say, these regulations served to define the relationship between the two communities, and not to oppress the Jewish population.
[88]
'Abd al-Rahman's court physician and minister was Hasdai ben Isaac ibn Shaprut, the patron of Menahem ben Saruq, Dunash ben Labrat, and other Jewish scholars and poets. Jewish thought during this period flourished under famous figures such as Samuel Ha-Nagid, Moses ibn Ezra, Solomon ibn Gabirol
Judah Halevi
and
Moses Maimonides
.
[86]
During 'Abd al-Rahman's term of power, the scholar
Moses ben Enoch
was appointed
rabbi
of
Cordoba
, and as a consequence
al-Andalus
became the centre of
Talmudic
study, and
Cordoba
the meeting-place of Jewish savants.
The Golden Age ended with the invasion of al-Andalus by the
Almohades
, a conservative dynasty originating in North Africa, who were highly intolerant of religious minorities.
The Crusaders period (1099?1260)
[
edit
]
Sermonical messages to avenge the death of Jesus encouraged Christians to participate in the Crusades. The twelfth century Jewish narration from R. Solomon ben Samson records that crusaders en route to the Holy Land decided that before combating the Ishmaelites they would massacre the Jews residing in their midst to avenge the
crucifixion of Christ
. The massacres began at
Rouen
and Jewish communities in
Rhine Valley
were seriously affected.
[89]
Crusading attacks were made upon Jews in the territory around Heidelberg. A huge loss of Jewish life took place. Many were forcibly converted to Christianity and many committed suicide to avoid baptism. A major driving factor behind the choice to commit suicide was the Jewish realisation that upon being slain their children could be taken to be raised as Christians. The Jews were living in the middle of Christian lands and felt this danger acutely.
[90]
This massacre is seen as the first in a sequence of antisemitic events which culminated in the Holocaust.
[91]
Jewish populations felt that they had been abandoned by their Christian neighbours and rulers during the massacres and lost faith in all promises and charters.
[92]
Many Jews chose self-defence. But their means of self-defence were limited and their casualties only increased. Most of the forced conversions proved ineffective. Many Jews reverted to their original faith later. The pope protested this but Emperor Henry IV agreed to permitting these reversions.
[89]
The massacres began a new epoch for Jewry in Christendom. The Jews had preserved their faith from social pressure, now they had to preserve it at sword point. The massacres during the crusades strengthened Jewry from within spiritually. The Jewish perspective was that their struggle was Israel's struggle to hallow the name of God.
[93]
In 1099, Jews helped the Arabs to defend Jerusalem against the
Crusaders
. When the city fell, the Crusaders gathered many Jews in a synagogue and set it on fire.
[89]
In Haifa, the Jews almost single-handedly defended the town against the Crusaders, holding out for a month, (June?July 1099).
[83]
At this time there were Jewish communities scattered all over the country, including Jerusalem, Tiberias, Ramleh, Ashkelon, Caesarea, and
Gaza
. As Jews were not allowed to hold land during the Crusader period, they worked at trades and commerce in the coastal towns during times of quiescence. Most were artisans: glassblowers in
Sidon
, furriers and dyers in Jerusalem.
[83]
During this period, the
Masoretes
of Tiberias established the
niqqud
, a system of
diacritical
signs used to represent vowels or distinguish between alternative pronunciations of letters of the
Hebrew alphabet
. Numerous
piyutim
and
midrashim
were recorded in Palestine at this time.
[83]
Maimonides
wrote that in 1165 he visited Jerusalem and went to the Temple Mount, where he prayed in the "great, holy house".
[94]
Maimonides established a yearly holiday for himself and his sons, the 6th of
Cheshvan
, commemorating the day he went up to pray on the Temple Mount, and another, the 9th of Cheshvan, commemorating the day he merited to pray at the
Cave of the Patriarchs
in
Hebron
.
In 1141
Yehuda Halevi
issued a call to Jews to emigrate to Palestine and took on the long journey himself. After a stormy passage from
Cordoba
, he arrived in Egyptian
Alexandria
, where he was enthusiastically greeted by friends and admirers. At
Damietta
, he had to struggle against his heart, and the pleadings of his friend ?alfon ha-Levi, that he remain in
Egypt
, where he would be free from intolerant oppression. He started on the rough route overland. He was met along the way by Jews in
Tyre
and
Damascus
. Jewish legend relates that as he came near Jerusalem, overpowered by the sight of the Holy City, he sang his most beautiful elegy, the celebrated "Zionide" (
Zion ha-lo Tish'ali
). At that instant, an Arab had galloped out of a gate and rode him down; he was killed in the accident.
[
citation needed
]
The Mamluk period (1260?1517)
[
edit
]
Nahmanides
is recorded as settling in the Old City of Jerusalem in 1267. He moved to
Acre
, where he was active in spreading Jewish learning, which was at that time neglected in the Holy Land. He gathered a circle of pupils around him, and people came in crowds, even from the district of the Euphrates, to hear him.
Karaites
were said to have attended his lectures, among them Aaron ben Joseph the Elder. He later became one of the greatest
Karaite
authorities. Shortly after Nahmanides' arrival in Jerusalem, he addressed a letter to his son Nahman, in which he described the desolation of the Holy City. At the time, it had only two Jewish inhabitants?two brothers, dyers by trade. In a later letter from Acre, Nahmanides counsels his son to cultivate humility, which he considers to be the first of virtues. In another, addressed to his second son, who occupied an official position at the
Castilian
court, Nahmanides recommends the recitation of the daily prayers and warns above all against immorality. Nahmanides died after reaching seventy-six, and his remains were interred at
Haifa
, by the grave of
Yechiel of Paris
.
Yechiel had
emigrated
to Acre in 1260, along with his son and a large group of followers.
[95]
[96]
There he established the Talmudic academy
Midrash haGadol d'Paris
.
[97]
He is believed to have died there between 1265 and 1268. In 1488
Obadiah ben Abraham
, commentator on the
Mishnah
, arrived in Jerusalem; this marked a new period of return for the Jewish community in the land.
Spain, North Africa, and the Middle East
[
edit
]
During the Middle Ages, Jews were generally better treated by Islamic rulers than Christian ones. Despite second-class citizenship, Jews played prominent roles in Muslim courts, and experienced a Golden Age in
Moorish Spain
about 900?1100, though the situation deteriorated after that time.
Riots
resulting in the deaths of Jews did however occur in North Africa through the centuries and especially in
Morocco
,
Libya
and
Algeria
, where eventually Jews were forced to live in ghettos.
