This article is about the history of Israel from pre-historic times to the present. For the history of the modern-day state, seeHistory of Israel (1948–present).
TheCanaanites are archaeologically attested in theMiddle Bronze Age (2100–1550 BCE).[19] There were probably independent or semi-independent city-states. Cities were often surrounded by massive earthworks, resulting in thearchaeological mounds, or 'tells' common in the region today. In the late Middle Bronze Age, theNile Delta in Egypt was settled by Canaanites who maintained close connections with Canaan. During that period, theHyksos, dynasties of Canaanite/Asiatic origin, ruled much ofLower Egypt before being overthrown in the 16th century BCE.[20]
In theLate Bronze Age there was a period of civilizational collapse in the Middle East,[22] Canaan fell into chaos, and Egyptian control ended.[23][24] There is evidence that urban centers such asHazor,Beit She'an,Megiddo,Ekron,Isdud andAscalon were damaged or destroyed.[25] Two groups appear at this time, and are associated with the transition to the Iron Age (they used iron weapons/tools which were better than earlier bronze): theSea Peoples, particularly thePhilistines, who migrated from theAegean world and settled on the southern coast, and theIsraelites, whose settlements dotted the highlands.[20]
Some 2nd millennium inscriptions about the semi-nomadicHabiru people are believed to be connected to theHebrews,[26] who were generally synonymous with the Biblical Israelites.[27] Many scholars regard this connection to be plausible since the two ethnonyms have similar etymologies,[28] although others argue that Habiru refers to asocial class found in every Near Eastern society, including Hebrew societies.[29]
Ancient Israel and Judah: Iron Age to Babylonian period
The earliest recorded evidence of a people by the name of Israel (asysrỉꜣr) occurs in the EgyptianMerneptah Stele, erected for PharaohMerneptah c. 1209 BCE.[30]
Archeological evidence indicates that during the early Iron Age I, hundreds of small villageswere established on the highlands of Canaan on both sides of theJordan River, primarily inSamaria, north of Jerusalem. These villages had populations of up to 400, were largely self-sufficient[31][32] and lived from herding, grain cultivation, and growing vines and olives with some economic interchange.[33] The pottery was plain and undecorated.[20] Writing was known and available for recording, even in small sites.[34]William G. Dever sees this "Israel" in the central highlands as a cultural and probably political entity, more an ethnic group rather than an organized state.[35]
Modern scholars believe that the Israelites and their culture branched out of theCanaanite peoples and their cultures through the development of a distinctmonolatristic—and latermonotheistic—religion centred on a national godYahweh.[36][37][38] According to McNutt, "It is probably safe to assume that sometime duringIron Age I a population began to identify itself as 'Israelite'", differentiating itself from the Canaanites through such markers as the prohibition of intermarriage, an emphasis on family history and genealogy, and religion.[39]
Philistine cooking tools and the prevalence ofpork in their diets, and locally madeMycenaean pottery—which later evolved intobichrome Philistine pottery—all support their foreign origin. Their cities were large and elaborate, which—together with the findings—point to a complex, hierarchical society.[20][40]
Israel Finkelstein believes that the oldest Abraham traditions originated in the Iron Age, which focus on the themes of land and offspring and possibly, his altars inHebron. Abraham'sMesopotamian heritage is not discussed.[41]
In the 10th century BCE, the Israelite kingdoms ofJudah andIsrael emerged. TheHebrew Bible states that these were preceded by asingle kingdom ruled bySaul,David andSolomon, who is said to have built theFirst Temple. Archaeologists have debated whether the united monarchy ever existed,[Notes 1][42][43] with those in favor of such a polity existing further divided between maximalists who support the Biblical accounts,[44] and minimalists who argue that any such polity was likely smaller than suggested.[45][46]
Historians and archaeologists agree that thenorthern Kingdom of Israel existed byca. 900 BCE[47][48] and theKingdom of Judah existed byca. 850 BCE.[49][50] The Kingdom of Israel was the more prosperous of the two kingdoms and soon developed into a regional power;[51] during the days of theOmride dynasty, it controlledSamaria,Galilee, the upperJordan Valley, theSharon and large parts of theTransjordan.[52]Samaria, the capital, was home to one of the largest Iron Age structures in the Levant.[53][54] The Kingdom of Israel's capital moved betweenShechem,Penuel andTirzah before Omri settled it in Samaria, and the royal succession was often settled by a military coup d'état. The Kingdom of Judah was smaller but more stable; the Davidic dynasty ruled the kingdom for the four centuries of its existence, with the capital always in Jerusalem, controlling theJudaean Mountains, most of theShephelah and theBeersheba valley in the northernNegev.[55]
In 854 BCE, according to theKurkh Monoliths,[56] an alliance betweenAhab of Israel andBen Hadad II ofAram-Damascus managed to repulse the incursions of theAssyrians, with a victory at theBattle of Qarqar. Another important discovery of the period is theMesha Stele, aMoabite stele found inDhiban whenEmir Sattam Al-Fayez ledHenry Tristram to it as they toured the lands of the vassals of theBani Sakher.[57] The stele is now in theLouvre. In the stele,Mesha, king of Moab, tells howChemosh, the god of Moab, had been angry with his people and had allowed them to be subjugated to theKingdom of Israel, but at length, Chemosh returned and assisted Mesha to throw off the yoke of Israel and restore the lands of Moab. It refers to Omri, king of Israel,[58] to the god Yahweh,[59][58] and may contain another early reference to the House of David.[59]
The Kingdom of Israel fell to theAssyrians following a long siege of the capitalSamaria around 720 BCE.[60] The records ofSargon II indicate that he captured Samaria and deported 27,290 inhabitants to Mesopotamia.[61] It is likely that Shalmaneser captured the city since both the Babylonian Chronicles and the Hebrew Bible viewed the fall of Israel as the signature event of his reign.[62] TheAssyrian deportations became the basis for theJewish idea of theTen Lost Tribes. Foreign groups were settled by the Assyrians in the territories of the fallen kingdom.[63] TheSamaritans claim to be descended fromIsraelites of ancient Samaria who were not expelled by the Assyrians.
It is believed that refugees from the destruction of Israel moved to Judah, massively expanding Jerusalem and leading to construction of theSiloam Tunnel during the rule of KingHezekiah (ruled 715–686 BCE).[64] TheSiloam inscription, a plaque written in Hebrew left by the construction team, was discovered in the tunnel in 1880s, and is today held by theIstanbul Archaeology Museum.[65]
The writings of four different "prophets" are believed to date from this period:Hosea andAmos in Israel andMicah andIsaiah of Judah. These men were mostly social critics who warned of the Assyrian threat and acted as religious spokesmen. They exercised some form offree speech and may have played a significant social and political role in Israel and Judah.[67][68] They urged rulers and the general populace to adhere togod-conscious ethical ideals, seeing the Assyrian invasions as a divine punishment of the collective resulting from ethical failures.[69]
Under KingJosiah (ruler from 641 to 619 BCE), theBook of Deuteronomy was either rediscovered or written. TheBook of Joshua and the accounts of the kingship of David and Solomon in theBook of Kings are believed to have the same author. The books are known asDeuteronomist and considered to be a key step in the emergence ofmonotheism in Judah. They emerged at a time that Assyria was weakened by the emergence of Babylon and may be a committing to text of pre-writing verbal traditions.[70]
In 587 or 586 BCE, KingNebuchadnezzar II of Babylonconquered Jerusalem, destroyed the First Temple and razed the city.[71][77][78] The Kingdom of Judah was abolished, and many of its citizens wereexiled to Babylon. The former territory of Judah became a Babylonian province calledYehud with its center inMizpah, north of the destroyed Jerusalem.[77]
Babylonian diaspora after 587/86 BCE
Tablets that describe King Jehoiachin's rations were found in the ruins of Babylon. He was eventually released by the Babylonians. According to both the Bible and the Talmud, theDavidic dynasty continued as head ofBabylonian Jewry, called the"Rosh Galut" (exilarch or head of exile). Arab and Jewish sources show that theRosh Galut continued to exist for another 1,500 years in what is now Iraq, ending in the eleventh century.[79]
In 538 BCE,Cyrus the Great of theAchaemenid Empire conquered Babylon and took over its empire.Cyrus issued a proclamation granting religious freedom to all peoples subjugated by the Babylonians (see theCyrus Cylinder). According to the Bible, Jewish exiles in Babylon, including 50,000 Judeans led byZerubabel, returned to Judah to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem. TheSecond Temple was subsequently completed c. 515 BCE.[80] A second group of 5,000, led byEzra andNehemiah, returned to Judah in 456 BCE. The first was empowered by the Persian king to enforcereligious rules, the second had the status of governor and a royal mission to restore the walls of the city.[81] The country remained a province of the Achaemenid empire calledYehud until 332 BCE.
The final text of theTorah is thought to have been written during the Persian period (probably 450–350 BCE). The text was formed by editing and unifying earlier texts.[82] The returningIsraelites adopted anAramaic script (also known as theAshuri alphabet), which they brought back from Babylon; this is the current Hebrew script. TheHebrew calendar closely resembles theBabylonian calendar and probably dates from this period.[83]
The Bible describes tension between the returnees, the elite of the First Temple period,[84] and those who had remained in Judah.[85] It is possible that the returnees, supported by the Persian monarchy, became large landholders at the expense of the people who had remained to work the land in Judah, whose opposition to the Second Temple would have reflected a fear that exclusion from the cult would deprive them of land rights.[84] Judah had become in practice atheocracy, ruled by hereditaryHigh Priests[86] and a Persian-appointed governor, frequently Jewish, charged with keeping order and seeing that tribute was paid.[87]
A Judean military garrison was placed by the Persians onElephantine Island near Aswan in Egypt. In the early 20th century,175 papyrus documents recording activity in this community were discovered, including the "Passover Papyrus", a letter instructing the garrison on how to correctly conduct thePassover feast.[88]
In 332 BCE,Alexander the Great ofMacedon conquered the region as part of hiscampaign against the Achaemenid Empire. After his death in 322 BCE, his generalsdivided the empire andJudea became a frontier region between theSeleucid Empire andPtolemaic Kingdom in Egypt.[89] Following a century of Ptolemaic rule, Judea was conquered by the Seleucid Empire in 200 BCE at thebattle of Panium. Hellenistic rulers generally respected Jewish culture and protected Jewish institutions.[90][91] Judea was ruled by the hereditary office of theHigh Priest of Israel as a Hellenistic vassal.[92] Nevertheless, the region underwent a process ofHellenization, which heightened tensions between Greeks, Hellenized Jews, and observant Jews. These tensions escalated into clashes involving a power struggle for the position of high priest and the character of the holy city of Jerusalem.[93]
WhenAntiochus IV Epiphanes consecrated the temple, forbade Jewish practices, and forcibly imposed Hellenistic norms on the Jews, several centuries of religious tolerance under Hellenistic control came to an end. In 167 BCE, theMaccabean revolt erupted afterMattathias, a Jewish priest of theHasmonean lineage, killed a Hellenized Jew and a Seleucid official who participated in sacrifice to theGreek gods inModi'in. His sonJudas Maccabeus defeated the Seleucids in several battles, and in 164 BCE, he captured Jerusalem and restored temple worship, an event commemorated by the Jewish festival ofHannukah.[94][95]
After Judas' death, his brothersJonathan Apphus andSimon Thassi were able to establish and consolidate a vassal Hasmonean state in Judea, capitalizing on the Seleucid Empire's decline as a result of internal instability andwars with theParthians, and by forging ties with the risingRoman Republic. Hasmonean leaderJohn Hyrcanus was able to gain independence, doubling Judea's territories. He took control ofIdumaea, where he converted the Edomites to Judaism, and invadedScythopolis andSamaria, where he demolished the Samaritan Temple.[96] Hyrcanus was also the first Hasmonean leader tomint coins. Under his sons, kingsAristobulus I andAlexander Jannaeus, Hasmonean Judea became a kingdom, and its territories continued to expand, now also covering thecoastal plain,Galilee and parts of theTransjordan.[97][98][5][99] Some scholars argue that the Hasmonean dynasty also institutionalized the finalJewish biblical canon.[100]
Under Hasmonean rule, thePharisees,Sadducees and the mysticEssenes emerged as the principal Jewish social movements. The Pharisee sageSimeon ben Shetach is credited with establishing the first schools based aroundmeeting houses.[101] This was a key step in the emergence ofRabbinical Judaism. After Jannaeus' widow, queenSalome Alexandra, died in 67 BCE, her sonsHyrcanus II andAristobulus II engaged in a civil war over succession. The conflicting parties requestedPompey's assistance on their behalf, which paved the way for a Roman takeover of the kingdom.[102]
In 63 BCE, theRoman Republic conquered Judaea, ending Jewish independence under the Hasmoneans.[103] Roman generalPompey intervened in adynastic civil war and, aftercapturing Jerusalem, reinstatedHyrcanus II as high priest but denied him the title of king.[104] Rome soon installed theHerodian dynasty—ofIdumean descent but Jewish by conversion—as a loyal replacement for the nationalist Hasmoneans.[105] In 37 BCE,Herod the Great, the firstclient king of this line, took power after defeating the restored Hasmonean kingAntigonus II Mattathias.[106] Herod imposed heavy taxes, suppressed opposition, and centralized authority, which fostered widespread resentment.[103] Herod also carried out major monumental construction projects throughout his kingdom, and significantly expanded theSecond Temple, which he transformed into one of the largest religious structures in the ancient world.[107] After his death in 4 BCE, his kingdom was divided among his sons into atetrarchy under continued Roman oversight.[106]
In 6 CE, Roman emperorAugustus transformedJudaea into aRoman province, deposing its last Jewish ruler,Herod Archelaus, and appointing a Roman governor in his place.[103][104] That same year, acensus triggered a small uprising byJudas of Galilee, the founder of a movement that rejected foreign authority and recognized only God as king.[104][103] Over the next six decades, with the brief exception of a short period of Jewish autonomy under the client kingHerod Agrippa I,[103] the province remained under direct Roman administration. Some governors ruled with brutality and showed little regard for Jewish religious sensitivities, deepening resentment among the local population.[108][105] This discontent was also fueled by poor governance, corruption, and growing economic inequality, along with rising tensions between Jews and neighboring populations over ethnic, religious, and territorial disputes.[108][105] At the same time, collective memory of the Maccabean revolt and the period of Hasmonean independence continued to inspire hopes for national liberation from Roman control.[104][109]
In 64 CE, the Temple High PriestJoshua ben Gamla introduced a religious requirement for Jewish boys to learn to read from the age of six. Over the next few hundred years this requirement became steadily more ingrained in Jewish tradition.[110]
The Jewish–Roman wars had a devastating impact on the Jewish people, transforming them from a major population in the Eastern Mediterranean into a dispersed and persecuted minority.[114] The First Jewish-Roman War culminated in thedestruction of Jerusalem and other towns and villages in Judaea, resulting in significant loss of life and a considerable segment of the population being uprooted or displaced.[115] Those who remained were stripped of any form of political autonomy.[116] Subsequently, the brutal suppression of the Bar Kokhba revolt resulted in even more severe consequences. Judea witnessed a significant depopulation, as many Jews were killed, expelled, or sold into slavery.[6][117] The outcome of the conflict marked the termination of efforts to reestablish a Jewish state until the modern era.[118] Jews were banned from residing in the vicinity of Jerusalem, which the Romans rebuilt into the pagan colony ofAelia Capitolina, and the province of Judaea was renamedSyria Palaestina. Collectively, these events enhanced the role ofJewish diaspora, relocating the Jewish demographic and cultural center toGalilee and eventually toBabylonia, with smaller communities across the Mediterranean, theMiddle East, and beyond.
The Jewish–Roman wars also had a major impact onJudaism, after the central worship site ofSecond Temple Judaism, theSecond Temple in Jerusalem, was destroyed byTitus's troops in 70 CE.[119] The destruction of the Temple led to a transformation in Jewish religious practices, emphasizingprayer,Torah study, and communal gatherings insynagogues. This pivotal shift laid the foundation for the emergence ofRabbinic Judaism, which has been the dominant form of Judaism sincelate antiquity, after the codification of theBabylonian Talmud.[120]
As a result of the disastrous effects of the Bar Kokhba revolt, Jewish presence in the region significantly dwindled.[121] Over the next centuries, more Jews left to communities in theDiaspora, especially the large, speedily growing Jewish communities inBabylonia andArabia.[122] Others remained in the Land of Israel, where the spiritual and demographic center shifted from the depopulated Judea toGalilee.[123][124][125] Jewish presence also continued in the southernHebron Hills, inEin Gedi, and on the coastal plain.[9][123] TheMishnah and theJerusalem Talmud, huge compendiums of Rabbinical discussions, were compiled during the 2nd to 4th centuries CE inTiberias andJerusalem.[126]
Following the revolt, Judea's countryside was penetrated bypagan populations,[127] including migrants from the nearby provinces ofSyria,Phoenicia, andArabia,[128][129] whereas Aelia Capitolina, its immediate vicinity, and administrative centers were now inhabited by Roman veterans and settlers from the western parts of the empire.[130]
The Romans permitted a hereditary Rabbinical Patriarch from theHouse of Hillel, called the "Nasi", to represent the Jews in dealings with the Romans. One prominent figure wasJudah ha-Nasi, credited with compiling the final version of theMishnah, a vast collection ofJewish oral traditions. He also emphasized the importance of education in Judaism, leading to requirements that illiterate Jews be treated as outcasts. This might have contributed to some illiterate Jews converting to Christianity.[131] Jewish seminaries, such as those atShefaram andBet Shearim, continued to produce scholars. The best of these became members of theSanhedrin,[132] which was located first atSepphoris and later at Tiberias.[133] In the Galillee, many synagogues have been found dating from this period,[134] and theburial site of the Sanhedrin leaders was discovered inBeit She'arim.[135][136] In the 3rd century, the Roman Empire faced aneconomic crisis and imposed heavy taxation to fund wars of imperial succession. This situation prompted additional Jewish migration from Syria Palaestina to theSasanian Empire, known for its more tolerant environment; there, a flourishing Jewish community with importantTalmudic academies thrived inBabylonia, engaging in a notable rivalry with theTalmudic academies of Palaestina.[137]
Early in the 4th century, the EmperorConstantine madeConstantinople the capital of theEast Roman Empire and madeChristianity an accepted religion. His motherHelena made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem (326–328) and led the construction of theChurch of the Nativity (birthplace of Jesus in Bethlehem), theChurch of the Holy Sepulchre (burial site of Jesus in Jerusalem) and other key churches that still exist. The name Jerusalem was restored to Aelia Capitolina and became a Christian city. Jews were still banned from living in Jerusalem, but were allowed to visit and worship at the site of the ruined temple.[138] Over the course of the next century Christians worked to eradicate "paganism", leading to the destruction of classical Roman traditions and eradication of their temples.[139] In 351–2, anotherJewish revolt in the Galilee erupted against a corrupt Roman governor.[140]
Heraclius returning the True Cross to Jerusalem, 15th-century painting by Miguel Ximénez
The Roman Empire split in 390 CE and the region became part of the Eastern Roman Empire, known as theByzantine Empire. Under Byzantine rule, much of the region and its non-Jewish population were won over byChristianity, which eventually became the dominant religion in the region. The presence of holy sites drewChristian pilgrims, some of whom chose to settle, contributing to the rise of a Christian majority. Christian authorities encouraged this pilgrimage movement and appropriated lands, constructing magnificentchurches at locations linked to biblical narratives.[141] Additionally, monks established monasteries near pagan settlements, encouraging the conversion of local pagans.[127]
During the Byzantine period, the Jewish presence in the region declined, and it is believed that Jews lost their majority status in Palestine in the fourth century.[142] While Judaism remained the sole non-Christian religion tolerated, restrictions on Jews gradually increased, prohibiting the construction of new places of worship, holding public office, or owning Christian slaves.[143] In 425, after the death of the lastNasi,Gamliel VI, theNasi office and theSanhedrin were officially abolished, and the standing of yeshivot weakened. The leadership void was gradually filled by the Jewish center inBabylonia, which would assume a leading role in the Jewish world for generations after the Byzantine period.[141]
During the 5th and 6th centuries CE, the region witnessed a series ofSamaritan revolts against Byzantine rule. Their suppression resulted in the decline of Samaritan presence and influence, and further consolidated Christian domination.[144] Though it is acknowledged that some Jews and Samaritans converted to Christianity during the Byzantine period, the reliable historical records are limited, and they pertain to individual conversions rather than entire communities.[123][145]
In 611,Khosrow II, ruler ofSassanid Persia,invaded the Byzantine Empire. He washelped by Jewish fighters recruited byBenjamin of Tiberias andcaptured Jerusalem in 614.[146] The "True Cross" was captured by the Persians. The JewishHimyarite Kingdom in Yemen may also have provided support.Nehemiah ben Hushiel was made governor of Jerusalem. Christian historians of the period claimed the Jews massacred Christians in the city, but there is no archeological evidence of destruction, leading modern historians to question their accounts.[147][148][149] In 628, Kavad II (son of Kosrow) returned Palestine and the True Cross to the Byzantines and signed a peace treaty with them. Following the Byzantine re-entry,Heraclius massacred the Jewish population of Galilee and Jerusalem, while renewing the ban on Jews entering the latter.[150]
In 661,Mu'awiya I was crowned Caliph in Jerusalem, becoming the first of the (Damascus-based)Umayyad dynasty. In 691, Umayyad CaliphAbd al-Malik (685–705) constructed theDome of the Rock shrine on the Temple Mount, where the two Jewish temples had been located. A second building, theAl-Aqsa Mosque, was also erected on the Temple Mount in 705. Both buildings were rebuilt in the 10th century following a series of earthquakes.[152]
In 750, Arab discrimination against non-Arab Muslims led to theAbbasid Revolution and the Umayyads were replaced by theAbbasid Caliphs who built a new city,Baghdad, to be their capital. This period is known as theIslamic Golden Age, the Arab Empire was the largest in the world and Baghdad the largest and richest city. Both Arabs and minorities prospered across the region and much scientific progress was made. There were however setbacks: During the 8th century, the CaliphUmar II introduced a law requiring Jews and Christians to wear identifying clothing. Jews were required to wearyellow stars round their neck and on their hats, Christians had to wear Blue. Clothing regulations arose during repressive periods of Arab rule and were more designed to humiliate then persecute non-Muslims.A poll tax was imposed on all non-Muslims by Islamic rulers and failure to pay could result in imprisonment or worse.[153]
In 982, CaliphAl-Aziz Billah of the Cairo-basedFatimid dynasty conquered the region. The Fatimids were followers ofIsma'ilism, a branch ofShia Islam and claimed descent fromFatima, Mohammed's daughter. Around the year 1010, theChurch of Holy Sepulchre (believed to be Jesus burial site), was destroyed by FatimidCaliph al-Hakim, who relented ten years later and paid for it to be rebuilt. In 1020 al-Hakim claimed divine status and the newly formedDruze religion gave him the status of a messiah.[152]
Demographic changes
Although the Arab conquest was relatively peaceful and did not cause widespread destruction, it did alter the country's demographics significantly.[154] Over the ensuing several centuries, the region experienced a drastic decline in its population, from an estimated 1 million during Roman and Byzantine times to some 300,000 by the early Ottoman period. This demographic collapse was accompanied by a slow process ofIslamization, that resulted from the flight of non-Muslim populations, immigration of Muslims, and localconversion. The majority of the remaining populace belonged to the lowest classes. While the Arab conquerors themselves left the area after the conquest and moved on to other places, the settlement of Arab tribes in the area both before and after the conquest also contributed to the Islamization.[155][156][154] As a result, the Muslim population steadily grew and the area became gradually dominated by Muslims on a political and social level.[123][157]
During the early Islamic period, manyChristians andSamaritans, belonging to the Byzantine upper class, migrated from the coastal cities to northern Syria and Cyprus, which were still under Byzantine control, while others fled to the central highlands and the Transjordan. As a result, the coastal towns, formerly important economic centers connected with the rest of the Byzantine world, were emptied of most of their residents. Some of these cities—namelyAshkelon,Acre,Arsuf, andGaza—now fortified border towns, were resettled by Muslim populations, who developed them into significant Muslim centers. The region ofSamaria also underwent a process of Islamization as a result of waves of conversion among the Samaritan population and the influx of Muslims into the area.[154][156] The predominantlyJacobite Monophysitic Christian population had been hostile to Byzantium orthodoxy, and at times for that reason welcomed Muslim rule. There is no strong evidence for forced conversion, or that the jizya tax significantly affected such changes.[158]
The demographic situation in Palestine was further altered by urban decline under the Abbasids, and it is thought that the749 earthquake hastened this process by causing an increase in the number of Jews, Christians, and Samaritans who emigrated to diaspora communities while also leaving behind others who remained in the devastated cities and poor villages until they converted to Islam.[123] Historical records and archeological evidence suggest that many Samaritans converted under Abbasid and Tulunid rule, after suffering through severe difficulties such droughts, earthquakes, religious persecution, heavy taxes and anarchy.[156] The same region also saw the settlement of Arabs. Over the period, the Samaritan population drastically decreased, with the rural Samaritan population converting to Islam, and small urban communities remaining in Nablus and Caesarea, as well as in Cairo, Damascus, Aleppo and Sarepta.[159] Nevertheless, the Muslim population remained a minority in a predominantly Christian area, and it is likely that this status persisted until the Crusader period.[123]
In 1095,Pope Urban II called upon Christians to wage a holy war and recapture Jerusalem from Muslim rule. Responding to this call, Christians launched theFirst Crusade in the same year, a military campaign aimed at retaking theHoly Land, ultimately resulting in the successfulsiege and conquest of Jerusalem in 1099.[160] In the same year, the Crusaders conqueredBeit She'an andTiberias, and in the following decade, they captured coastal cities with the support ofItalian city-state fleets, establishing these coastal ports as crucial strongholds for Crusader rule in the region.[161]
Following the First Crusade, severalCrusader states were established in the Levant, with theKingdom of Jerusalem (Regnum Hierosolymitanum) assuming a preeminent position and enjoying special status among them. The population consisted predominantly of Muslims, Christians, Jews, and Samaritans, while the Crusaders remained a minority and relied on the local population who worked the soil. The region saw the construction of numerousrobust castles and fortresses, yet efforts to establish permanent European villages proved unsuccessful.[161]
Around 1180,Raynald of Châtillon, ruler ofTransjordan, caused increasing conflict with theAyyubid SultanSaladin (Salah-al-Din), leading to the defeat of the Crusaders in the 1187Battle of Hattin (aboveTiberias). Saladin was able to peacefully take Jerusalem and conquered most of the former Kingdom of Jerusalem. Saladin's court physician wasMaimonides, a refugee fromAlmohad (Muslim) persecution inCórdoba, Spain, where all non-Muslim religions had been banned.[162]
The Christian world's response to the loss of Jerusalem came in theThird Crusade of 1190. After lengthy battles and negotiations,Richard the Lionheart and Saladin concluded theTreaty of Jaffa in 1192 whereby Christians were granted free passage to make pilgrimages to the holy sites, while Jerusalem remained under Muslim rule.[163] In 1229, Jerusalem peacefully reverted into Christian control as part of a treaty between Holy Roman EmperorFrederick II and Ayyubid sultanal-Kamil that ended theSixth Crusade.[164] In 1244, Jerusalem was sacked by theKhwarezmianTatars who decimated the city's Christian population, drove out the Jews and razed the city.[165] The Khwarezmians were driven out by the Ayyubids in 1247.
Between 1258 and 1291, the area was thefrontier between Mongol invaders (occasional Crusader allies) and theMamluks of Egypt. The conflict impoverished the country and severely reduced the population.In Egypt a caste of warrior slaves, known as theMamluks, gradually took control of the kingdom. The Mamluks were mostly ofTurkish origin, and were bought as children and then trained in warfare. They were highly prized warriors, who gave rulers independence of the native aristocracy. In Egypt they took control of the kingdom following a failed invasion by the Crusaders (Seventh Crusade). The first Mamluk Sultan,Qutuz of Egypt, defeated the Mongols in theBattle of Ain Jalut ("Goliath's spring" nearEin Harod), ending the Mongol advances. He was assassinated by one of his Generals,Baibars, who went on to eliminate most of the Crusader outposts. TheMamluks ruled Palestine until 1516, regarding it as part ofSyria. InHebron, Jews were banned from worshipping at theCave of the Patriarchs (the second-holiest site in Judaism); they were only allowed to enter 7 steps inside the site[166] and the ban remained in place until Israel assumed control of the West Bank in theSix-Day War.[167][undue weight? –discuss] The Egyptian Mamluk sultanAl-Ashraf Khalil conquered the last outpost of Crusader rule in1291.
The Mamluks, continuing the policy of the Ayyubids, made the strategic decision to destroy the coastal area and to bring desolation to many of its cities, fromTyre in the north to Gaza in the south. Ports were destroyed and various materials were dumped to make them inoperable. The goal was to prevent attacks from the sea, given the fear of the return of the Crusaders. This had a long-term effect on those areas, which remained sparsely populated for centuries. The activity in that time concentrated more inland.[168]
With the 1492expulsion of Jews from Spain and 1497persecution of Jews and Muslims by Manuel I of Portugal, many Jews moved eastward, with some deciding to settle in the Mamluk Palestine. As a consequence, the local Jewish community underwent significant rejuvenation. The influx ofSephardic Jews began under Mamluk rule in the 15th century, and continued throughout the 16th century and especially after the Ottoman conquest. As city-dwellers, the majority of Sephardic Jews preferred to settle in urban areas, mainly inSafed but also inJerusalem, while theMusta'arbi community comprised the majority of the villagers' Jews.[169]
With the more favorable conditions that followed the Ottoman conquest, the immigration of Jews fleeing Catholic Europe, which had already begun under Mamluk rule, continued, and soon an influx of exiledSephardic Jews came to dominate the Jewish community in the area.[169]
In 1558,Selim II (1566–1574), successor to Suleiman, whose wifeNurbanu Sultan was Jewish,[170] gave control of Tiberias to DoñaGracia Mendes Nasi, one of the richest women in Europe and an escapee from theInquisition. She encouraged Jewish refugees to settle in the area and established a Hebrew printing press. Safed became a centre for study of theKabbalah and other Jewish religious studies, culminating withJoseph Karo's writing of theShulchan Aruch – published in 1565 in Venice – which became the near-universal standard of Jewish religious law. Doña Nasi's nephew,Joseph Nasi, was made governor of Tiberias and he encouraged Jewish settlement from Italy.[171]
In 1660, aDruze power struggle led to the destruction ofSafed andTiberias.[172][173] In the late 18th century a local Arabsheikh,Zahir al-Umar, created ade facto independent Emirate in the Galilee. Ottoman attempts to subdue the Sheikh failed, but after Zahir's death the Ottomans restored their rule in the area.[174]
Jewish workers inKerem Avraham neighbourhood of Jerusalem (c. 1850s)
In 1838, there was anotherDruze revolt. In 1839Moses Montefiore met with Muhammed Pasha in Egypt and signed an agreement to establish 100–200 Jewish villages in theDamascus Eyalet ofOttoman Syria,[177] but in 1840 the Egyptians withdrew before the deal was implemented, returning the area to Ottoman governorship. In 1844, Jews constituted the largest population group in Jerusalem. By 1896 Jews constituted an absolute majority in Jerusalem,[178] but the overall population in Palestine was 88% Muslim and 9% Christian.[179]
Between 1882 and 1903, approximately 35,000 Jews moved to Palestine, known as theFirst Aliyah.[180] In the Russian Empire, Jews faced growingpersecution and legal restrictions. Half the world's Jews lived in the Russian Empire, where they were restricted to living in thePale of Settlement.Severe pogroms in the early 1880s andlegal repression led to 2 million Jews emigrating from the Russian Empire. 1.5 million went to the United States. Popular destinations were also Germany, France, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Argentina and Palestine.[181][182]
The Zionist movement began in earnest in 1882 withLeon Pinsker's pamphletAuto-Emancipation, which argued for the creation of a Jewish national homeland as a means to avoid the violence plaguing Jewish communities in Eastern Europe. At the 1884Katowice Conference, Russian Jews established theBilu andHovevei Zion ("Lovers of Zion") movements with the aim of settling in Palestine. In 1878, Russian Jewish emigrants established the village ofPetah Tikva ("The Beginning of Hope"), followed byRishon LeZion ("First to Zion") in 1882. The existing Ashkenazi communities were concentrated in theFour Holy Cities, extremely poor and relied on donations (halukka) from groups abroad, while the new settlements were small farming communities, but still relied on funding by the French Baron,Edmond James de Rothschild, who sought to establish profitable enterprises. Many early migrants could not find work and left, but despite the problems, more settlements arose and the community grew. After the Ottoman conquest of Yemen in 1881, a large number ofYemenite Jews also emigrated to Palestine, often driven byMessianism.[183]
Between 1904 and 1914, around 40,000 Jews settled in the area now known as Israel (theSecond Aliyah). In 1908, the World Zionist Organization set up the Palestine Bureau (also known as the "Eretz Israel Office") in Jaffa and began to adopt a systematic Jewish settlement policy.[185] In 1909, residents of Jaffa bought land outside the city walls and built the first entirely Hebrew-speaking town,Ahuzat Bayit (later renamedTel Aviv).[186]
In 1915–1916,Talaat Pasha of theYoung Turks forced around a million Armenian Christians from their homes in Eastern Turkey, marching them south through Syria, in what is now known as theArmenian genocide. The number of dead is thought to be around 700,000. Hundreds of thousands were forcibly converted to Islam. A community of survivors settled in Jerusalem, one of whom developed the nowiconic Armenian pottery.[187]
DuringWorld War I, most Jews supported the Germans because they were fighting the Russians who were regarded as the Jews' main enemy.[188] In Britain, the government sought Jewish support for the war effort for a variety of reasons including an antisemitic perception of "Jewish power" in the Ottoman Empire'sYoung Turks movement which was based inThessaloniki, the most Jewish city in Europe (40% of the 160,000 population were Jewish).[189] The British also hoped to secure American Jewish support for US intervention on Britain's behalf.
There was already sympathy for the aims ofZionism in the British government, including the Prime MinisterLloyd George.[190] Over 14,000 Jews were expelled by the Ottoman military commander from the Jaffa area in 1914–1915, due to suspicions they were subjects of Russia, an enemy, or Zionists wishing to detach Palestine from the Ottoman Empire,[191] and when theentire population, including Muslims, of both Jaffa and Tel Aviv was subject to an expulsion order in April 1917, the affected Jews could not return until theBritish conquest ended in 1918, which drove the Turks out of Southern Syria.[192] A year prior, in 1917, the British foreign minister,Arthur Balfour, sent a public letter to the BritishLord Rothschild, a leading member of his party and leader of the Jewish community. The letter subsequently became known as theBalfour Declaration. It stated that the British Government "view[ed] with favour the establishment inPalestine of a national home for the Jewish people". The declaration provided the British government with a pretext for claiming and governing the country.[193] New Middle Eastern boundaries were decidedby an agreement between British and French bureaucrats.
AJewish Legion composed largely of Zionist volunteers organized byZe'ev Jabotinsky andJoseph Trumpeldor participated in the British invasion. It also participated in the failedGallipoli Campaign. TheNili Zionist spy network provided the British with details of Ottoman plans and troop concentrations.[194]
The Ottoman Empire chose to ally itself with Germany when the first war began. Arab leaders dreamed of freeing themselves from Ottoman rule and establishing self-government or forming an independent Arab state. Therefore, Britain contactedHussein bin Ali of theKingdom of Hejaz and proposed cooperation. Together they organized theArab revolt that Britain supplied with very large quantities of rifles and ammunition. In cooperation between British artillery and Arab infantry, the city ofAqaba on the Red Sea was conquered. The Arab army then continued north while Britain attacked the ottomans from the sea. In 1917–1918, Jerusalem and Damascus were conquered from the ottomans. Britain then broke off cooperation with the Arab army. It turned out that Britain had already entered into the secretSykes–Picot Agreement that meant that only Britain and France would be allowed to administer the land conquered from the Ottoman Empire.
TheBritish Mandate (in effect, British rule) of Palestine, including the Balfour Declaration, was confirmed by theLeague of Nations in 1922 and came into effect in 1923. The territory ofTransjordan was also covered by the Mandate but under separate rules that excluded it from the Balfour Declaration. Britain signed a treaty with the United States (which did not join the League of Nations) in which the United States endorsed the terms of the Mandate,[195] which was approved unanimously by both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives.
The Balfour declaration was published on the 2nd of November 1917 and theBolsheviks seized control of Russia a week later. This led tocivil war in the Russian Empire. Between 1918 and 1921, a series ofpogroms led to the death of at least 100,000 Jews (mainly in what is now Ukraine), and the displacement as refugees of a further 600,000. This led to further migration to Palestine.[196][197] Between 1919 and 1923, some 40,000 Jews arrived in Palestine in what is known as theThird Aliyah.[180] Many of the Jewish immigrants of this period wereSocialist Zionists and supported theBolsheviks.[198] The migrants became known as pioneers (halutzim), experienced or trained in agriculture who established self-sustaining communes calledkibbutzim.[199] Malarial marshes in theJezreel Valley andHefer Plain were drained and converted to agricultural use.[200] Land was bought by theJewish National Fund, a Zionist charity that collected money abroad for that purpose.[201]
After the Frenchvictory over theArab Kingdom of Syria ended hopes of Arab independence, there were clashes between Arabs and Jews in Jerusalem during the1920 Nebi Musa riots and inJaffa the following year, leading to the establishment of theHaganah underground Jewish militia.[202]AJewish Agency was created which issued the entry permits granted by the British and distributed funds donated by Jews abroad.[203] Between 1924 and 1929, over 80,000 Jews arrived in theFourth Aliyah,[180] fleeing antisemitism and heavy tax burdens imposed on trade in Poland and Hungary, inspired by Zionism[204] and motivated by the closure of United States borders by theImmigration Act of 1924 which severely limited immigration from Eastern and Southern Europe.[204]
Pinhas Rutenberg, a formerCommissar of St Petersburg in Russia's pre-BolshevikKerensky Government, built the first electricity generators in Palestine. In 1925, the Jewish Agency established theHebrew University in Jerusalem and theTechnion (technological university) in Haifa. British authorities introduced thePalestine pound (worth 1000 "mils") in 1927, replacing theEgyptian pound as the unit of currency in the Mandate.[205]
From 1928, the democratically elected Va'ad Leumi (Jewish National Council or JNC) became the main administrative institution of the Palestine Jewish community (Yishuv) and included non-Zionist Jews. As the Yishuv grew, the JNC adopted more government-type functions, such as education, health care, and security. With British permission, the Va'ad Leumi raised its own taxes[206] and ran independent services for the Jewish population.[207]
In 1929, tensions grew over the Kotel (Wailing Wall), the holiest spot in the world for modern Judaism,[citation needed] which was then a narrow alleyway where the British banned Jews from using chairs or curtains: Many of the worshippers were elderly and needed seats; they also wanted to separate women from men. TheMufti of Jerusalem said it was Muslim property and deliberately had cattle driven through the alley.[citation needed] He alleged that the Jews were seeking control of theTemple Mount. This provided the spark for the August1929 Palestine riots. Themain victims were the (non-Zionist) ancient Jewish community at Hebron, who were massacred. The riots led to right-wing Zionists establishing their own militia in 1931, theIrgun Tzvai Leumi (National Military Organization, known in Hebrew by its acronym "Etzel"), which was committed to a more aggressive policy towards the Arab population.[208]
During the interwar period, the perception grew that there was an irreconciliable tension between the two Mandatory functions, of providing for a Jewish homeland in Palestine, and the goal of preparing the country for self-determination.[209] The British rejected the principle of majority rule or any other measure that would give the Arab population, who formed the majority of the population, control over Palestinian territory.[210]
Between 1929 and 1938, 250,000 Jews arrived in Palestine (Fifth Aliyah).[211] In 1933, the Jewish Agency and the Nazis negotiated theHa'avara Agreement (transfer agreement), under which 50,000 German Jews would be transferred to Palestine. The Jews' possessions were confiscated and in return the Nazis allowed the Ha'avara organization to purchase 14 million pounds worth of German goods for export to Palestine and use it to compensate the immigrants. Although many Jews wanted to leave Nazi Germany, the Nazis prevented Jews from taking any money and restricted them to two suitcases so few could pay the British entry tax.[citation needed] The agreement was controversial and the Labour Zionist leader who negotiated the agreement,Haim Arlosoroff, was assassinated in Tel Aviv in 1933. The assassination was used by the British to create tension between the Zionist left and the Zionist right.[citation needed] Arlosoroff had been the boyfriend ofMagda Ritschel some years before she marriedJoseph Goebbels.[212] There has been speculation that he was assassinated by the Nazis to hide the connection but there is no evidence for it.[213]
Between 1933 and 1936, 174,000 arrived despite the large sums the British demanded for immigration permits: Jews had to prove they had 1,000 pounds for families with capital (equivalent to £85,824 in 2023), 500 pounds if they had a profession and 250 pounds if they were skilled labourers.[214][better source needed]
Jewish immigration and Nazi propaganda contributed to the large-scale1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine, a largely nationalist uprising directed at ending British rule. The head of the Jewish Agency, Ben-Gurion, responded to the Arab Revolt with a policy of "Havlagah"—self-restraint and a refusal to be provoked by Arab attacks in order to prevent polarization. The Etzel group broke off from the Haganah in opposition to this policy.[215]
The British responded to the revolt with thePeel Commission (1936–37), a public inquiry that recommended that an exclusively Jewish territory be created in theGalilee and western coast (including thepopulation transfer of 225,000 Arabs); the rest becoming an exclusively Arab area. The two main Jewish leaders,Chaim Weizmann andDavid Ben-Gurion, had convinced theZionist Congress to approve equivocally the Peel recommendations as a basis for more negotiation.[216][217][218] The plan was rejected outright by the Palestinian Arab leadership and they renewed the revolt, which caused the British to abandon the plan as unworkable.[219][220]
Testifying before the Peel Commission, Weizmann said "There are in Europe 6,000,000 people ... for whom the world is divided into places where they cannot live and places where they cannot enter."[221] In 1938, the US called aninternational conference to address the question of the vast numbers of Jews trying to escape Europe. Britain made its attendance contingent on Palestine being kept out of the discussion.[222] No Jewish representatives were invited. The Nazis proposed their own solution: that the Jews of Europe be shipped to Madagascar (theMadagascar Plan). The agreement proved fruitless, and the Jews were stuck in Europe.[223][224]
With millions of Jews trying to leave Europe and every country closed to Jewish migration, the British decided to close Palestine. TheWhite Paper of 1939, recommended that an independent Palestine, governed jointly by Arabs and Jews, be established within 10 years. The White Paper agreed to allow 75,000 Jewish immigrants into Palestine over the period 1940–44, after which migration would require Arab approval. Both the Arab and Jewish leadership rejected the White Paper. In March 1940 the British High Commissioner for Palestine issued an edict banning Jews from purchasing land in 95% of Palestine. Jews now resorted to illegal immigration: (Aliyah Bet or "Ha'apalah"), often organized by theMossad Le'aliyah Bet and the Irgun. With no outside help and no countries ready to admit them, very few Jews managed to escape Europe between 1939 and 1945. Those caught by the British were mostlyimprisoned in Mauritius.[225][226]
During theSecond World War, the Jewish Agency worked to establish a Jewish army that would fight alongside the British forces. Churchill supported the plan but British military and government opposition led to its rejection. The British demanded that the number of Jewish recruits match the number of Arab recruits.[227]
In June 1940, Italy declared war on the British Commonwealth and sided with Germany. Within a month, Italian planesbombed Tel Aviv and Haifa, inflicting multiple casualties.[228] In May 1941, thePalmach was established to defend theYishuv against the plannedAxis invasion throughNorth Africa. The British refusal to provide arms to the Jews, even when Rommel's forces wereadvancing through Egypt in June 1942 (intent on occupying Palestine), and the 1939 White Paper led to the emergence of a Zionist leadership in Palestine that believed conflict with Britain was inevitable.[229] Despite this, the Jewish Agency called on Palestine's Jewish youth to volunteer for the British Army. 30,000 Palestinian Jews and 12,000 Palestinian Arabs enlisted in the British armed forces during the war.[230][231] In June 1944 the British agreed to create aJewish Brigade that would fight in Italy.
Approximately 1.5 million Jews around the world served in every branch of the allied armies, mainly in the Soviet and US armies. 200,000 Jews died serving in the Soviet army alone.[232]
A small group (about 200 activists), dedicated to resisting the British administration in Palestine, broke away from the Etzel (which advocated support for Britain during the war) and formed the "Lehi" (Stern Gang), led byAvraham Stern.[233] In 1942, theUSSR released the Revisionist Zionist leaderMenachem Begin from theGulag and he went to Palestine, taking command of the Etzel organization with a policy of increased conflict against the British.[234] At about the same timeYitzhak Shamir escaped from thecamp in Eritrea where the British were holding Lehi activists without trial, taking command of the Lehi (Stern Gang).[235]
Jews in the Middle East were also affected by the war. Most of North Africa came under Nazi control and many Jews were used as slaves.[236] The 1941pro-Axis coup in Iraq was accompanied bymassacres of Jews. The Jewish Agency put together plans for a last stand in the event of Rommel invading Palestine (the Nazis planned to exterminate Palestine's Jews).[237]
Between 1939 and 1945, the Nazis,aided by local forces, led systematic efforts to kill every person of Jewish extraction in Europe (TheHolocaust), causing the deaths of approximately 6 million Jews. A quarter of those killed were children. The Polish and German Jewish communities, which played an important role in defining the pre-1945 Jewish world, mostly ceased to exist. In the United States and Palestine, Jews of European origin became disconnected from their families and roots. As the Holocaust mainly affectedAshkenazi Jews,Sepharadi andMizrahi Jews, who had been a minority, became a much more significant factor in the Jewish world. Those Jews who survived in central Europe, weredisplaced persons (refugees); anAnglo-American Committee of Inquiry, established to examine the Palestine issue, surveyed their ambitions and found that over 95% wanted to migrate to Palestine.[238][239][240]
In the Zionist movement the moderate Pro-British (and British citizen) Weizmann, whose son died flying in theRAF, was undermined by Britain's anti-Zionist policies.[241] Leadership of the movement passed to the Jewish Agency in Palestine, now led by the anti-British Socialist-Zionist party (Mapai) led byDavid Ben-Gurion.[242]
TheBritish Empire was severely weakened by the war. In the Middle East, the war had made Britain conscious of its dependence on Arab oil. Shortly afterVE Day, the Labour Party won thegeneral election in Britain. Although Labour Party conferences had for years called for the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine, the Labour government now decided to maintain the 1939 White Paper policies.[243]
Buchenwald survivors arrive inHaifa to be arrested by the British, 15 July 1945
Illegal migration (Aliyah Bet) became the main form of Jewish entry into Palestine. Across EuropeBricha ("flight"), an organization of formerpartisans andghetto fighters, smuggledHolocaust survivors from Eastern Europe to Mediterranean ports, where small boats tried to breach the British blockade of Palestine. Meanwhile, Jews from Arab countries began moving into Palestine overland. Despite British efforts to curb immigration, during the 14 years of the Aliyah Bet, over 110,000 Jews entered Palestine. By the end of World War II, the Jewish population of Palestine had increased to 33% of the total population.[244]
In an effort to win independence, Zionists now waged aguerrilla war against the British. The main underground Jewish militia, the Haganah, formed an alliance called theJewish Resistance Movement with the Etzel and Stern Gang to fight the British. In June 1946, following instances of Jewish sabotage, such as in theNight of the Bridges, the British launchedOperation Agatha, arresting 2,700 Jews, including the leadership of the Jewish Agency, whose headquarters were raided. Those arrested were held without trial.
On 4 July 1946a massive pogrom in Poland led to a wave of Holocaust survivors fleeing Europe for Palestine. Three weeks later, Irgunbombed the British Military Headquarters of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, killing 91 people. In the days following the bombing, Tel Aviv was placed under curfew and over 120,000 Jews, nearly 20% of the Jewish population of Palestine, were questioned by the police. In the US, Congress criticized British handling of the situation and considered delayingloans that were vital to British post-war recovery.[245] The alliance between Haganah and Etzel was dissolved after the King David bombings.
Between 1945 and 1948, 100,000–120,000 Jews left Poland.[246][247][119] Their departure was largely organized by Zionist activists under the umbrella of the semi-clandestine organizationBerihah ("Flight").Berihah was also responsible for the organized emigration of Jews fromRomania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, totalling 250,000 (including Poland) Holocaust survivors.[248][249][250][119] The British imprisoned the Jews trying to enter Palestine in theAtlit detainee camp andCyprus internment camps. Those held were mainly Holocaust survivors, including large numbers of children and orphans. In response to Cypriot fears that the Jews would never leave and because the 75,000 quota established by the 1939 White Paper had never been filled, the British allowed the refugees to enter Palestine at a rate of 750 per month.[251][246][247][252][253][119]
On 2 April 1947, the United Kingdom requested that the question of Palestine be handled by theGeneral Assembly.[254] The General Assembly created a committee,United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP), to report on "the question of Palestine".[255] In July 1947 the UNSCOP visited Palestine and met with Jewish and Zionist delegations. TheArab Higher Committee boycotted the meetings. During the visit the British Foreign SecretaryErnest Bevin ordered that passengers from anAliyah Bet ship,SSExodus1947, be sent back to Europe. The Holocaust surviving migrants on the ship were forcibly removed by British troops at Hamburg, Germany.[256][257][258]
The principal non-Zionist Orthodox Jewish (orHaredi) party,Agudat Israel, recommended to UNSCOP that a Jewish state be set up after reaching a religiousstatus quo agreement with Ben-Gurion. The agreement granted an exemption from military service to a quota ofyeshiva (religious seminary) students and to all Orthodox women, made the Sabbath the national weekend, guaranteedkosher food in government institutions and allowed Orthodox Jews to maintain a separate education system.[259]
The majority report of UNSCOP proposed[260] "an independent Arab State, an independent Jewish State, and the City of Jerusalem", the last to be under "an International Trusteeship System".[261] On 29 November 1947, inResolution 181 (II), the General Assembly adopted the majority report of UNSCOP, but with slight modifications.[262] The Plan also called for the British to allow "substantial" Jewish migration by 1 February 1948.[263]
Neither Britain nor the UN Security Council took any action to implement the recommendation made by the resolution and Britain continued detaining Jews attempting to enter Palestine. Concerned that partition would severely damage Anglo-Arab relations, Britain denied UN representatives access to Palestine during the period between the adoption of Resolution 181 (II) and the termination of the British Mandate.[264] The British withdrawal was completed in May 1948. However, Britain continued to hold Jewish immigrants of "fighting age" and their families onCyprus until March 1949.[265]
The General Assembly's vote caused joy in the Jewish community and anger in the Arab community. Violence broke out between the sides, escalating intocivil war. From January 1948, operations became increasingly militarized, with the intervention of a number ofArab Liberation Army regiments inside Palestine, each active in a variety of distinct sectors around the different coastal towns. They consolidated their presence inGalilee andSamaria.[266]Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni came from Egypt with several hundred men of theArmy of the Holy War. Having recruited a few thousand volunteers, he organized the blockade of the 100,000 Jewish residents of Jerusalem.[267] TheYishuv tried to supply the city using convoys of up to 100 armoured vehicles, but largely failed. By March, almost allHaganah's armoured vehicles had been destroyed, the blockade was in full operation, and hundreds of Haganah members who had tried to bring supplies into the city were killed.[268]
Up to 100,000 Arabs, from the urban upper and middle classes in Haifa, Jaffa and Jerusalem, or Jewish-dominated areas, evacuated abroad or to Arab centres eastwards.[269] This situation caused the US to withdraw their support for the Partition plan, thus encouraging theArab League to believe that the Palestinian Arabs, reinforced by the Arab Liberation Army, could put an end to the plan for partition. The British, on the other hand, decided on 7 February 1948 to support the annexation of the Arab part of Palestine byTransjordan.[270] TheJordanian army was commanded by the British.
David Ben-Gurion reorganized the Haganah and made conscription obligatory. Every Jewish man and woman in the country had to receive military training. Thanks to funds raised byGolda Meir from sympathisers in the United States, and Stalin's decision to support theZionist cause, the Jewish representatives of Palestine were able topurchase important arms in Eastern Europe.
Ben-Gurion gaveYigael Yadin the responsibility to plan for the announced intervention of the Arab states. The result of his analysis wasPlan Dalet, in which Haganah passed from the defensive to the offensive. The plan sought to establish Jewish territorial continuity by conquering mixed zones.Tiberias,Haifa,Safed,Beisan,Jaffa andAcre fell, resulting in the flight of more than 250,000 Palestinian Arabs.[271]
The latter half of the 20th century saw further conflicts between Israel and its neighbouring Arab nations. In 1967, theSix-Day War erupted; in its aftermath, Israel captured and occupied theGolan Heights from Syria, the West Bank from Jordan, and the Gaza Strip and theSinai Peninsula from Egypt. In 1973, theYom Kippur War began with an attack by Egypt on the Israeli-occupied Sinai Peninsula.
^The debate is described in Amihai Mazar, "Archaeology and the Biblical Narrative: The Case of the United Monarchy" (see bibliography), p.29 fn.2: "For conservative approaches defining the United Monarchy as a state "from Dan to Beer Sheba" including "conquered kingdoms" (Ammon, Moab, Edom) and "spheres of influence" in Geshur and Hamath cf. e.g. Ahlström (1993), 455–542; Meyers (1998); Lemaire (1999); Masters (2001); Stager (2003); Rainey (2006), 159–168; Kitchen (1997); Millard (1997; 2008). For a total denial of the historicity of the United Monarchy cf. e.g. Davies (1992), 67–68; others suggested a 'chiefdom' comprising a small region around Jerusalem, cf. Knauf (1997), 81–85; Niemann (1997), 252–299 and Finkelstein (1999). For a 'middle of the road' approach suggesting a United Monarchy of larger territorial scope though smaller than the biblical description cf.e.g. Miller (1997); Halpern (2001), 229–262; Liverani (2005), 92–101. The latter recently suggested a state comprising the territories of Judah and Ephraim during the time of David, that was subsequently enlarged to include areas of northern Samaria and influence areas in the Galilee and Transjordan. Na'aman (1992; 1996) once accepted the basic biography of David as authentic and later rejected the United Monarchy as a state, cf. id. (2007), 401–402".
^Facts On File, Incorporated (2009).Encyclopedia of the Peoples of Africa and the Middle East. Infobase Publishing. pp. 337–.ISBN978-1-4381-2676-0."The people of the Kingdom of Israel and the ethnic and religious group known as the Jewish people that descended from them have been subjected to a number of forced migrations in their history"
^abBen-Eliyahu, Eyal (30 April 2019).Identity and Territory: Jewish Perceptions of Space in Antiquity. Univ of California Press. p. 13.ISBN978-0-520-29360-1.OCLC1103519319.From the beginning of the Second Temple period until the Muslim conquest—the land was part of imperial space. This was true from the early Persian period, as well as the time of Ptolemy and the Seleucids. The only exception was the Hasmonean Kingdom, with its sovereign Jewish rule—first over Judah and later, in Alexander Jannaeus's prime, extending to the coast, the north, and the eastern banks of the Jordan.
^abTaylor, J. E. (15 November 2012).The Essenes, the Scrolls, and the Dead Sea. Oxford University Press.ISBN9780199554485.These texts, combined with the relics of those who hid in caves along the western side of the Dead Sea, tells us a great deal. What is clear from the evidence of both skeletal remains and artefacts is that the Roman assault on the Jewish population of the Dead Sea was so severe and comprehensive that no one came to retrieve precious legal documents, or bury the dead. Up until this date the Bar Kokhba documents indicate that towns, villages and ports where Jews lived were busy with industry and activity. Afterwards there is an eerie silence, and the archaeological record testifies to little Jewish presence until the Byzantine era, in En Gedi. This picture coheres with what we have already determined in Part I of this study, that the crucial date for what can only be described as genocide, and the devastation of Jews and Judaism within central Judea, was 135 CE and not, as usually assumed, 70 CE, despite the siege of Jerusalem and the Temple's destruction
^M. Avi-Yonah,The Jews under Roman and Byzantine Rule, Jerusalem 1984 pp. 12–14
^Mor, M.The Second Jewish Revolt: The Bar Kokhba War, 132–136 CE. Brill, 2016. P471/
^abMor, Menahem (18 April 2016).The Second Jewish Revolt. BRILL. pp. 483–484.doi:10.1163/9789004314634.ISBN978-90-04-31463-4.Archived from the original on 4 June 2024. Retrieved23 September 2022.Land confiscation in Judaea was part of the suppression of the revolt policy of the Romans and punishment for the rebels. But the very claim that the sikarikon laws were annulled for settlement purposes seems to indicate that Jews continued to reside in Judaea even after the Second Revolt. There is no doubt that this area suffered the severest damage from the suppression of the revolt. Settlements in Judaea, such as Herodion and Bethar, had already been destroyed during the course of the revolt, and Jews were expelled from the districts of Gophna, Herodion, and Aqraba. However, it should not be claimed that the region of Judaea was completely destroyed. Jews continued to live in areas such as Lod (Lydda), south of the Hebron Mountain, and the coastal regions. In other areas of the Land of Israel that did not have any direct connection with the Second Revolt, no settlement changes can be identified as resulting from it.
^Tchernov, Eitan (1988). "The Age of 'Ubeidiya Formation (Jordan Valley, Israel) and the Earliest Hominids in the Levant".Paléorient.14 (2):63–65.doi:10.3406/paleo.1988.4455.ISSN0153-9345.
^abcdAvraham, Faust (2018). "The Birth of Israel".The Oxford illustrated history of the Holy Land. Robert G. Hoyland, H. G. M. Williamson (1st ed.). Oxford, United Kingdom. pp. 9–11.ISBN978-0-19-872439-1.OCLC1017604304.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
^1177 B.C. : The Year Civilization Collapsed by Eric CLine, Princeton University Press
^Dever, William G.Beyond the Texts, Society of Biblical Literature Press, 2017, pp. 89–93
^S. Richard, "Archaeological sources for the history of Palestine: The Early Bronze Age: The rise and collapse of urbanism",The Biblical Archaeologist (1987)
^"Hebrew - people".Encyclopedia Britannica.Archived from the original on 9 August 2022. Retrieved3 March 2019.
^William David. Reyburn, Euan McG. Fry.A Handbook on Genesis. New York: United Bible Societies. 1997.
^See above the discussion of the Akkadian and Aramaic expressionseber nari andavar nahara respectively, corresponding to Hebrewever nahar, being widely used in the ancient Near-East.
^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.ISBN1-85075-657-0.
^Garfinkel, Yossi; Ganor, Sa'ar; Hasel, Michael (19 April 2012)."Journal 124: Khirbat Qeiyafa preliminary report".Hadashot Arkheologiyot: Excavations and Surveys in Israel. Israel Antiquities Authority. Archived fromthe original on 23 June 2012. Retrieved12 June 2018.
^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.ISBN978-0-684-86912-4.
^Finkelstein, Israel, (2020)."Saul and Highlands of Benjamin Update: The Role of Jerusalem", in Joachim J. Krause, Omer Sergi, and Kristin Weingart (eds.),Saul, Benjamin, and the Emergence of Monarchy in Israel: Biblical and Archaeological Perspectives, SBL Press, Atlanta, GA, p. 48, footnote 57: "...They became territorial kingdoms later, Israel in the first half of the ninth century BCE and Judah in its second half..."
^Finkelstein & Silberman 2002, pp. 146–7:Put simply, while Judah was still economically marginal and backward, Israel was booming. ... In the next chapter we will see how the northern kingdom suddenly appeared on the ancient Near Eastern stage as a major regional power
^Finkelstein, Israel (2013).The Forgotten Kingdom: the archaeology and history of Northern Israel. pp. 65–66, 73, 78,87–94.ISBN978-1-58983-911-3.OCLC880456140.
^Lemaire, André (2018). "Israel and Judah".The Oxford Illustrated History of the Holy Land. Robert G. Hoyland, H. G. M. Williamson (1st ed.). Oxford, United Kingdom. pp. 61–85.ISBN978-0-19-872439-1.OCLC1017604304.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
^Israel, Finkelstein (2013).The forgotten kingdom : the archaeology and history of Northern Israel. Society of Biblical Literature. p. 158.ISBN978-1-58983-910-6.OCLC949151323.
^Gordon, Robert P. (1995)."The place is too small for us": the Israelite prophets in recent scholarship. Eisenbrauns. pp. 15–26.ISBN1-57506-000-0.OCLC1203457109.
^The Social Roots of Biblical Yahwism by Stephen Cook, SBL 2004, p. 58
^The Oxford History of the Biblical World, ed. by Michael D Coogan. Published by Oxford University Press, 1999. p. 350
^abLipschits, Oded (1999)."The History of the Benjamin Region under Babylonian Rule".Tel Aviv.26 (2):155–190.doi:10.1179/tav.1999.1999.2.155.ISSN0334-4355.Archived from the original on 29 January 2023. Retrieved25 September 2022.The destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians (586 B.C.E.) is the most traumatic event described in biblical historiography, and in its shadow the history of the people of Israel was reshaped. The harsh impression of the destruction left its mark on the prophetic literature also, and particular force is retained in the laments over the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in its midst. [...] most of Judah's inhabitants remained there after the destruction of Jerusalem. They concentrated chiefly in the Benjamin region and the northern Judean hill country. This area was hardly affected by the destruction, and became the centre of the Babylonian province with its capital at Mizpah. [...] The archaeological data reinforce the biblical account, and they indicate that Jerusalem and its close environs suffered a severe blow. Most of the small settlements near the city were destroyed, the city wall was demolished, and the buildings within were put to the torch. Excavation and survey data show that the western border of the kingdom also sustained a grave onslaught, seemingly at the time when the Babylonians went to besiege Jerusalem.
^Finkelstein, Israel; Silberman, Neil Asher (2002).The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts. New York: Free Press. p. 307.ISBN0-684-86912-8.OCLC44509358.Intensive excavations throughout Jerusalem have shown that the city was indeed systematically destroyed by the Babylonians. The conflagration seems to have been general. When activity on the ridge of the City of David resumed in the Persian period, the-new suburbs on the western hill that had flourished since at least the time of Hezekiah were not reoccupied.
^Hengel, Martin (1974) [1973].Judaism and Hellenism : Studies in Their Encounter in Palestine During the Early Hellenistic Period (1st English ed.). London: SCM Press.ISBN0334007887.
^Tchrikover, Victor.Hellenistic Civilization and the Jews.
^Jan Assmann:Martyrium, Gewalt, Unsterblichkeit. Die Ursprünge eines religiösen Syndroms. In: Jan-Heiner Tück (Hrsg.):Sterben für Gott – Töten für Gott? Religion, Martyrium und Gewalt. [Deutsch]. Herder Verlag, Freiburg i. Br. 2015, 122–147, hier: S. 136.
^Helyer, Larry R.; McDonald, Lee Martin (2013). "The Hasmoneans and the Hasmonean Era". In Green, Joel B.; McDonald, Lee Martin (eds.).The World of the New Testament: Cultural, Social, and Historical Contexts. Baker Academic. pp. 45–47.ISBN978-0-8010-9861-1.OCLC961153992.
^Ben-Sasson, H.H. (1976).A History of the Jewish People. Harvard University Press. p. 226.ISBN0-674-39731-2.The expansion of Hasmonean Judea took place gradually. Under Jonathan, Judea annexed southern Samaria and began to expand in the direction of the coast plain... The main ethnic changes were the work of John Hyrcanus... it was in his days and those of his son Aristobulus that the annexation of Idumea, Samaria and Galilee and the consolidation of Jewish settlement in Trans-Jordan was completed. Alexander Jannai, continuing the work of his predecessors, expanded Judean rule to the entire coastal plain, from the Carmel to the Egyptian border... and to additional areas in Trans-Jordan, including some of the Greek cities there.
^Smith, Morton (1999), Sturdy, John; Davies, W. D.; Horbury, William (eds.),"The Gentiles in Judaism 125 BCE – 66 CE",The Cambridge History of Judaism: Volume 3: The Early Roman Period, The Cambridge History of Judaism, vol. 3, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 192–249,doi:10.1017/chol9780521243773.008,ISBN978-0-521-24377-3,archived from the original on 12 June 2018, retrieved20 March 2023,These changes accompanied and were partially caused by the great extension of the Judaeans' contacts with the peoples around them. Many historians have chronicled the Hasmonaeans' territorial acquisitions. In sum, it took them twenty-five years to win control of the tiny territory of Judaea and get rid of the Seleucid colony of royalist Jews (with, presumably, gentile officials and garrison) in Jerusalem. [...] However, in the last years before its fall, the Hasmonaeans were already strong enough to acquire, partly by negotiation, partly by conquest, a little territory north and south of Judaea and a corridor on the west to the coast at Jaffa/Joppa. This was briefly taken from them by Antiochus Sidetes, but soon regained, and in the half century from Sidetes' death in 129 to Alexander Jannaeus' death in 76 they overran most of Palestine and much of western and northern Transjordan. First John Hyrcanus took over the hills of southern and central Palestine (Idumaea and the territories of Shechem, Samaria and Scythopolis) in 128–104; then his son, Aristobulus I, took Galilee in 104–103, and Aristobulus' brother and successor, Jannaeus, in about eighteen years of warfare (103–96, 86–76) conquered and reconquered the coastal plain, the northern Negev, and western edge of Transjordan.{{citation}}: CS1 maint: work parameter with ISBN (link)
^Philip R. Davies inThe Canon Debate, p. 50: "With many other scholars, I conclude that the fixing of a canonical list was almost certainly the achievement of the Hasmonean dynasty."
^Paul Johnson,History of the Jews, p. 106, Harper 1988
^"John Hyrcanus II".Encyclopedia Britannica.Archived from the original on 5 December 2022. Retrieved6 March 2023.
^abcdeGoodman, Martin (1987).The Ruling Class of Judaea: The Origins of the Jewish Revolt against Rome, A.D. 66–70. Cambridge University Press. pp. 1–3, 9, 122.doi:10.1017/CBO9780511552656.ISBN9780511552656.
^abcdGabba, Emilio (1999). "The Social, Economic and Political History of Palestine 63 BCE–CE 70". In Horbury, William; Davies, W. D.; Sturdy, John (eds.).The Early Roman Period. The Cambridge History of Judaism. Vol. 3. Cambridge University Press. pp. 94–98, 130, 133, 152.ISBN9781139053662.
^abcCohen, Shaye J. D. (2014).From Maccabees to Mishnah (3rd ed.). Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press. pp. 3–4.ISBN978-0-664-23904-6.
^abBerlin, Andrea M.; Overman, J. Andrew, eds. (2002). "Introduction".The First Jewish Revolt: Archaeology, History, and Ideology. Routledge. pp. 1–3.ISBN978-0-415-62024-6.
^Feissel, Denis (2010). Cotton, Hannah M.; Eck, Werner; Heimbach, Marfa; Isaac, Benjamin; Kushnir-Stein, Alla; Misgav, Haggai (eds.).Corpus Inscriptionum Iudaeae/Palaestinae: Volume 1 1/1: Jerusalem, Part 1: 1–704. Berlin: De Gruyter. p. 41.ISBN978-3-11-174100-0.OCLC840438627.
^abFreyne, Sean (2002). "The Revolt from a Regional Perspective". In Berlin, Andrea M.; Overman, J. Andrew (eds.).The First Jewish Revolt: Archaeology, History and Ideology. London and New York: Routledge. pp. 45–47.ISBN978-0-415-62024-6.
^Mendels, Doron (1992).The Rise and Fall of Jewish Nationalism: Jewish and Christian Ethnicity in Ancient Palestine. Anchor Bible Reference Library. Doubleday. p. 26.ISBN978-0-385-26126-5.
^The Chosen Few: How education shaped Jewish History, Botticini and Eckstein, Princeton 2012, page 71 and chapters 4 and 5
^Bloom, J.J. 2010The Jewish Revolts Against Rome, A.D. 66–135: A Military Analysis. McFarland.
^Grabbe, Lester L. (2021),A History of the Jews and Judaism in the Second Temple Period, Volume 4: The Jews under the Roman Shadow (4 BCE–150 CE), Library of Second Temple studies, London: T&T Clark, p. 16,ISBN978-0-567-70070-4,With the relatively recent memory of Judah as an independent state under Jewish rule, there would no doubt come a time when the Jews of Palestine would attempt to regain this position. Revolt against Roman rule was just a matter of time.
^Mendels, Doron (1992).The rise and fall of Jewish nationalism. The Anchor Bible reference library. New York: Doubleday. p. 26.ISBN978-0-385-26126-5.The Jews, [...] were the only examples of an indigenous population successfully creating a national state. [...] This short-lived independent Jewish state sowed the seeds for a stronger nationalistic awareness, which was to come to the fore after 63 BCE. But at the same time it led to the catastrophes of the two subsequent centuries, when certain groups of Jews persistently sought to reestablish this independent state.
^Grabbe, Lester L. (2010).An Introduction to Second Temple Judaism: History And Religion Of The Jews In The Time Of Nehemiah, The Maccabees, Hillel, And Jesus. Edinburgh: T&T Clark. p. 78.ISBN978-0-567-55248-8.It was the total defeat and the massive destruction of the 132–35 war which put paid to any hopes of a revived Jewish state for another 1800 years.
^abcdKaresh, Sara E. (2006).Encyclopedia of Judaism. Facts On File.ISBN1-78785-171-0.OCLC1162305378.Until the modern period, the destruction of the Temple was the most cataclysmic moment in the history of the Jewish people. Without the Temple, the Sadducees no longer had any claim to authority, and they faded away. The sage Yochanan ben Zakkai, with permission from Rome, set up the outpost of Yavneh to continue develop of Pharisaic, or rabbinic, Judaism.
^Karesh, Sara E. (2006).Encyclopedia of Judaism. Facts On File.ISBN978-1-78785-171-9.OCLC1162305378.Until the modern period, the destruction of the Temple was the most cataclysmic moment in the history of the Jewish people. Without the Temple, the Sadducees no longer had any claim to authority, and they faded away. The sage Yochanan ben Zakkai, with permission from Rome, set up the outpost of Yavneh to continue develop of Pharisaic, or rabbinic, Judaism.
^Oppenheimer, A'haron and Oppenheimer, Nili.Between Rome and Babylon: Studies in Jewish Leadership and Society. Mohr Siebeck, 2005, p. 2.
^מרדכי וורמברנד ובצלאל ס רותת "עם ישראל – תולדות 4000 שנה – מימי האבות ועד חוזה השלום", ע"מ 95. (Translation: Mordechai Vermebrand and Betzalel S. Ruth – "The People of Israel – the history of 4000 years – from the days of the Forefathers to the Peace Treaty", 1981, p. 95)
^Cohn-Sherbok, Dan (1996).Atlas of Jewish History. Routledge. p. 58.ISBN978-0-415-08800-8.
^Lehmann, Clayton Miles (18 January 2007)."Palestine".Encyclopedia of the Roman Provinces. University of South Dakota. Archived fromthe original on 7 April 2013. Retrieved9 February 2013.
^abBar, Doron (2005)."Rural Monasticism as a Key Element in the Christianization of Byzantine Palestine".The Harvard Theological Review.98 (1):49–65.doi:10.1017/S0017816005000854.ISSN0017-8160.JSTOR4125284.S2CID162644246.Archived from the original on 14 October 2023. Retrieved15 January 2023.The phenomenon was most prominent in Judea, and can be explained by the demographic changes that this region underwent after the second Jewish revolt of 132-135 C.E. The expulsion of Jews from the area of Jerusalem following the suppression of the revolt, in combination with the penetration of pagan populations into the same region, created the conditions for the diffusion of Christians into that area during the fifth and sixth centuries. [...] This regional population, originally pagan and during the Byzantine period gradually adopting Christianity, was one of the main reasons that the monks chose to settle there. They erected their monasteries near local villages that during this period reached their climax in size and wealth, thus providing fertile ground for the planting of new ideas.
^קליין, א' (2011).היבטים בתרבות החומרית של יהודה הכפרית בתקופה הרומית המאוחרת(135–324 לסה"נ). עבודת דוקטור, אוניברסיטת בר-אילן. עמ' 314–315. (Hebrew)
^שדמן, ע' (2016).בין נחל רבה לנחל שילה: תפרוסת היישוב הכפרי בתקופות ההלניסטית, הרומית והביזנטית לאור חפירות וסקרים. עבודת דוקטור, אוניברסיטת בר-אילן. עמ' 271–275. (Hebrew)
^Klein, E, 2010, "The Origins of the Rural Settlers in Judean Mountains and Foothills during the Late Roman Period", In: E. Baruch., A. Levy-Reifer and A. Faust (eds.), New Studies on Jerusalem, vol. 16, Ramat-Gan, pp. 321–350 (Hebrew).
^The Chosen Few: How education shaped Jewish History, Botticini and Eckstein, Princeton 2012, page 116
^M. Avi-Yonah,The Jews under Roman and Byzantine Rule, Jerusalem 1984 sections II to V
^Charlesworth, James (2010). "Settlement and History in Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine Galilee: An Archaeological Survey of the Eastern Galilee".Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus.8 (3):281–284.doi:10.1163/174551911X573542.
^abIrshai, Oded (2005). "The Byzantine period". In Shinan, Avigdor (ed.).Israel: People, Land, State. Jerusalem: Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi. pp. 95–129.ISBN9652172391.
^Edward Kessler (2010).An Introduction to Jewish-Christian Relations. Cambridge University Press. p. 72.ISBN978-0-521-70562-2.Jews probably remained in the majority in Palestine until some time after the conversion of Constantine in the fourth century. [...] In Babylonia, there had been for many centuries a Jewish community which would have been further strengthened by those fleeing the aftermath of the Roman revolts.
^הר, משה דוד (2022). "היהודים בארץ-ישראל בימי האימפריה הרומית הנוצרית" [The Jews in the Land of Israel in the Days of the Christian Roman Empire].ארץ-ישראל בשלהי העת העתיקה: מבואות ומחקרים [Eretz Israel in Late Antiquity: Introductions and Studies] (in Hebrew). Vol. 1. ירושלים: יד יצחק בן-צבי. pp. 210–212.ISBN978-965-217-444-4.
^M. Avi-Yonah,The Jews under Roman and Byzantine Rule, Jerusalem 1984 chapters XI–XII
^History of the Byzantine Jews: A Microcosmos in the Thousand Year Empire By Elli Kohen, University Press of America 2007, Chapter 5
^Loewenberg, Meir (January 2013)."When Iran Ruled Jerusalem".Segula. pp. 30–38.Archived from the original on 31 December 2021. Retrieved22 October 2019.
^Archaeology Versus Written Sources: the Case of the Persian Conquest of Jerusalem in 614 by Yuri Stoyanov in ACTA MUSEI VARNAENSIS VIII-1, pp. 351–358
^The Persian Conquest of Jerusalem (614 c.e.)—An Archaeological Assessment by Gideon Avni in Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research No. 357 (February 2010), pp. 35–48
^Schäfer, Peter (2003).The History of the Jews in the Greco-Roman World. Psychology Press. p. 198.ISBN9780415305877.He had promised the Jews ... amnesty ..., but was unable to hold to this. At the insistence of the leaders of the Christians, who had not forgotten the period of Jewish rule from 614 to 617, he once more expelled the Jews from Jerusalem and had to allow large numbers of them to be executed.
^Goitein, S. D. (1955). "The Cairo Geniza as a Source for the History of Muslim Civilisation".Studia Islamica (3):75–91.doi:10.2307/1595103.JSTOR1595103.
^Ellenblum, Ronnie (2010).Frankish Rural Settlement in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. Cambridge University Press.ISBN978-0-511-58534-0.OCLC958547332.From the data given above it can be concluded that the Muslim population of Central Samaria, during the early Muslim period, was not an autochthonous population which had converted to Christianity. They arrived there either by way of migration or as a result of a process of sedentarization of the nomads who had filled the vacuum created by the departing Samaritans at the end of the Byzantine period [...] To sum up: in the only rural region in Palestine in which, according to all the written and archeological sources, the process of Islamization was completed already in the twelfth century, there occurred events consistent with the model propounded by Levtzion and Vryonis: the region was abandoned by its original sedentary population and the subsequent vacuum was apparently filled by nomads who, at a later stage, gradually became sedentarized
^שור, נתן (2006). "רדיפות השומרונים בידי העבאסים והיעלמות היישוב השומרוני החקלאי". In שטרן, אפרים; אשל, חנן (eds.).ספר השומרונים [Book of the Samaritans] (in Hebrew) (2 ed.). ירושלים: יד יצחק בן-צבי; רשות העתיקות. pp. 587–590.ISBN965-217-202-2.
^Larry H. Addington (1990).The Patterns of War Through the Eighteenth Century. Midland book.Indiana University Press. p. 59.ISBN9780253205513.in the Sixth Crusade, Frederick II ...concluded a treaty with the Saracens in 1229 that placed Jerusalem under Christian control but allowed Muslim and Christian alike freedom of access to the religious shrines of the city. ... Within fifteen years of Frederick's departure from the Holy Land, the Khwarisimian Turks, successors to the Seljuks, rampaged through Syria and Palestine, capturing Jerusalem in 1244. (Jerusalem would not be ruled again by Christians until the British occupied it in December 1917, during World War I).
^Jerusalem: Illustrated History Atlas Martin Gilbert, Macmillan Publishing, New York, 1978, p. 25.
^Reorienting the East: Jewish Travelers to the Medieval Muslim Word, by Martin Jacobs, University of Pennsylvania 2014, page 101: "Subterranean Hebron: Religious Access Rights"
^International Dictionary of Historic Places: Middle East and Africa by Trudy Ring, Robert M. Salkin, Sharon La Boda, pp. 336–339
^Myriam Rosen-Ayalon,Between Cairo and Damascus: Rural Life and Urban Economics in the Holy Land During the Ayyuid, Maluk and Ottoman Periods inThe Archaeology of Society in the Holy Land edited Thomas Evan Levy, Continuum International Publishing Group, 1998
^abAbraham, David (1999).To Come to the Land : Immigration and Settlement in 16th-Century Eretz-Israel. Tuscaloosa, Alabama: University of Alabama Press. pp. 1–5.ISBN978-0-8173-5643-9.OCLC847471027.
^The Ghetto of Venice by Riccardo Calimani, pg 94, Mondadori 1995
^Barnay, Y. The Jews inOttoman Syria in the eighteenth century: under the patronage of the Istanbul Committee of Officials for Palestine (University of Alabama Press 1992)ISBN978-0-8173-0572-7 p. 149
^Joel Rappel, History of Eretz Israel from Prehistory up to 1882 (1980), vol. 2, p. 531. "In 1662 Sabbathai Sevi arrived to Jerusalem. It was the time when the Jewish settlements of Galilee were destroyed by the Druze: Tiberias was completely desolate and only a few of former Safed residents had returned...."
^abMetzer, Jacob (September 2008). "Jewish immigration to Palestine in the long 1920s: An exploratory examination".Journal of Israeli History.27 (2):221–251.doi:10.1080/13531040802284106.S2CID159622305.
^Smith, Barbara J. (1993).The Roots of Separatism in Palestine: British Economic Policy, 1920–1929. Syracuse University Press.ISBN978-0-8156-2578-0.[page needed]
^Edward Said,A Profile of the Palestinian People, (1983) 1990 Palestinian Human Rights Campaign, p.5: 'throughout the British Mandate, Palestine was denied any measure of self-government'.
^Benny Morris, One state, two states: resolving the Israel/Palestine conflict, 2009, p. 66.[full citation needed]
^Morris 2004: p. 48; p. 11 "while the Zionist movement, after much agonizing, accepted the principle of partition and the proposals as a basis for negotiation"; p. 49 "In the end, after bitter debate, the Congress equivocally approved –by a vote of 299 to 160 – the Peel recommendations as a basis for further negotiation."
^For more information seePalestine: Retreat from the Mandate, The making of British Policy, 1936–1945 by Michael Cohen, New York 1979 Chapter 3
^Morris 2004: p. 11, "The AHC renewed the revolt. Whitehall ... took vigorous steps to appease the Palestinians."
^Chaim Weizmann (1 January 1983).The Letters and Papers of Chaim Weizmann: series B. Transaction Publishers. pp. 102–.ISBN978-0-87855-297-9.Archived from the original on 30 November 2021. Retrieved30 November 2021.On 25 November 1936, testifying before the Peel Commission, Weizmann said that there are in Europe 6,000,000 Jews ... "for whom the world is divided into places where they cannot live and places where they cannot enter."
^Conor Cruise O'Brien (2015).The Siege. Faber & Faber Limited. p. 233.ISBN9780571324545.The outside world, while shocked by Nazi atrocities, did little to help the victims. A conference of thiry-one countries, which met at Evian in early July did no more than confirm the validity of Weizmann's diagnosis, before the Peel Commission, of the condition of the European Jews in the late thirties: ... the world is divided into places where they cannot live and places into which they cannot enter." Palestine was excluded from the Evian agenda at the insistence of the British Government.
^Palestine (Report). United Nations. 20 April 1949. Background Paper No. 47 (ST/DPI/SER.A/47). Archived fromthe original on 3 January 2011. Retrieved31 July 2007.
Feldman, Louis H. (1990). "Some Observations on the Name of Palestine".Hebrew Union College Annual.61. Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion:1–23.JSTOR23508170.
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.ISBN9781589830158.
Gelber, Yoʾav (2006).Palestine 1948: war, escape and the emergence of the Palestinian refugee problem. Brighton Portland Toronto: Sussex Academic Press.ISBN978-1-84519-075-0.
Killebrew, Ann E. (2005).Biblical Peoples and Ethnicity: An Archaeological Study of Egyptians, Canaanite. Society of Biblical Lit.ISBN978-1-58983-097-4.
Lapierre, Dominique; Collins, Larry (1971).O Jerusalem. Laffont.ISBN978-2-253-00754-8.
Laurens, Henry (2005).Paix et guerre au Moyen-Orient: l'Orient arabe et le monde de 1945 à nos jours (in French). Armand Colin.ISBN978-2-200-26977-7.
McNutt, Paula (1999).Reconstructing the Society of Ancient Israel. Westminster John Knox Press.ISBN978-0-664-22265-9.
Miller, Robert D. (2005).Chieftains of the Highland Clans: A History of Israel in the 12th and 11th Centuries B.C. Eerdmans.ISBN978-0-8028-0988-9.
Sachar, Howard M. (1976).A History of Israel. New York: Knopf.ISBN0-394-48564-5.
Shen, P.; Lavi, T.; Kivisild, T.; Chou, V.; Sengun, D.; Gefel, D.; Shpirer, I.; Woolf, E.; Hillel, J.; Feldman, M.W.; Oefner, P.J. (2004). "Reconstruction of Patrilineages and Matrilineages of Samaritans and Other Israeli Populations From Y-Chromosome and Mitochondrial DNA Sequence Variation".Human Mutation.24 (3):248–260.doi:10.1002/humu.20077.PMID15300852.S2CID1571356.
Stager, Lawrence. "Forging an Identity: The Emergence of Ancient Israel". InCoogan (1998).
Yamada, Keiko; Yamada, Shiego (2017)."Shalmaneser V and His Era, Revisited". In Baruchi-Unna, Amitai; Forti, Tova; Aḥituv, Shmuel; Ephʿal, Israel; Tigay, Jeffrey H. (eds.)."Now It Happened in Those Days": Studies in Biblical, Assyrian, and Other Ancient Near Eastern Historiography Presented to Mordechai Cogan on His 75th Birthday. Vol. 2. Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns.ISBN978-1575067612.
Further reading
Berger, EarlThe Covenant and the Sword: Arab–Israeli Relations, 1948–56, London, Routledge K. Paul, 1965.
Bregman, AhronA History of Israel, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire; New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002ISBN0-333-67632-7.
Horrox, JamesA Living Revolution: Anarchism in the Kibbutz Movement, Oakland: AK Press, 2009
Herzog, ChaimThe Arab–Israeli Wars: War and Peace in the Middle East from the War of Independence to Lebanon, London: Arms and Armour; Tel Aviv, Israel: Steimatzky, 1984ISBN0-85368-613-0.
Israel Office of InformationIsrael's Struggle for Peace, New York, 1960.
Klagsbrun, Francine.Lioness: Golda Meir and the Nation of Israel (Schocken, 2017)excerptArchived 31 December 2021 at theWayback Machine.
Oren, MichaelSix Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002ISBN0-19-515174-7.
Pfeffer, Anshel.Bibi: The Turbulent Life and Times of Benjamin Netanyahu (2018).
Rabinovich, Itamar.Yitzhak Rabin: Soldier, Leader, Statesman (Yale UP, 2017).excerptArchived 3 September 2021 at theWayback Machine
Rubinstein, Alvin Z. (editor)The Arab–Israeli Conflict: Perspectives, New York: Praeger, 1984ISBN0-03-068778-0.
Lord Russell of Liverpool,If I Forget Thee; the Story of a Nation's Rebirth, London, Cassell 1960.
Samuel, RinnaA History of Israel: the Birth, Growth and Development of Today's Jewish State, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1989ISBN0-297-79329-2.
Schultz, Joseph & Klausner, CarlaFrom Destruction to Rebirth: The Holocaust and the State of Israel, Washington, D.C.: University Press of America, 1978ISBN0-8191-0574-0.
Segev, TomThe Seventh Million: the Israelis and the Holocaust, New York: Hill and Wang, 1993ISBN0-8090-8563-1.
Shapira Anita.Israel: A History (Brandeis University Press/University Press of New England; 2012) 502 pages;
Sharon, Assaf, "The Long Paralysis of the Israeli Left" (review of Dan Ephron,Killing a King: The Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin and the Remaking of Israel, Norton, 290 pp.; andItamar Rabinovich,Yitzhak Rabin: Soldier, Leader, Statesman, Yale University Press, 272 pp.),The New York Review of Books, vol. LXVI, no. 17 (7 November 2019), pp. 32–34.
Shatz, Adam, "We Are Conquerors" (review ofTom Segev,A State at Any Cost: The Life of David Ben-Gurion, Head of Zeus, 2019, 804 pp.,ISBN978 1 78954 462 6),London Review of Books, vol. 41, no. 20 (24 October 2019), pp. 37–38, 40–42. "Segev's biography... shows how central exclusionarynationalism,war andracism were toBen-Gurion's vision of theJewish homeland inPalestine, and how contemptuous he was not only of theArabs but of Jewish life outsideZion. [Liberal Jews] may look at the state that Ben-Gurion built, and ask if the cost has been worth it." (p. 42 of Shatz's review.)
Shlaim, Avi,The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World(2001)
Wolffsohn, MichaelEternal Guilt?: Forty years of German-Jewish-Israeli Relations, New York: Columbia University Press, 1993ISBN0-231-08274-6.
Primary sources
Laqueur, Walter, and Dan Schueftan, eds.The Israel-Arab Reader: A Documentary History of the Middle East Conflict (8th ed. Penguin, 2016).online 2001 edition
External links
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