CHAPTER II
JEWISH CONTINUOUS LINK WITH “ERETZ YISRAEL”
1.
Jewish Population in Palestine
from Roman Conquest
Somewhat arbitrarily, this Handbook begins its examination of the
Israeli Arab conflict prior to the establishment of the British Civil
Administration of Palestine under the Mandate and considers the main
ingredients of this cauldron: (i) the Jewish Population and its
continuous link with Eretz Yisrael- the Holy Land -
*******************
It is a common misconception that in 1948 the Jews suddenly returned to
Without delving deeply into the history of the Byzantines, Mameluks,
Mongol Hordes, and other temporary occupiers of the territory lying
between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, it is worth while
drawing the reader’s attention to some illustrations of the
Jewish presence in this territory drawn from what might best be
described as ‘Some Sound-Bites of History’ (Rona
Hart, (ed)
in preparation; see also Eliyahu Tal, Whose
Jerusalem?
International Forum for a United Jerusalem, Jerusalem, 1994
(hereinafter “Tal”)
;
Dan Bahat (ed), 20
Centuries of Jewish Life in the Holy Land,
The Forgotten Generations, The Israel Economist, 1976
(hereinafter “Bahat”)
1. Jewish Population
in Palestine from Roman Conquest
After the destruction of
*
Between 132-135 Hadrian
crushed Bar Kokhba's revolt,
re-established
*
While
“in
the
o
Although
in 324
o
Tolerant
of other faiths, pagan Emperor Julian the Apostate announced between
361-363 that the Jews be permitted to return to "holy
o
Such
toleration of Jews in the
o
Even
though Jewish political independence was lost, its literary and
religious activity continued in the
Considerable
anecdotal evidence attesting to the continued Jewish presence in the
Holy Land in the 6th
century can be derived from the reports
of Christian pilgrims such as Antoninus the Martyr, who during his
visit to
“
*
In 614 CE, led by
General Shahrbaraz, the Persians
conquered the territory west of the
*
In any case, Persian
rule was short lived, ending in March
629, when Heraclius, the Byzantine Emperor, gained control of
The Muslim
historian Baladhuri (d.
Jewish industrial and agricultural undertakings also suffered from the jihad;
Jews involved in the traditional occupations of glass-making and
producing wicks for oil lamps were disrupted in their work and the
agricultural uprooting during this period caused massive soil erosion
to the western slopes of the Judaean mountains.The papyri of Nessana
were completely discontinued after the year 700, reflecting the
destruction the Jewish agricultural life of the Negev and the desertion
of its villages.
2. Jewish Population of the Holy Land Under Early Islamic Conquest and Occupation
Muslim
rule over the
The Moslem conquest of the
"But when
the Arabs who came to Hebron marvelled at the strength and beauty of
the wall [that surrounded the Cave of Machpelah, [burial place of the
Patriarchs] and at the fact there was no opening through which it was
possible to enter, some Jews who had remained under the Greek rule
approached them, saying, "Protect us so that we may live under like
conditions amongst you and permit us to build a synagogue in front of
the entrance to the cave, and we will then show you at what place you
should install the gate and so it was done."
(Canonici
Hebronensis Tractatus de Inventione Sanctorum Partriacharum Abraham,
Ysaac et Jacob.)
Ummayads
The rule
of
the Ummayads (661-
Abbasids
The mid 8th
century saw the Ummayads supplanted by the
Abbasid Caliphite (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbasid)
who founded
It was only during this period that
*
Between 687-691, Caliph
Abd al-Malik built the Dome of the
Rock mosque to compete with the beautiful Christian churches (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abd_al-Malik#Art_and_Architecture)
and to provide a centre of pilgrimage closer to
*
During this period (8th
and 9th
centuries) various travellers and pilgrims make reference in their
reports to a continuing Jewish presence in
o
Michael the Syrian
relates that 30 synagogues in Tiberias
were destroyed in the earthquake of 748 CE. This event is verified by
St Willibald, a pilgrim from
o
During the 8th
century Jews were among those
who guarded the Dome of the Rock on
*
However with the rise
of the Abbasids, relations between
Muslims and non-Muslims (both Jews and Christians)
deteriorated.