[98]
During the 11th century, Muslims in Spain conducted pogroms against the Jews; those occurred in Cordoba in 1011 and in
Granada in 1066
.
[99]
During the Middle Ages, the governments of
Egypt
,
Syria
,
Iraq
and
Yemen
enacted decrees ordering the destruction of synagogues. At certain times, Jews were forced to convert to Islam or face death in some parts of Yemen, Morocco and
Baghdad
.
[100]
[
better source needed
]
The
Almohads
, who had taken control of much of Islamic Iberia by 1172, surpassed the
Almoravides
in fundamentalist outlook. They treated the
dhimmis
harshly. They expelled both Jews and Christians from
Morocco
and Islamic Spain. Faced with the choice of death or conversion, many Jews emigrated.
[101]
Some, such as the family of
Maimonides
, fled south and east to more tolerant Muslim lands, while others went northward to settle in the growing Christian kingdoms.
[102]
[103]
[
better source needed
]
Europe
[
edit
]
According to the American writer
James Carroll
, "Jews accounted for 10% of the total population of the
Roman Empire
. By that ratio, if other factors had not intervened, there would be 200 million Jews in the world today, instead of something like 13 million."
[104]
Jewish populations have existed in Europe, especially in the area of the former Roman Empire, from very early times. As Jewish males had emigrated, some sometimes took wives from local populations, as is shown by the various
MtDNA
, compared to
Y-DNA
among Jewish populations.
[105]
These groups were joined by traders and later on by members of the diaspora.
[
citation needed
]
Records of Jewish communities in France (see
History of the Jews in France
) and Germany (see
History of the Jews in Germany
) date from the 4th century, and substantial Jewish communities in Spain were noted even earlier.
[
citation needed
]
The historian
Norman Cantor
and other 20th-century scholars dispute the tradition that the Middle Ages was a uniformly difficult time for Jews. Before the Church became fully organized as an institution with an increasing array of rules, early medieval society was tolerant. Between 800 and 1100, an estimated 1.5 million Jews lived in Christian Europe. As they were not Christians, they were not included as a
division
of the feudal system of clergy, knights and serfs. This means that they did not have to satisfy the oppressive demands for labor and military conscription that Christian commoners suffered. In relations with the Christian society, the Jews were protected by kings, princes and bishops, because of the crucial services they provided in three areas: finance, administration and medicine.
[106]
The lack of political strengths did leave Jews vulnerable to exploitation through extreme taxation.
[107]
Christian scholars interested in the Bible consulted with Talmudic rabbis. As the Roman Catholic Church strengthened as an institution, the Franciscan and Dominican preaching orders were founded, and there was a rise of competitive middle-class, town-dwelling Christians. By 1300, the friars and local priests staged the Passion Plays during Holy Week, which depicted Jews (in contemporary dress) killing Christ, according to Gospel accounts. From this period, persecution of Jews and deportations became endemic. Around 1500, Jews found relative security and a renewal of prosperity in present-day
Poland
.
[106]
After 1300, Jews suffered more discrimination and persecution in Christian Europe. Europe's Jewry was mainly urban and literate. The Christians were inclined to regard Jews as obstinate deniers of the truth because in their view the Jews were expected to know of the truth of the Christian doctrines from their knowledge of the Jewish scriptures. Jews were aware of the pressure to accept Christianity.
[108]
As Catholics were forbidden by the church to loan money for interest, some Jews became prominent moneylenders. Christian rulers gradually saw the advantage of having such a class of people who could supply capital for their use without being liable to excommunication. As a result, the money trade of western Europe became a specialty of the Jews. But, in almost every instance when Jews acquired large amounts through banking transactions, during their lives or upon their deaths, the king would take it over.
[109]
Jews became imperial
"
servi cameræ
"
, the property of the King, who might present them and their possessions to princes or cities.
Jews were frequently massacred and exiled from various European countries. The persecution hit its first peak during the
Crusades
. In the
People's Crusade
(1096) flourishing Jewish communities on the Rhine and the Danube were utterly destroyed. In the
Second Crusade
(1147) the Jews in France were subject to frequent massacres. They were also subjected to attacks by the
Shepherds' Crusades of 1251
and
1320
. The Crusades were followed by massive expulsions, including the
expulsion of the Jews from England in 1290
;
[110]
in 1396 100,000 Jews were expelled from France; and in 1421, thousands were expelled from Austria. Over this time many Jews in Europe, either fleeing or being expelled, migrated to Poland, where they prospered into another
Golden Age
.
In Italy, Jews were allowed to live in Venice but were required to live in a
ghetto
, and the practice spread across Italy (see
Cum nimis absurdum
) and was adopted in many places in Catholic Europe. Jews outside the Ghetto often had to wear a yellow star.
[111]
[112]
Expulsions of the Jews of Spain and Portugal
[
edit
]
Significant repression of Spain's numerous community occurred during the 14th century, notably a
major pogrom in 1391
which resulted in the majority of Spain's 300,000 Jews converting to Catholicism. With the
conquest of the Muslim Kingdom of Granada
in 1492, the Catholic monarchs issued the
Alhambra Decree
, and Spain's remaining 100,000 Jews were forced to choose between conversion and exile. The expulsion of the Jews of Spain, is regarded by Jews as the worst catastrophe between the destruction of Jerusalem in 73 CE and the
Holocaust
of the 1940s.
[113]
As a result, an estimated 50,000 to 70,000 Jews left Spain, the remainder joining Spain's already numerous Converso community. Perhaps a quarter of a million Conversos thus were gradually absorbed by the dominant Catholic culture, although those among them who secretly practiced Judaism were subject to 40 years of intense repression by the Spanish Inquisition. This was particularly the case up until 1530, after which the trials of Conversos by the Inquisition dropped to 3% of the total. Similar expulsions of Sephardic Jews occurred 1493 in
Sicily
(37,000 Jews) and Portugal in 1496. The expelled Spanish Jews fled mainly to the Ottoman Empire and North Africa and Portugal. A small number also settled in Holland and England.
The expulsion followed a long process of expulsions and bans from what are now England, France, Germany, Austria, and Holland. In January 1492, the
last Muslim state
was defeated in Spain and six months later the Jews of Spain (the largest community in the world) were required to
convert or leave without their property
. 100,000 converted with many continuing to
secretly practice Judaism
, for which the Catholic church's
inquisition
(led by
Torquemada
) now mandated a sentence of death by public burning. 175,000 left Spain.
[114]
Many
Spanish Jews
moved to North Africa,
Poland
and the Ottoman Empire, especially
Thessaloniki
(now in Greece) which became the world's largest Jewish city. Some groups headed to the Middle East and Palestine, within the domains of the Ottoman Empire. About 100,000 Spanish Jews were allowed into Portugal, however five years later, their children were seized and they were given the choice of conversion or departing without them.
[115]
The Early Modern period
[
edit
]
Historians who study modern Jewry have identified four different paths by which European Jews were "modernized" and thus integrated into the mainstream of European society. A common approach has been to view the process through the lens of the European
Enlightenment
as Jews faced the promise and the challenges posed by political emancipation. Scholars that use this approach have focused on two social types as paradigms for the decline of Jewish tradition and as agents of the sea changes in Jewish culture that led to the collapse of the
ghetto
. The first of these two social types is the
Court Jew
who is portrayed as a forerunner of the modern Jew, having achieved integration with and participation in the proto-capitalist economy and court society of central European states such as the
Habsburg Empire
. In contrast to the cosmopolitan Court Jew, the second social type presented by historians of modern Jewry is the
maskil
, (learned person), a proponent of the
Haskalah
(Enlightenment). This narrative sees the maskil's pursuit of secular scholarship and his rationalistic critiques of rabbinic tradition as laying a durable intellectual foundation for the secularization of Jewish society and culture. The established paradigm has been one in which Ashkenazic Jews entered modernity through a self-conscious process of westernization led by "highly atypical, Germanized Jewish intellectuals". Haskalah gave birth to the Reform and Conservative movements and planted the seeds of
Zionism
while at the same time encouraging cultural assimilation into the countries in which Jews resided.
[116]
At around the same time that Haskalah was developing,
Hasidic Judaism
was spreading as a movement that preached a world view nearly opposed to the Haskalah.
In the 1990s, the concept of the "
Port Jew
" has been suggested as an "alternate path to modernity" that was distinct from the European
Haskalah
. In contrast to the focus on Ashkenazic Germanized Jews, the concept of the
Port Jew
focused on the Sephardi conversos who fled the Inquisition and resettled in European port towns on the coast of the Mediterranean, the Atlantic and the Eastern seaboard of the United States.
[117]
Court Jews
[
edit
]
Court Jews
were
Jewish
bankers
or businessmen who lent money and handled the finances of some of the
Christian
European
noble houses. Corresponding historical terms are
Jewish
bailiff
and
shtadlan
.
Examples of what would be later called court Jews emerged when local rulers used services of Jewish bankers for short-term loans. They lent money to nobles and in the process gained social influence. Noble patrons of court Jews employed them as
financiers
, suppliers,
diplomats
and
trade delegates
. Court Jews could use their family connections, and connections between each other, to provision their sponsors with, among other things, food, arms, ammunition and precious metals. In return for their services, court Jews gained social privileges, including up to noble status for themselves, and could live outside the Jewish ghettos. Some nobles wanted to keep their bankers in their own courts. And because they were under noble protection, they were exempted from
rabbinical
jurisdiction.
From medieval times, court Jews could amass personal fortunes and gained political and social influence. Sometimes they were also prominent people in the local Jewish community and could use their influence to protect and influence their brethren. Sometimes they were the only Jews who could interact with the local high society and present petitions of the Jews to the ruler. However, the court Jew had social connections and influence in the Christian world mainly through his Christian patrons. Due to the precarious position of Jews, some nobles could just ignore their debts. If the sponsoring noble died, his Jewish financier could face exile or execution.
[
citation needed
]
Port Jews
[
edit
]
The
Port Jew
is a descriptive term for Jews who were involved in the seafaring and maritime economy of Europe, especially during the 17th and 18th centuries. Helen Fry suggests that they can be considered "the earliest modern Jews". According to Fry, Port Jews frequently arrived as "refugees from the Inquisition" and the expulsion of Jews from Iberia. They were allowed to settle in port cities because merchants granted them permission to trade in ports such as Amsterdam, London, Trieste and Hamburg. Fry notes that their connections to the
Jewish Diaspora
and their expertise in maritime trade made them particularly valuable to the mercantilist governments of Europe.
[117]
Lois Dubin describes Port Jews as Jewish merchants who were "valued for their engagement in the international maritime trade upon which such cities thrived".
[118]
Sorkin and others have characterized the socio-cultural profile of these men as marked by a flexibility towards religion and a "reluctant cosmopolitanism that was alien to both traditional and 'enlightened' Jewish identities".
From the 16th to the 18th century, Jewish merchants dominated the chocolate and vanilla trade, exporting to Jewish centres across Europe, mainly Amsterdam, Bayonne, Bordeaux, Hamburg and Livorno.
[119]
The Ottoman Empire
[
edit
]
During the Classical Ottoman period (1300?1600), the Jews, together with most other communities of the empire, enjoyed a certain level of prosperity. Compared with other Ottoman subjects, they were the predominant power in commerce and trade as well in diplomacy and other high offices. In the 16th century especially, the Jews were the most prominent under the
millets
, the apogee of Jewish influence could arguably be the appointment of
Joseph Nasi
to
Sanjak-bey
(
governor
, a rank usually only bestowed upon Muslims) of the island of
Naxos
.
[120]
At the time of the
Battle of Yarmuk
when the
Levant
passed under Muslim Rule, thirty Jewish communities existed in Haifa, Sh'chem, Hebron, Ramleh, Gaza, Jerusalem, and many in the north. Safed became a spiritual centre for the Jews and the
Shulchan Aruch
was compiled there as well as many Kabbalistic texts. The first Hebrew printing press, and the first printing in Western Asia began in 1577.
Jews lived in the geographic area of Asia Minor (modern Turkey, but more geographically either Anatolia or Asia Minor) for more than 2,400 years. Initial prosperity in Hellenistic times had faded under Christian Byzantine rule, but recovered somewhat under the rule of the various Muslim governments that displaced and succeeded rule from Constantinople. For much of the
Ottoman
period, Turkey was a safe haven for Jews fleeing persecution, and it continues to have a small Jewish population today. The situation where Jews both enjoyed cultural and economical prosperity at times but were widely persecuted at other times was summarised by G.E. Von Grunebaum :
It would not be difficult to put together the names of a very sizeable number of Jewish subjects or citizens of the Islamic area who have attained to high rank, to power, to great financial influence, to significant and recognized intellectual attainment; and the same could be done for Christians. But it would again not be difficult to compile a lengthy list of persecutions, arbitrary confiscations, attempted forced conversions, or pogroms.
[121]
Poland
[
edit
]
In the 17th century, there were many significant Jewish populations in
Western
and
Central Europe
. The relatively tolerant Poland had the largest Jewish population in Europe that dated back to 13th century and enjoyed relative prosperity and freedom for nearly four hundred years. However, the calm situation ended when Polish and Lithuanian Jews of the
Polish?Lithuanian Commonwealth
were slaughtered in the hundreds of thousands by Ukrainian Cossacks during the
Khmelnytsky Uprising
(1648) and by the
Swedish wars
(1655). Driven by these and other persecutions, some Jews moved back to Western Europe in the 17th century, notably to
Amsterdam
. The last ban on Jewish residency in a European nation was revoked in 1654, but periodic expulsions from individual cities still occurred, and Jews were often restricted from land ownership, or forced to live in
ghettos
.
With the
Partitions of Poland
in the late 18th century, the Polish-Jewish population was split between the
Russian Empire
,
Austria-Hungary
, and German
Prussia
, which divided Poland among themselves.
The European Enlightenment and the Haskalah (18th century)
[
edit
]
During the period of the
European Renaissance
and Enlightenment, significant changes occurred within the Jewish community. The
Haskalah
movement paralleled the wider Enlightenment, as Jews in the 18th century began to campaign for emancipation from restrictive laws and integration into the wider European society. Secular and scientific education was added to the traditional religious instruction received by students, and interest in a national Jewish identity, including a revival in the study of Jewish history and Hebrew, started to grow. Haskalah gave birth to the Reform and Conservative movements and planted the seeds of
Zionism
while at the same time encouraging cultural assimilation into the countries in which Jews resided. At around the same time another movement was born, one preaching almost the opposite of Haskalah,
Hasidic Judaism
. Hasidic Judaism began in the 18th century by
Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov
, and quickly gained a following with its more exuberant, mystical approach to religion. These two movements, and the traditional orthodox approach to Judaism from which they spring, formed the basis for the modern divisions within Jewish observance.
At the same time, the outside world was changing, and debates began over the potential emancipation of the Jews (granting them equal rights). The first country to do so was France, during the
French Revolution
in 1789. Even so, Jews were expected to assimilate, not continue their traditions. This ambivalence is demonstrated in the famous speech of
Clermont-Tonnerre
before the
National Assembly
in 1789:
We must refuse everything to the Jews as a nation and accord everything to Jews as individuals. We must withdraw recognition from their judges; they should only have our judges. We must refuse legal protection to the maintenance of the so-called laws of their Judaic organization; they should not be allowed to form in the state either a political body or an order. They must be citizens individually. But, some will say to me, they do not want to be citizens. Well then! If they do not want to be citizens, they should say so, and then, we should banish them. It is repugnant to have in the state an association of non-citizens, and a nation within the nation...
Hasidic Judaism
[
edit
]
Hasidic Judaism
is a branch of
Orthodox Judaism
that promotes spirituality and joy through the popularisation and internalisation of
Jewish mysticism
as the fundamental aspects of the
Jewish faith
. Hasidism comprises part of contemporary
Ultra-Orthodox
Judaism, alongside the previous Talmudic
Lithuanian-Yeshiva
approach and the Oriental
Sephardi
tradition.
It was founded in 18th-century
Eastern Europe
by Rabbi Israel
Baal Shem Tov
as a reaction against overly
legalistic
Judaism. Opposite to this, Hasidic teachings cherished the sincerity and concealed holiness of the unlettered common folk, and their equality with the scholarly elite. The emphasis on the
Immanent
Divine presence in everything gave new value to prayer and deeds of kindness, alongside Rabbinic supremacy of
study
, and replaced historical
mystical (kabbalistic)
and
ethical (musar)
asceticism
and
admonishment
with optimism, encouragement, and daily
fervour
. This populist emotional revival accompanied the elite ideal of nullification to paradoxical Divine
Panentheism
, through intellectual articulation of inner dimensions of mystical thought. The adjustment of Jewish values sought to add to required standards of ritual
observance
, while relaxing others where inspiration predominated. Its communal gatherings celebrate soulful
song
and
storytelling
as forms of mystical devotion.
[
citation needed
]
The 19th century
[
edit
]
Though persecution still existed, emancipation spread throughout Europe in the 19th century.
Napoleon
invited Jews to leave the
Jewish ghettos in Europe
and seek refuge in the newly created tolerant political regimes that offered equality under Napoleonic Law (see
Napoleon and the Jews
). By 1871, with Germany's emancipation of Jews, every European country except Russia had emancipated its Jews.
Despite increasing integration of the Jews with secular society, a new form of
antisemitism
emerged, based on the ideas of race and nationhood rather than the religious hatred of the Middle Ages. This form of antisemitism held that Jews were a separate and inferior race from the
Aryan
people of Western Europe, and led to the emergence of political parties in France, Germany, and Austria-Hungary that campaigned on a platform of rolling back emancipation. This form of antisemitism emerged frequently in European culture, most famously in the
Dreyfus Trial
in France. These persecutions, along with state-sponsored
pogroms
in Russia in the late 19th century, led a number of Jews to believe that they would only be safe in their own nation. See
Theodor Herzl
and
History of Zionism
.
During this period, Jewish migration to the
United States
(see
American Jews
) created a large new community mostly freed of the restrictions of Europe. Over 2 million Jews arrived in the United States between 1890 and 1924, most from Russia and Eastern Europe. A similar case occurred in the southern tip of the continent, specifically in the countries of
Argentina
and
Uruguay
.
The 20th century
[
edit
]
Modern Zionism
[
edit
]
During the 1870s and 1880s, the Jewish population in Europe began to more actively discuss emigration to
Ottoman Syria
with the aim of re-establishing a Jewish polity in
Palestine
and fulfilling the biblical prophecies related to
Shivat Tzion
. In 1882 the first Zionist settlement?
Rishon LeZion
?was founded by immigrants who belonged to the "
Hovevei Zion
" movement. Later on, the "
Bilu
" movement established many other settlements in Palestine.
The Zionist movement was officially founded after the
Kattowitz convention
(1884) and the
World Zionist Congress
(1897), and it was
Theodor Herzl
who initiated the struggle to establish a state for the Jews.
After the
First World War
, it seemed that the conditions that made it possible for the Jews to establish such a state had arrived: The United Kingdom captured
Palestine
from the
Ottoman Empire
, and the Jews received the promise of a "National Home" from the British in the form of the
Balfour Declaration of 1917
, given to
Chaim Weizmann
.
In 1920, the British Mandate of Palestine was established and the pro-Jewish
Herbert Samuel
was appointed High Commissioner of Palestine, the
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
was established and several large Jewish immigration waves to Palestine occurred. The Arab co-inhabitants of Palestine were hostile to increasing Jewish immigration, however, and as a result, they began to express their opposition to the establishment of Jewish settlements and they also began to express their opposition to the pro-Jewish policy of the British government in violent ways.
Arab gangs began to commit violent acts which included the murder of individual Jews, attacks on convoys and attacks on the Jewish population. After the 1920
Arab riots
and the 1921
Jaffa riots
, the Jewish leadership in Palestine believed that the British had no desire to confront local Arab gangs and punish them for their attacks on Palestinian Jews. Believing that they could not rely on the British administration for protection from these gangs, the Jewish leadership created the
Haganah
organization in order to protect its community's farms and
Kibbutzim
.
Major riots occurred during the
1929 Palestine riots
and the
1936?1939 Arab revolt in Palestine
.
Due to the increasing violence, the United Kingdom gradually started to backtrack from its original idea of supporting the establishment of a Jewish homeland and it also started to speculate on a
binational solution
to the crisis or the establishment of an Arab state that would have a Jewish minority.
Meanwhile, the Jews of Europe and the United States gained success in the fields of science, culture and the economy. Among those Jews who were generally considered the most famous were the scientist
Albert Einstein
and the philosopher
Ludwig Wittgenstein
. At that time, a disproportionate number of
Nobel Prize
winners were Jewish, as is still the case.
[16]
In Russia, many Jews were involved in the
October Revolution
and belonged to the
Communist Party
.
The Holocaust
[
edit
]
In 1933, with
Adolf Hitler
and the
Nazi party
's rise to power in
Germany
, the Jewish situation became more severe.
Economic crises
,
racial Anti-Jewish laws
, and fear of an upcoming war led many Jews to flee from Europe and settle in
Palestine
, the
United States
and the
Soviet Union
.
In 1939,
World War II
began and until 1945,
Germany occupied almost all of Europe
, including
Poland
?
where millions of Jews were living at that time
?and
France
. In 1941, following the
invasion of the Soviet Union
, the
Final Solution
began, an extensive organized operation on an unprecedented scale, aimed at the
annihilation
of the Jewish people, and resulting in the persecution and murder of Jews in Europe, as well as Jews in European North Africa (pro-Nazi
Vichy
-
North Africa
and
Italian Libya
). This
genocide
, in which approximately six million Jews were methodically murdered with horrifying cruelty, is known as
The Holocaust
or the
Shoah
(Hebrew term). In Poland, as many as one million Jews were murdered in
gas chambers
at the
Auschwitz camp complex
.
The massive scale of the Holocaust, and the horrors that happened during it, were only understood after the war, and they heavily affected the Jewish nation and world public opinion. Efforts were then increased to establish a Jewish state in Palestine.
The establishment of the State of Israel
[
edit
]
In 1945 the Jewish resistance organizations in Palestine unified and established the Jewish Resistance Movement. The movement began guerilla attacks against Arab paramilitaries and the British authorities.
[123]
[
better source needed
]
Following the
King David Hotel bombing
,
Chaim Weizmann
, president of the
WZO
appealed to the movement to cease all further military activity until a decision would be reached by the
Jewish Agency
. The Jewish Agency backed Weizmann's recommendation to cease activities, a decision reluctantly accepted by the Haganah, but not by the
Irgun
and
Lehi
. The JRM was dismantled and each of the founding groups continued operating according to their own policy.
[124]
The Jewish leadership decided to centre the struggle in the illegal immigration to Palestine and began organizing a massive number of Jewish war refugees from Europe, without the approval of the British authorities. This immigration contributed a great deal to the Jewish settlements in Israel in the world public opinion and the British authorities decided to let the United Nations decide upon the fate of Palestine.
[
citation needed
]
On November 29, 1947, the
United Nations General Assembly
adopted
Resolution 181
(II) recommending partitioning Palestine into an Arab state, a Jewish state and the City of Jerusalem. The Jewish leadership accepted the decision but the Arab League and the leadership of Palestinian Arabs opposed it. Following a period of
civil war
the
1948 Arab?Israeli War
started.
[
citation needed
]
In the middle of the war, after the last British soldiers of the Palestine Mandate left, David Ben-Gurion proclaimed on May 14, 1948, the establishment of a
Jewish state
in
Eretz Israel
to be known as the
State of Israel
. The war ended in 1949 and Israel started building the state and absorbing massive waves of hundreds of thousands of Jews from all over the world, notably
Arab countries
.
Since 1948, Israel has been involved in a series of major military conflicts, including the 1956
Suez Crisis
, 1967
Six-Day War
, 1973
Yom Kippur War
,
1982 Lebanon War
, and
2006 Lebanon War
, as well as a nearly constant series of
ongoing minor conflicts
.
Since 1977, an ongoing and largely unsuccessful series of diplomatic efforts have been initiated by Israel, Palestinian organisations, their neighbours, and other parties, including the United States and the European Union, to bring about a
peace process
to resolve conflicts between Israel and its neighbours, mostly over the fate of the Palestinian people.
The 21st century
[
edit
]
Israel
is a
parliamentary democracy
with a population of over 8 million people, of whom about 6 million are
Jewish
. The largest Jewish communities are in Israel and the
United States
, with major communities in France, Argentina, Russia, England, and Canada. For statistics related to modern Jewish demographics see
Jewish population
.
The
Jewish Autonomous Oblast
, created during the
Soviet
period, continues to be an
autonomous oblast
of the Russian state.
[125]
The
Chief Rabbi
of
Birobidzhan
,
Mordechai Scheiner
, says there are 4,000 Jews in the capital city.
[126]
Governor
Nikolay Mikhaylovich Volkov
has stated that he intends to, "support every valuable initiative maintained by our local Jewish organizations".
[127]
The
Birobidzhan Synagogue
opened in 2004 on the 70th anniversary of the region's founding in 1934.
[128]
The number of people who identified as Jews in
England and Wales
rose slightly between 2001 and 2011, with the growth being attributed to the higher birth rate of the
Haredi
community.
[129]
The estimated
British Jewish
population in
England
as of 2011 was 263,346.
[130]
As of 2021, per the
British Census
, the Jewish population of England and Wales was 271,327.
[131]
On October 7, 2023, the militant group
Hamas invaded Israel
from the Gaza Strip, killing 1,139 people. The day is considered the deadliest day in Israel's history, and the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust.
[132]
The attack escalated into a
major war between Israel and Hamas
. Many civilians were killed and displaced, and hostages were taken.
[133]
See also
[
edit
]
Notes
[
edit
]
- ^
a
b
Finkelstein, Israel; Silberman, Neil Asher (2001).
The Bible unearthed : archaeology's new vision of ancient Israel and the origin of its stories
(1st Touchstone ed.). New York: Simon & Schuster.
ISBN
978-0-684-86912-4
.
- ^
a
b
The Pitcher Is Broken: Memorial Essays for Gosta W. Ahlstrom, Steven W. Holloway, Lowell K. Handy, Continuum, 1 May 1995
Archived
April 9, 2023, at the
Wayback Machine
Quote: "For Israel, the description of the battle of Qarqar in the Kurkh Monolith of Shalmaneser III (mid-ninth century) and for Judah, a Tiglath-pileser III text mentioning (Jeho-) Ahaz of Judah (IIR67 = K. 3751), dated 734?733, are the earliest published to date."
- ^
a
b
Broshi, Maguen (2001).
Bread, Wine, Walls and Scrolls
. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 174.
ISBN
978-1-84127-201-6
.
Archived
from the original on February 10, 2023
. Retrieved
August 19,
2022
.
- ^
Faust, Avraham (August 29, 2012).
Judah in the Neo-Babylonian Period
. Society of Biblical Literature. p. 1.
doi
:
10.2307/j.ctt5vjz28
.
ISBN
978-1-58983-641-9
.
- ^
Jonathan Stokl, Caroline Waerzegger (2015).
Exile and Return: The Babylonian Context
. Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. pp. 7?11, 30, 226.
- ^
Encyclopaedia Judaica
. Vol. 3 (2nd ed.). p. 27.
- ^
Peter Fibiger Bang; Walter Scheidel (2013).
The Oxford Handbook of the State in the Ancient Near East and Mediterranean
. Oxford University Press. pp. 184?187.
ISBN
978-0-19-518831-8
.
Archived
from the original on April 9, 2023
. Retrieved
January 16,
2023
.
- ^
Abraham Malamat (1976).
A History of the Jewish People
. Harvard University Press. pp. 223?239.
ISBN
978-0-674-39731-6
.
- ^
Zissu, Boaz (2018). "Interbellum Judea 70-132 CE: An Archaeological Perspective".
Jews and Christians in the First and Second Centuries: The Interbellum 70?132 CE
. Joshua Schwartz, Peter J. Tomson. Leiden, The Netherlands. p. 19.
ISBN
978-90-04-34986-5
.
OCLC
988856967
.
{{
cite book
}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (
link
)
- ^
Erwin Fahlbusch; Geoffrey William Bromiley (2005).
The Encyclopedia of Christianity
. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. pp. 15?.
ISBN
978-0-8028-2416-5
.
Archived
from the original on April 9, 2023
. Retrieved
January 16,
2023
.
- ^
"Heritage: Civilization and the Jews; The Uses of Adversity." Page 87.
Eban, Abba Solomon. "Heritage: Civilization and the Jews." Summit Books, A Division of Simon and Schuster, Inc. Syracuse, New York: 1984. Page 87.
- ^
Dosick (2007), pp. 59, 60.
- ^
Mosk (2013), p. 143. "Encouraged to move out of the Holy Roman Empire as persecution of their communities intensified during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the Ashkenazi community increasingly gravitated toward Poland."
- ^
Harshav, Benjamin (1999).
The Meaning of Yiddish
. Stanford: Stanford University Press. p. 6. "From the fourteenth and certainly by the sixteenth century, the centre of European Jewry had shifted to Poland, then ... comprising the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (including today's Byelorussia), Crown Poland, Galicia, the Ukraine and stretching, at times, from the Baltic to the Black Sea, from the approaches to Berlin to a short distance from Moscow."
- ^
Lewin, Rhoda G. (1979).
"Stereotype and reality in the Jewish immigrant experience in Minneapolis"
(PDF)
.
Minnesota History
.
46
(7): 259.
Archived
(PDF)
from the original on July 21, 2020
. Retrieved
August 10,
2020
.
- ^
a
b
"Jewish Nobel Prize Winners"
. jinfo.org.
Archived
from the original on December 24, 2018
. Retrieved
October 7,
2011
.
- ^
Mark Smith in "The Early History of God: Yahweh and Other Deities of Ancient Israel" states "Despite the long regnant model that the Canaanites and Israelites were people of fundamentally different culture, archaeological data now casts doubt on this view. The material culture of the region exhibits numerous common points between Israelites and Canaanites in the Iron I period (c. 1200?1000 BCE). The record would suggest that the Israelite culture largely overlapped with and derived from Canaanite culture... In short, Israelite culture was largely Canaanite in nature. Given the information available, one cannot maintain a radical cultural separation between Canaanites and Israelites for the Iron I period." (pp. 6?7). Smith, Mark (2002) "The Early History of God: Yahweh and Other Deities of Ancient Israel" (Eerdman's)
- ^
Rendsberg, Gary (2008). "Israel without the Bible". In Frederick E. Greenspahn. The Hebrew Bible: New Insights and Scholarship. NYU Press, pp. 3?5
- ^
Gnuse, Robert Karl (1997).
No Other Gods: Emergent Monotheism in Israel
. England: Sheffield Academic Press Ltd. pp. 28, 31.
ISBN
1-85075-657-0
.
- ^
Steiner, Richard C. (1997), "Ancient Hebrew", in Hetzron, Robert (ed.),
The Semitic Languages
, Routledge, pp. 145?173,
ISBN
978-0-415-05767-7
- ^
a
b
Dever, William G. (2002).
What Did the Biblical Writers Know and When Did They Know It?
. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.
ISBN
978-0-8028-2126-3
.
p. 99
- ^
Faust 2015
, p.476: "While there is a consensus among scholars that the Exodus did not take place in the manner described in the Bible, surprisingly most scholars agree that the narrative has a historical core, and that some of the highland settlers came, one way or another, from Egypt..".
- ^
Dever, William (2001).
What Did the Biblical Writers Know, and When Did They Know It?
. Eerdmans. pp. 98?99.
ISBN
3-927120-37-5
.
After a century of exhaustive investigation, all respectable archaeologists have given up hope of recovering any context that would make Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob credible "historical figures" [...] archaeological investigation of Moses and the Exodus has similarly been discarded as a fruitless pursuit.
- ^
Finkelstein, Israel; Naaman, Nadav, eds. (1994).
From Nomadism to Monarchy: Archaeological and Historical Aspects of Early Israel
.
Israel Exploration Society
.
ISBN
978-1-880317-20-4
.
- ^
Compare:
Ian Shaw
; Robert Jameson (2002). Ian Shaw (ed.).
A Dictionary of Archaeology
(New ed.). Wiley Blackwell. p. 313.
ISBN
978-0-631-23583-5
.
Archived
from the original on April 9, 2023
. Retrieved
November 1,
2020
.
The Biblical account of the origins of the people of Israel (principally recounted in Numbers, Joshua and Judges) often conflicts with non-Biblical textual sources and with the archaeological evidence for the settlement of Canaan in the late Bronze Age and early Iron Age. [...] Israel is first textually attested as a political entity in Egyptian texts of the late 13th century BCE and the Egyptologist Donald Redford argues that the Israelites must have been emerging as a distinct group within the Canaanite culture during the century or so prior to this. It has been suggested that the early Israelites were an oppressed rural group of Canaanites who rebelled against the more urbanized coastal Canaanites (Gottwald 1979). Alternatively, it has been argued that the Israelites were survivors of the decline in the fortunes of Canaan who established themselves in the highlands at the end of the late Bronze Age (Ahlstrom 1986: 27). Redford, however, makes a good case for equating the very earliest Israelites with a semi-nomadic people in the highlands of central Palestine whom the Egyptians called Shasu (Redford 1992:2689?80; although see Stager 1985 for strong arguments against the identification with the Shasu). These Shasu were a persistent thorn in the side of the Ramessid pharaohs' empire in Syria-Palestine, well-attested in Egytian texts, but their pastoral lifestyle has left scant traces in the archaeological record. By the end of the 13th century BCE, however, the Shasu/Israelites were beginning to establish small settlements in the uplands, the architecture of which closely resembles contemporary Canaanite villages.
- ^
Killebrew, Ann E. (2005).
Biblical Peoples and Ethnicity: An Archeological Study of Egyptians, Canaanites, Philistines, and Early Israel, 1300?1100 B.C.E.
Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature. p. 176.
ISBN
978-1-58983-097-4
.
Archived
from the original on January 17, 2023
. Retrieved
August 12,
2012
.
Much has been made of the scarcity of pig bones at highland sites. Since small quantities of pig bones do appear in Late Bronze Age assemblages, some archaeologists have interpreted this to indicate that the ethnic identity of the highland inhabitants was distinct from Late Bronze Age indigenous peoples (see Finkelstein 1997, 227?230). Brian Hesse and Paula Wapnish (1997) advise caution, however, since the lack of pig bones at Iron I highland settlements could be a result of other factors that have little to do with ethnicity.
- ^
Thomas, Zachary (April 22, 2016).
"Debating the United Monarchy: Let's See How Far We've Come"
.
Biblical Theology Bulletin
.
46
(2): 59?69.
doi
:
10.1177/0146107916639208
.
ISSN
0146-1079
.
S2CID
147053561
.
- ^
Lipschits, Oded (2014). "The history of Israel in the biblical period". In Berlin, Adele; Brettler, Marc Zvi (eds.).
The Jewish Study Bible
(2nd ed.). Oxford University Press. pp. 2107?2119.
ISBN
978-0-19-997846-5
.
Archived
from the original on April 9, 2023
. Retrieved
August 19,
2022
.
As this essay will show, however, the premonarchic period long ago became a literary description of the mythological roots, the early beginnings of the nation and the way to describe the right of Israel on its land. The archeological evidence also does not support the existence of a united monarchy under David and Solomon as described in the Bible, so the rubric of "united monarchy" is best abandoned, although it remains useful for discussing how the Bible views the Israelite past. [...] Although the kingdom of Judah is mentioned in some ancient inscriptions, they never suggest that it was part of a unit comprised of Israel and Judah. There are no extrabiblical indications of a united monarchy called "Israel."
- ^
Wright, Jacob L. (July 2014).
"David, King of Judah (Not Israel)"
.
The Bible and Interpretation
. Archived from
the original
on March 1, 2021
. Retrieved
May 15,
2021
.
- ^
Grabbe, Lester L. (April 28, 2007).
Ahab Agonistes: The Rise and Fall of the Omri Dynasty
. Bloomsbury Publishing USA.
ISBN
978-0-567-25171-8
.
Archived
from the original on April 9, 2023
. Retrieved
August 19,
2022
.
The Tel Dan inscription generated a good deal of debate and a flurry of articles when it first appeared, but it is now widely regarded (a) as genuine and (b) as referring to the Davidic dynasty and the Aramaic kingdom of Damascus.
- ^
Cline, Eric H. (September 28, 2009).
Biblical Archaeology: A Very Short Introduction
. Oxford University Press.
ISBN
978-0-19-971162-8
.
Archived
from the original on April 9, 2023
. Retrieved
August 19,
2022
.
Today, after much further discussion in academic journals, it is accepted by most archaeologists that the inscription is not only genuine but that the reference is indeed to the House of David, thus representing the first allusion found anywhere outside the Bible to the biblical David.
- ^
Mykytiuk, Lawrence J. (January 1, 2004).
Identifying Biblical Persons in Northwest Semitic Inscriptions of 1200-539 B.C.E.
Society of Biblical Lit.
ISBN
978-1-58983-062-2
.
Archived
from the original on April 9, 2023
. Retrieved
August 19,
2022
.
Some unfounded accusations of forgery have had little or no effect on the scholarly acceptance of this inscription as genuine.
- ^
Finkelstein, Israel.
The forgotten kingdom : the archaeology and history of Northern Israel
. p. 74.
ISBN
978-1-58983-910-6
.
OCLC
949151323
.
- ^
Finkelstein, Israel (2013).
The Forgotten Kingdom: the archaeology and history of Northern Israel
. pp. 65?66, 73, 78, 87?94.
ISBN
978-1-58983-911-3
.
OCLC
880456140
.
- ^
Finkelstein, Israel (November 1, 2011).
"Observations on the Layout of Iron Age Samaria"
.
Tel Aviv
.
38
(2): 194?207.
doi
:
10.1179/033443511x13099584885303
.
ISSN
0334-4355
.
S2CID
128814117
.
- ^
Ben-Sasson, Haim Hillel
, ed. (1976).
A History of the Jewish People
. Harvard University Press. p. 142.
ISBN
978-0-674-39731-6
.
Archived
from the original on January 19, 2023
. Retrieved
October 12,
2018
.
Sargon's heir, Sennacherib (705?681), could not deal with Hezekiah's revolt until he gained control of Babylon in 702 BCE.
- ^
"British Museum ? Cuneiform tablet with part of the Babylonian Chronicle (605?594 BCE)"
. Archived from
the original
on October 30, 2014
. Retrieved
October 30,
2014
.
- ^
"ABC 5 (Jerusalem Chronicle) ? Livius"
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Works cited
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edit
]
- Brettler, Marc Zvi
(2010).
