3,200 Years of Jewish Homeland

History

Tonight, a Special

Edition

3,200 Years

of Jewish

Homeland

History While

You Stand On

One Leg

Historians

like to say

History is

what they

say it is …

But the fact is that History is

what people believe it is

And most of the world’s

people believe that the

Romans “exiled” the Jews

from Israel in 135

And that they didn’t “return”

for almost 2000 years

As The New York Times put it,

citing Arafat,

there’s a genuine

question whether

“the idea of a Jewish

origin in Jerusalem is a myth used

to justify conquest and occupation”

The mainstream media tells the world, day after day, that

Jews are “settlers”

in the “occupied territories”

of “the West Bank”

and “East” Jerusalem

It’s time for we Jews to tell the world

The Jewish people has lived in

the Land of Israel for 3,200 years

We’re not “settlers” in Judea,

Samaria and Jerusalem

The Land of Israel is the

Jewish National Home

But …Is It True?

Have we really lived there

without interruption for 3,200

years?

I wrote a

book that

says that it

is

Archeologists have traced Israelite

presence to the 12th century BCE

Judean-Samarian hills

Canaanite Nomads Canaanite Farmers Israelite Conquest

They disagree how they got there, but

agree 12th century BCE in the hills

How do we know they were Israelites?

* 1210 BCE Egyptian stele

mentioning “Israel”

* Continued and grew

uninterrupted into the monarchy

* Characteristic pottery, house

form

Elah fortress on Philistine border, dated to time of David, maybe Saul

© Foundation Stone, all rights reserved

* massive construction

* unique second gate

* earliest Hebrew

writing ever discovered

= substantial 10th

century BCE Jerusalem-

based kingdom?

Here’s the answer to

“King David as

real as King

Arthur”?

The “House of David” Inscription

9th cen. BCE Aramean king’s inscription found at Tel-Dan 1993

King

David’s

palace?

Unearthed in City of David by Eilat Mazar 2005

* Moabite stele (also “House of David”?)

* Hazael stele (“House of David”)

* Assyrian dark stone “Monolith Inscription”

“2000 chariots, 10,000 foot soldiers of Ahab the Israelite”

Israel’s enemies’ inscriptions

Hezekiahs’s tunnel

& inscription

Babylonian exile

Persians & Cyrus

Alexander, Hellenism

Ptolemies,

Seleucids

Maccabees & Judaea

Second Temple

Judaea

Herod’s Temple

Qumran Dead Sea Scrolls

The Great Revolt Against Rome

Wherefore, Hadrian, in writing to the Senate, would not use the Emperor’s wonted

opening form of words: ‘I and the army are well.’” - Dio Cassius

The final

Bar-Kochba

Revolt

What evidence do we have that the

Romans did not exile the Jews?

Mishna, Pales-tinian Talmud

Roman-Byzantine era synagogues

Patriarch

614 Persian invasion

What do we know about the Yishuv

during the Muslim era (636 – 1099)?

Bahat’s list of 9th century Palestine Jewish communities and cities with Jewish

communities of which we have evidence today:

Akhziv Kabrata Mafshata Kfar Bar’am

Gush Halav Elkosh Sulsaf Dalton

Kfar Sima’el Meron Shazor Kfar Nahum

Kfar Neborya Zefat Yanuh Beit Dagan

Parod Akhbari Akko Sha’ab

Ma’ariya Kfar Hannanya Chorzin Kabul

Zalmon Hurok Mimlah Migdol Nunia

Kfar Hittin Kfar Tamrata Kfar Sakhney Evlayim

Kfar Mandi Kfar Nimra Arbel Mashkana

Rimon Shefar’am Tiberias Beit Me’on

Kfar Manor Sargonia Adami Lubaei

Ardascus Zippori Kann’a Tiv’on

Aithalo Simoniya Nazareth Kfar Agon

Gevat Yafi’a Daverat Ginnegar

A millennium later, we know where they lived

Shunem Tarbenet Gebal Kokhav

Beit She’an Asher Kfar Saba Kfar Kasem

Bnei Barak Ono Kfar Pegai Shilo

Tur Shim’on Lod Hadid Gophna

Modi’in Beit-El Gimzo Yafo

Dorin Kharruba Beit Horon Mikhmas

Jericho Yavne Emmaus Ekron

Ashdod Jerusalem Beithar Bethlehem

Ashkelon eit Guvrin Beror Hayil Gaza

Yutta Ein Gedi Eshtomo’a Carmel

Ma-on

This in a place the size of New Jersey

a millennium ago.

The Crusaders wrote that “Turk, Arab and Jew” confronted them at Jerusalem, of whom

“the Jew is the last to fall.”

Albert of Aachen: “And the city of Haifa . . .

which the Jews defended with great courage

[for a month]”

1719 French priest: “… for a long time it

[Haifa] withstood the mighty onslaught of the

Prince Tancred, who attacked it from the sea

and also from the land, with the help of the

Venetians. Although the Jews fought with

courage, they were overcome by the might of

the invaders.”