Non-Muslims had to wear a special badge on their clothing.
Increasing discrimination - social and economic - against non-Muslims
caused many Jews to move to
*
In
The
men scattered, they became wanderers everywhere; the fields were laid
waste, the countryside pillaged; the people went from one land to
another.
*
A mosaic synagogue
floor from this period located in
Sussiya, South Judea contains an inscription which attests to the
continued Jewish presence in
Should
be
remembered for good and blessing our Master, His Holiness, R(abbi) Issi
the Cohen, the Respected, the son of Rabbi who has donated this mosiac
and plastered and whitewashed its wall as he promised at the banquet of
his son, R(abbi) Johanan the Cohen, the Scribe. Peace be upon
*
During the 9th
century a listing of Jewish
communities shows over 40 towns and villages in Galilee and Golan,
several in the
Fatimids
The 10th
Century brought further political upheaval in the
*
Arab geographer, Al
Muqaddasi, writing in 985 CE complains
in his "Knowledge of Climes", that in
"...Learned
men are few and the Christians numerous, and the same are unmannerly in
public places... Everywhere the Christians and the Jews have the upper
hand, and the mosque is void of either congregation or assembly of
learned men."
He also
notes that the Jews were employed as official money-changers, dyers and
tanners. Those who lived near
These
were
not the only activities in that city. Al MuQadassi also reported the
residents of the town "led a life of decadence -- dancing, feasting,
playing the flute, running around naked, and swatting flies."
*
At this time there was
a continuous flow to Jerusalem of
Jews from various countries, seeking shelter. A letter sent at the end
of the 10th
century from the Karaite Sahal ben Mazzli'ah to
the Egyptian Diaspora, states:
"And know that Jerusalem at this time is a sanctuary to all who seek shelter, and gives rest to all who mourn, and comforts all who are poor and in want, and all the servants of the Lord come into her
from every family and from every city, and amongst them women weeping and wailing in the holy tongue and in the Persian tongue and in the tongue of Ishmael. Men and women dressed in
sack-cloth
and ashes... and they go up to the
Unfortunately,
Caliph
Al-Hakim (996-1021) destroyed both synagogues and churches, banished
Christian priests and emptied Jerusalem of Jews. Although he eventually
rescinded some of these restrictions, nevertheless the Jewish
the
town
temporarily. They returned some later.
3. Jewish "Aliyah"
Attempts to Return to
Palestine - Frustrated by
Christian Millenium Crusades
(Phase I )
The 9th
-11th
centuries, saw the a rise in a Jewish movement to
Palestine which believed that "aliyah" - "ascent"
to the Land of Israel, would hasten the resurrection of Israel.
Jewish communities along the coast, such as those as Rafah,
*
A man from Rafa, living
in
"To
our beloved Rabbi Solomon, the Judge, may his soul rest in peace, and
the elders and the rest of the holy community who dwell in Rafah, may
God preserve them."
*
In 1047 the Persian
traveller, Nasir-i-Khusraw, wrote:
"From
*
Jewish communities
along the Mediterranean coast, such as
those as Rafah,
o
A man from Rafa, then
living in
"To
our beloved Rabbi Solomon, the Judge, may his soul rest in peace, and
the elders and the rest of the holy community who dwell in Rafah, may
God preserve them."
o
In 1047 the Persian
traveller, Nasir-i-Khusraw, wrote:
"From
However
Jewish "aliya" movement to return to the
Many people feared (or hoped) the world was coming to an end. Plagues,
volcanic eruptions, crime and sin are fulsomely described by
contemporary chroniclers.
afflicted
all of
For the Jews the year 1070, the millennium since the destruction of the
Seljuks
*
In 1071 Seljuks (http://www.themiddleages.net/people/seljuks.html
) conquered
Because that empire also included the Holy Land, it became the target
of the First Christian Crusade to free
In the eyes of the Crusaders, both Jews and Muslims were viewed
as "pagans. They therefore made no distinction between them:
all
were either put to the sword or burnt. In consequence upon a Crusader
approach many Jerusalem Jews (and presumably others) fled
south-eastwards to
Crusaders
*
For the Crusaders, the
Jews were viewed as the source of
all the trouble in the
the destruction of the Holy Sepulchre by the Fatimids in 1009 (http://www.christusrex.org/www1/jhs/TSspdest.html.)
One of the chroniclers of the time, Ralph Glaber, in his Miracles de
Saint-Benoit (from Migne, PL 142:655ff) (http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/glaber-1000.html)
expressed his deep concern for the future and
like many others he, too, expected the end of the world at the time of
the Millennium. As regards the Holy Land in general and
At
that time, moreover, that is in the ninth year after the aforesaid
thousandth anniversary, the
church at
at the command of the prince of
it was decreed by the common consent of Christian folk that all Jews
should utterly driven
forth from their lands or cities.
Thus they were held up to
universal hatred and driven forth from
the cities; some were Slain with the sword or cut off by manifold kinds
of death, and some even slew themselves in divers fashions; so that,
after this well-deserved vengeance had been wreaked, scarce any were
found in the Roman world. Then
also the bishops published
decrees forbidding all Christians to associate themselves with Jews in
an matter whatsoever; and ordaining that, whosoever would be converted
to baptismal grace and utterly eschew the Customs or manners of the
Jews, he alone should be received.
Which indeed was done by
very many of
them for love of this present life, and impelled rather by fear of
death than by the joys of the life everlasting; for all such of them as
simulated this conversion returned impudently within a brief
while to their former way of life..[gma emphasis] . .
o
§
The
Jewish Quarter in the Old City of Jerusalem,
Dating from the time of `Umar, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umar)
the Quarter was located in the southern part of the city, near the
gates of the
In the eleventh century the southern wall line was abandoned, and the
Jewish quarter, now without sufficient defence, moved to the northern
part of the city.
A midrashic commentary, probably from an earlier period – the
Song of Songs Rabba –
cites that the phrase “There he stands behind our
wall”
(Song of Songs 2:9) is
“a
reference to the Western Wall of the
Hulda's Gate have never been destroyed”. It seems
... that
the Gate of the Priest was located in the Western Wall, and that the
Jewish quarter extended from the
southwestern corner of the
The commentary states:
the kings
of Ishmael treat us well and have allowed
All the
Israelites in exile that live near the
§
The
Crusader Siege of
On 7 June the crusader army camped outside
An attempt to storm the walls on June 13 failed, and the army settled
in (in the baking heat)
for a siege.
Fulcher of Chartres wrote:
During the siege we were so oppressed by thirst that we sewed together
the hides of oxen and buffalo, which we used to carry water of a
distance of about six miles... we
were in daily distress and affliction for the Saracens used to lie in
wait around the springs and water sources, and would ambush our men,
kill them and cut them to pieces..."
After an
all out attack, the Crusaders took
Before we attacked
in a procession in God's honour around
...all the
defenders of the city fled along the walls and through the city, and
our men, following Lethold, chased after them, killing them and
dismembering them as far as the Temple of Solomon. And in
that
place there was such slaughter that we were up to our ankles in their
blood.
At last the
pagans were overcome and our men captured a good number of men and
women in the
others alive... All our men came rejoicing and weeping for
joy to
worship at the church
of the Holy Sepulchre.
o
Nor was
"And the
city of
A later
writer, Marcel Ladoire, a French priest (also an historian) who visited
in 1719 wrote:
"And
Thus, a full thousand years after
the fall of the Jewish state, there were still Jewish communities
throughout the Holy Land, fifty of which are known including
4.
Effect of Crusader Control of Holy Land (Phase II) on Jewish Settlement
In the
second phase the Crusaders gained a hold over certain towns and regions
by means of treaties and agreements in which the Jews
participated. The destruction of entire communities ceased as
the
Crusaders were more interested in possessing living cities than in
occupying desolate wastes.
Jews,
however, sought refuge in
Travel
between the Holy Land and Europe became easier and the number of Jews
immigrating from France,
England and North Africa increased as did the number of Jewish pilgrims
to Jerusalem; Yehuda Halevi in 1141, Maimonides in 1165 and Benjamin of
Tudela, visiting between 1167 and 1169.
The
renowned rabbi Maimonides (Rabbi Moshe Ben Maimon, 1135-1204) in the
Preface to his Commentary on Tractate Rosh Hashana, written in 1165
notes:
On the 4th
day of Cheshvan (October-November) we departed from Acre to go up to
there that day and gave thanksgiving to God for everything... And these
two days I made an oath to celebrate for me and my descendants forever,
may the Lord help me fulfil my pledges.
And just
as
I was privileged to pray in the Land in its desolation,
may I and
all Israel live to see its speedy restoration. [gma emphasis] (Tal,
p.
101)
Benjamin of
Tudela found Jews living near David's Tower in
the rural areas, mainly in
I saw in
Benamin
left a record of the number of Jewish inhabitants in towns and villages
across the country. The relatively small numbers reflect the outcome of
the destruction of entire communities by the First Crusade, half a
century earlier.
Although the Crusaders massacred many Jews during the 12th
century, the Jewish community rebounded in the next two centuries as
large numbers of rabbis and Jewish pilgrims immigrated to
5. Islamic
Control Reasserted Over the Holy Land
Ayyubids
Christian
attempts to maintain their hold the
the Muslim world in a counter crusade against the Christians. Gathering
a large force of Muslims of various groups, Saladin attacked the Latin
Kingdom of Jerusalem in 1187 and defeated the Crusaders in the Battle
of
the Horns of Hittin near the
of
(Saladin,
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/Saladin.html)
Under Salah al Din (aka Saladdin) and his successors, Jews again
enjoyed a certain measure of freedom were permitted to resettle in
Mamluks
The 13th
century saw the Mamluks (originally slave soldiers in
*
In 1257 Rabbi Yehiel of
*
Nahmanides, a famous
Jewish physician and talmudic scholar
(1194-1270) migrated from
Unfortunately
the Jewish communities in Acre and the other towns along the
Mediterranean coast -
Haifa
were therefore forced to abandon their coastal settlements and move
inland. (Bahat
pp.41-43)
Thus by
the
end of the 13th
century, although Islam succeeded in
regaining control of the Holy Land, many
Jews who had tried to settle there were killed in the course of Islamic
confrontations with Christians.
Although
the Mamluk rule brought stability to the Holy Land in the early 14th
century and permitted the revival
of Jewish settlement, which augmented the existing Jewish communities
in Safad, Ramla and
nevertheless a Jewish renaissance was retarded by natural disasters
such as epidemics and earthquakes. This notwithstanding, during the
middle and through to the end of the century, travellers such as
Jacques of Verona, and Ogier D’Anglure reporting on their
visits
to Jerusalem in 1335 and 1395 respectively, refer to the existence
there of Jewish communities, as did Giorgio Gucci in 1350 who described
the Jews coming to pray in Hebron at the shrine of the Jewish
forefathers. (Bahat
pp.44-45)
The
writings of the visiting Dominican priest, Felix Fabri, towards the end
of the fifteenth century (1482) also disclose a reference to the
presence of Jews in
On the other hand, a Christian pilgrim from
"Christians
and Jews alike in
them and that those Jews who dwell there are regarded as holy by Jews
elsewhere, because, in spite of all the troubles and sorrows inflicted
on them by the Moslems, they refuse to leave the Land." (cited in Bahat,
p.49)
Shortly
afterwards,
6. Jewish Presence in Palestine Under the Ottomans
The early
sixteenth century saw the Ottoman capture of
“The
largest community, numbering about 10,000 Jews was situated in and
around Safad,; most of them were refugees from
According
to official censuses, in the second quarter of the 16th century the
number of Jews in Jerusalem varied between 1,000 and 1,500, living in
three quarters coextensive with the present Jewish Quarter of the city,
while William Biddulph, an English priest who visited Palestine in 1600
commented in his book “The Travels of Four Englishmen and a
Preacher ” that Tiberias is entirely occupied by Jews.
In 1631,
the Christian writer Eugene Roger records that there were approximately
15,000 Jews were living in various parts of the country, including
Jerusalem, Hebron, Gaza, Haifa, Ramla, Nablus, Safad, Acre and Sidon.
They
were
subject to the whims of the local rulers who in many cases had
purchased their posts art great cost [from the Ottoman Government] and
attempted to recoup this money during their period of rule. (Bahat
p.54)
Bahat’s
research provides information regarding the visit of George Sandys, son
of the Archbishop of York who visited the
"And in
their Land they (the Jews)live as strangers, hated by those amongst
whom they dwell, open to all oppression and deprivation, which they
bear with patience beyond all belief, despised and beaten. In spite of
all this, I never saw a Jew with an angry face."
The
writings of a Dutch scholar, Olf Dapper who collected data mostly from
travellers to the
period summed up his findings in 1677 with the statement:
"There
are Jews all over
pass through their hands." (Bahat p.54)
Despite the
economic and cultural decay of the
in the city. This is confirmed by the first official census for
to be composed of: 7120 Jews, 5760 Muslims and 3390 Christians
By 1874,
the American consul in
7.
Jerusalem
: Its Centrality to Judaism and to Jewish Culture
The myth of
al-Aqsa
Holiness of
Mordechai
Kedar Published in YNET : 09.15.08, 00:47 /
www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3596681,00.html
While a
spiritual longing to return to
For some historians, notably Benzion Dinur, Israel’s Minister
of
Education from 1951-1955, the driving force
behind the aliyot of the medieval and early modern periods was the
“Messianic ferment” that cropped up in Jewish
communities
which, together with the appearance of charismatic leaders heralding
the end of days, precipitated
the organisation of groups to return to Israel in order to hasten the
Redemption.
(see Arie
Morgenstern, Dispersion
and the Longing for Zion 1240-1840,
Vol 12 Azure, Winter 2002; Joseph Farah “The
Jews took no
one’s land”
www.WorldNetDaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=27338
)
“First
Photographs of the Holy Land” http://www.eretzyisroel.org/~dhershkowitz/index2.html
; also Photographs of Early Zionist in
The
continuous connection binding the Jewish people to the
of return and redemption; Jewish history; continuous Jewish life in
These
points link to an important differentiation which needs to be made
between Jewish colonisation
and
imperial colonialism.
As will be explained in Chapter
IV, the motivation behind the nineteenth and twentieth
century Zionist Movement in establishing Jewish colonies in Palestine
was grounded not only in the five roots enumerated above, but also in
the secular drive for self-determination. This should be contrasted
with imperial colonialism. British Middle Eastern objectives following
World War I, which were to be advanced by encouraging the establishment
of Jewish colonies - were motivated to support and expand the interests
of the “mother” [trustee] country – the
expansion of
British hegemony and markets for British manufactured goods, containing
the interests of competing imperial aspirations of France and Russia,
establishing and maintaining secure access to, if not
control over, petroleum resources in the Persian Gulf and finally
ensuring a land bridge from Europe to India and the Far East in the
event of control of the Suez Canal falling into alien hands.
The purpose
of this Section has been to refute any argument that the Jewish
connection with
“Whereas
recognition has thereby been given to the historical connection of the
Jewish people with
to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that
country”
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