How to read the Bible
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Unfolding the Deuteronomistic History
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"The Emergence of Iron Age Israel: On Origins and Habitus"
. In Thomas E. Levy; Thomas Schneider; William H.C. Propp (eds.).
Israel's Exodus in Transdisciplinary Perspective: Text, Archaeology, Culture, and Geoscience
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The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Sacred Texts
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- Frei, Peter (2001). "Persian Imperial Authorization: A Summary". In Watts, James (ed.).
Persia and Torah: The Theory of Imperial Authorization of the Pentateuch
. Atlanta, GA: SBL Press. p. 6.
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Eerdmans Commentary on the Bible
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Eerdmans Commentary on the Bible
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Nahum
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The Book of Amos in Emergent Judah
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Coogan, Michael D.
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"Micah"
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, ed. (2007).
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Further reading
[
edit
]
- Adler, Yonatan (2022).
The Origins of Judaism: An Archaeological-Historical Reappraisal
. New Haven, Conn: Yale University Press.
ISBN
978-0-300-25490-7
.
- Albertz, Rainer (1994) [1992].
A History of Israelite Religion. Vol. 1: From the Beginnings to the End of the Monarchy
. Translated by John Bowden (Reprint ed.). Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press.
ISBN
0-664-21846-6
.
- Albertz, Rainer (1994) [1992].
A History of Israelite Religion. Vol. 2: From the Exile to the Maccabees
. Translated by John Bowden (Reprint ed.). Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press.
ISBN
0-664-21847-4
.
- Allegro, John.
The chosen people: A study of Jewish history from the time of the exile until the revolt of Bar Kocheba
(Andrews, UK, 2015).
- Alpher, Joseph (1986).
Encyclopedia of Jewish history: events and eras of the Jewish people
.
- Cohn-Sherbok, Dan
.
Atlas of Jewish history
(Routledge, 2013).
- Fireberg, H., Glockner, O., & Menachem Zoufala, M., eds. (2020). Being Jewish in 21st Century Central Europe. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter Oldenbourg.
doi
:
10.1515/9783110582369
- Friesel, Evyatar.
Atlas of modern Jewish history
(1990)
online free to borrow
- Gilbert, Martin.
Atlas of Jewish History
(1993)
online free to borrow
- Kobrin, Rebecca and Adam Teller, eds.
Purchasing Power: The Economics of Modern Jewish History
. (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015. viii, 355 pp. Essays by scholars focused on Europe.
- Mendes-Flohr, Paul R.
;
Reinharz, Jehuda
, eds. (1995).
The Jew in the Modern World: A Documentary History
(2nd ed.). Oxford University Press.
ISBN
0-19-507453-X
.
OCLC
30026590
.
- Neusner, Jacob
; Green, William Scott, eds. (1991).
The Origins of Judaism. Religion, History, and Literature in Late Antiquity.
20-volume Set. New York: Garland Press. (Reprinted scholarly essays, with introductions.)
- Neusner, Jacob
(1999).
The Four Stages of Rabbinic Judaism
.
London; New York: Routledge.
- Sachar, Howard M.
The course of modern Jewish history
.
(2nd ed. 2013).
- Schloss, Chaim.
2000 Years of Jewish History
(2002), Heavily illustrated popular history.
- Scheindlin, Raymond P.
A short history of the Jewish people from legendary times to modern statehood
(1998)
online free to borrow
- Sweeney, Marvin A.
(2003) [2000]. "The Religious World of Ancient Israel to 586 BCE". In
Neusner, Jacob
; Avery-Peck, Alan J. (eds.).
The Blackwell Companion to Judaism
(Reprint ed.). Malden, Mass: Blackwell Publ. pp. 20?36.
ISBN
1-57718-058-5
.
- Visotzky, Burton L.
;
Fishman, David E.
, eds. (2018) [1999].
From Mesopotamia to Modernity: Ten Introductions to Jewish History and Literature
(Reprint ed.). London; New York: Routledge.
ISBN
978-0-8133-6717-0
.
France
[
edit
]
- Benbassa, Esther.
The Jews of France: A History from Antiquity to the Present
(2001)
excerpt and text search
;
online
- Birnbaum, Pierre, and Jane Todd.
The Jews of the Republic: A Political History of State Jews in France from Gambetta to Vichy
(1996).
- Birnbaum, Pierre; Kochan, Miriam.
Anti-Semitism in France: A Political History from Leon Blum to the Present
(1992) 317p.
- Cahm, Eric.
The Dreyfus affair in French society and politics
(Routledge, 2014).
- Debre, Simon. "The Jews of France."
Jewish Quarterly Review
3.3 (1891): 367?435. long scholarly description.
online free
- Graetz, Michael, and Jane Todd.
The Jews in Nineteenth-Century France: From the French Revolution to the Alliance Israelite Universelle
(1996)
- Hyman, Paula E.
The Jews of Modern France
(1998)
excerpt and text search
- Hyman, Paula.
From Dreyfus to Vichy: The Remaking of French Jewry, 1906?1939
(Columbia UP, 1979).
online free to borrow
- Schechter, Ronald.
Obstinate Hebrews: Representations of Jews in France, 1715?1815
(Univ of California Press, 2003)
- Taitz, Emily.
The Jews of Medieval France: The Community of Champagne
(1994)
online
Archived
November 30, 2018, at the
Wayback Machine
Russia and Eastern Europe
[
edit
]
- Gitelman, Zvi
(2001).
A Century of Ambivalence: The Jews of Russia and the Soviet Union, 1881 to the Present
.
- Fishman, David
(1996).
Russia's First Modern Jews
. New York University Press.
- Polonsky, Antony.
The Jews in Poland and Russia: A Short History
(2013)
- Weiner, Miriam; Polish State Archives (in cooperation with) (1997).
Jewish Roots in Poland: Pages from the Past and Archival Inventories
. Secaucus, NJ: Miriam Weiner Routes to Roots Foundation.
ISBN
978-0-9656508-0-9
.
OCLC
38756480
.
- Weiner, Miriam; Ukrainian State Archives (in cooperation with); Moldovan National Archives (in cooperation with) (1999).
Jewish Roots in Ukraine and Moldova: Pages from the Past and Archival Inventories
. Secaucus, NJ: Miriam Weiner Routes to Roots Foundation.
ISBN
978-0-9656508-1-6
.
OCLC
607423469
.
United States
[
edit
]
- Fischel, Jack, and Sanford Pinsker, eds.
Jewish-American history and culture : an encyclopedia
(1992)
online free to borrow
External links
[
edit
]