Archeologist Dan Bahat, The Forgotten

Generations (pp. 36-37):

And not just in Jerusalem . . .

Prof Dinur:

“Apart from a few places in the south, we have no information about Jewish

participation in the defense of other Palestinian towns; but there is no reason to

suppose that Jerusalem and Haifa were exceptional places.”

• Contemporary Jewish account [“dirge’] on destruction of Jewish communities of

Jaffa, Ono, Lydda, Hebron, Usafiya on Mt. Carmel and Haifa. Last few lines missing.

- Dinur

And not just in Jerusalem and Haifa …

Crusader era personalities remembered by history:

“[Jerusalem] contains a numerous

population, composed of Jacobites,

Armenians, Greeks, Georgians,

Franks, and indeed people of all

tongues . . . . [including Jews] two

hundred of whom dwell in one corner

of the city, under the Tower of David.”

Anglo-Saxon pilgrim Saewulf:

“On this side of Jordan is the

region called Judea.”

•Asian and Mongol invaders came in Crusaders’

wake.

• Then Mamluks [Mamlukes] ruled Palestine

1260-1517.

•The Who?

• Non-Arab Turks, Circassians from Caucusus

• Ruled from Turkey, then Egypt

• Used Turk and Circassian mercenaries

• Treated all as conquered subjects

The Mamluks (1260 – 1517)

Mamluk Era Yishuv in Jerusalem1335 – Italian monk from Verona: “… a long-established Jewish community at the foot

of Mount Zion in the area known as the Jewish Quarter”

1338 – visitor Isaac ibn Chelo: “… students of medicine, astronomy and mathematics,

…some excellent Jewish calligraphers in the city” [showing “secular as well as religious

scholarship” – Tal]

1428 – Attempt to buy Mt Zion building blocked by Pope

1438 – Italian rabbi became spiritual leader

1440 – Mamluk tax on Jerusalem Jews, many left

1470 – 150 Jewish families in Jerusalem

1474 – Mamluks destroy synagogues, extort for street, gate

1480 – Monk writes of Jews in Jerusalem

1481 – Jewish visitor writes of community

1483 – Travelers report Jews in Jerusalem

1484 – Monk writes again of Jews in Jerusalem

1495 – Inquisition, lifting of Italian ban, 200 new families

1496 – Muslim book: destruction, rebuilding of synagogue

1497 – Christian traveler: “In Jerusalem dwell many Jews”

1499 – Christian traveler: “Very many Jews in Jerusalem”

1488 – Rabbi Ovadiah of Bertinoro leader

1491- Christian pilgrim: “Not many Christians, but many

Jews” in Jerusalem “refuse to leave,” consider country

their land”

The Yishuv during the Ottoman era

Safad & Galilee

Tiberias

Jerusalem

Hebron

Elsewhere in the Land

Safad and Galilee Villages

1500’s – knitters, dyers,

weavers, merchants, smiths

Cabala, Shulhan Aruch,

Hebrew printing press,

synagogues still in use

Huge khan for 100 families,

1575 – deport “1000 wealthy

Jews and families” to Cyprus

1600’s & 1700’s – continued

reports of Jews in Safad

c. 1750 – synagogues increased

from 11 to 30

c. 1810 – largest Safad quarter

exclusively Jews

1560’s – Donna Grazia Mendez and Don

Joseph Nasi

1600 – English priest: “entirely occupied by

Jews”

1660 – Razed by Bedouins and Druze

1742 – Jewish community returned

1817 – English traveler: “2/3 of 4000”

population are Jews

Tiberias and Hebron

* Parkes: “with the constant repression of

local rulers and Bedouin tribes, though never

wiped out . . . Never succeeded in becoming

prosperous.”

And above all, Jerusalem

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

1838 1872 1899 1948 1990

Jews

Chrstns

Muslims

Jews, Christians and Muslims as % of Jerusalem Pop.

1855 – Miskenot Shananim (Moses Montefiore,

Judah Touro), Mahane Israel, Nahlat Shiva, Mea

She’arim followed, Yemin Moshe 1894 – breakout

from Old City walls

1870 – Mikveh Israel near Jaffa, 1st modern

agricultural school

1870 – village of Motza, near Jerusalem

1878 – Petah Tikva, “mother of agricultural

settlements”

19th century Revival of the Yishuv

1880s – beginnings of Zionist settlement

1897 – Herzl’s First Zionist Congress in Basel

“In every age it has been the

presence, beacon, magnet of the

Yishuv, at times diminished to a

pummeled minor minority, that has

made the millennia-long return of

countless generations of Jews

possible, even thinkable, and

formed the continuous generational

link between ancient Israelites and

Israelis today.”

Here’s the conclusion of my book, Israel 3000 Years: