The Promised Blend

Chronicles from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv

As part of our deep dive into the wicked problem of Palestine, we turn to a historical look at Judaism and the complicated relationship that the Jewish people have with the land of Palestine/Israel/Judea/Samaria etc., etc., etc. Along the way, we will stumble across many players who are still part of today's wicked problem in the Middle East. Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Israel, and Egypt, along with the three great monotheistic religions (Judaism, Islam, and Christianity), all have played significant roles for thousands of years.

 Because so much of the history is found in the Hebrew Bible, I almost feel the need to throw my hands out and (in my best Charlton Heston voice) intone, “In the beginning…..”

The Hebrew Bible is many things to many people. To some (including Evangelical Christians), it is the literal word of God. To others, it is a collection of wisdom and history that may have a bit of divine inspiration. To the cynics among us (who question all religions), it is the “opiate of the people.” However you view it, it is the most foundational document for believers in the monotheistic Abrahamic religions. It is also valuable to us as we ponder the complicated relationship between the Jewish people and the land of Palestine.

Judaism is the oldest monotheistic religion, predating both Christianity and Islam by several millennia. Central to it is the belief that God made a covenant with a Chosen People, the Jews, promising he would (through them) save all of mankind if they would obey his teachings. Those teachings are contained in the Torah (literally “teachings”), or the Pentateuch, the Five Books of Moses. The Torah is, without question, a biography of the Jewish people and Judaism. The Torah is where we find God’s promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (the three Jewish patriarchs) about the promised land.

In the 12th chapter of Genesis, verse 1 (Genesis 12:1), God told Abraham, “Go from your country….to the land that I will show you.” So, Abraham packed up and left (from what is now Iraq) and traveled to what God told him was the Promised Land (Canaan). Abraham settled first in what is now the West Bank (near Shechem, or “Nablus” in Arabic) and later moved to Beersheba in the Negev Desert (now the south of Israel.)

The Bible isn’t clear about the boundaries of the Promised Land. The Book of Exodus says that God promised the Israelites everything from the Nile River to the Euphrates. However, at the time, the Jews did not settle the entirety of the Promised Land. The Book of Joshua notes that of the lands promised to them, the Israelites conquered only Canaan.

As described in the text, Canaan encompassed modern-day Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza. The West Bank and Gaza encompass most of the currently designated Palestinian state-to-be. But it’s difficult to be exact, as the boundaries of Israel vary in the text (see Genesis 15:18-21; Numbers 34:1-12; Deuteronomy 1:7-8). All in all, the total geographical area promised in any of the books was greater than the size of Israel after the 1967 war.

So here we are, barely starting, and we are already smack in the middle of a wicked problem.

Abraham settled his family in Canaan, but eventually, famine forced Abraham’s grandson, Jacob, to move his people to Egypt in search of food. There, Jacob was united with his son Joseph (yes, the guy with the coat), who’d risen to be the consiglieri to the Pharaoh. This worked out well for many years until the Pharaoh died. Under the new regime, the Jews were enslaved, which brings us back full circle to Charlton Heston and his portrayal of the Jewish patriarch Moses, who led the Jews out of Egypt and into the Sinai desert. And we all know the poignant ending to his story. After decades of faithful service and obedience to his God, Moses was allowed to see the Promised Land, but he was never allowed to enter it, dying before the people of Israel finally returned.

Leave it to Golda Meir to sum up the long-term impact of that episode: “Let me tell you the one thing I have against Moses,” she said. “He took us forty years into the desert to bring us to the one place in the Middle East that has no oil!” (implying that even back then, men refused to stop and ask for directions.)

About 300 years later (~1000 B.C.E.), the shepherd boy David appears (bringing a stone and sling to a sword fight). After he slays Goliath, he grows up and becomes the third ruler of Israel and the founder of the Judean dynasty (which included all the tribes of Israel in what is now the southern part of Israel and the West Bank). This began the golden age of Ancient Israel when David’s son (Solomon) built the First Temple as a home for the Ark of the Covenant in Jerusalem. Upon his death, Solomon passed the crown to his son Rehoboam.

Along with not being the sharpest knife in the drawer, King Rehoboam was said to be cruel and self-centered. His rule was so bad that the kingdom of Israel split in two (Israel and Judah). That schism weakened both kingdoms and led to a series of conquests.

Rotating Rulers

The first came at the hands of the Babylonians, whose conquest ultimately destroyed Jerusalem and sent most of its population into exile in Babylonia (modern-day Iraq) in July 587/576 BC.

In short order, the Persians (modern-day Iran) conquered Babylonia, and the Jews were allowed to return to Jerusalem, where they quickly rebuilt the Temple.

Next came Alexander the Great, who conquered the Middle East on his way to Asia. Judea came under the rule of the Ptolemaic dynasty and later that of the Seleucids (a Macedonian Greek dynasty established when Alexander’s empire was carved up after his untimely death).

Seleucid attempts to impose their Hellenistic culture and suppress the Jew’s ancestral faith resulted in the rise of the Maccabees, by all contemporary accounts, religious fanatics. (Their victory over the Seleucids is commemorated in the feast of Hannukah.) The Maccabees set up a revived kingdom of Judea, which was, unfortunately, riven by family disputes that left the kingdom ripe for the pickings.

And Then Came Rome

By 63 B.C.E., Judea was a client state, and by 6 B.C.E., a Roman province. At a time of increasing social unrest, Rome installed the controversial Herod the Great as “King of the Jews.” Although depicted in most historical sources as a bad guy, probably due to his penchant for killing anyone he thought might be a threat to his power (including his first wife, her entire family, and 3 of his sons), Herod proved himself to be a skillful developer, planning and building multiple cities, harbors, and fortresses (including Masada). Herod also rebuilt and greatly expanded the Second Temple. He managed to gain exemptions for the Jews from both mandatory army service as well as the requirement to worship the Roman emperor as a god, thus preserving their ability to practice Judaism openly and in peace.

We are most familiar with this Herod (although he was 1 of 5 in the dynasty) because he was in power when Jesus was born. Although there are no corroborating contemporary accounts, it was this Herod who ordered that all boys under the age of 2 who lived in and around Bethlehem be killed when the Magi told him that a “king of the Jews” had been born. It was Herod’s son (also Herod) who, ruling about 30 years later, turned the adult Jesus over to Pilate, allowing him to be crucified.

Many conquered peoples managed to live in relative peace under Roman rule. They paid their taxes and, in return, were allowed to live by their local customs and practice their religions if these didn’t directly violate Roman law. The Jews, however, continued to clash with their occupiers, primarily because they refused even to pretend to go through the motions of worshiping the plethora of Roman gods. The First Jewish Revolt was the culmination of a long series of sporadic clashes between small groups of Jews and the Romans, who responded to all challenges, be they large or small, with heavy-handed tactics. In the fall of 66 C.E., the disparate Jewish factions combined forces, expelled the Romans from Jerusalem, set up a government, and extended their influence throughout the country.

Rome responded by sending four legions under the command of the future emperors Vespasian and his son Titus, who methodically worked their way south from Syria, defeating every pocket of resistance they encountered. After a seven-month siege, Jerusalem fell on the 9th of Av (August 29th) 70 C.E.

Titus sacked the city, destroyed the Temple (only the western retaining wall remained standing), and exiled the few surviving residents. A group of zealots known as the Sicarii escaped just before Jerusalem fell and fled to the fortress of Masada, where they held out for three years until it, too, fell. The riches plundered from Jerusalem filled the imperial coffers at the start of Vespasian’s reign and funded a series of public works projects, most notably the Roman Colosseum.

Although the Jews were exiled from Jerusalem proper, many small groups continued to live throughout Judea. During this time, many of the exiled rabbis began to transform Judaism from a temple-based religion requiring animal sacrifices and pilgrimages to the Temple to one based on laws, books, and prayers—in effect, a religion that could be practiced anywhere.

The Romans established a permanent garrison presence to keep the Jews firmly under control. However, two subsequent rebellions occurred: the little-known Kitos War (115 C.E.) and the Bar Kokhba Revolt (132-135 C.E.). The latter was sparked by the visit of the emperor Hadrian to the area and his decisions to replace Jerusalem with a new colony (Aelia Capitolina) and to build a temple to Jupiter on the site of the Second Temple. Although initially successful, the revolt couldn’t withstand a concerted assault by the Roman army, which methodically wore the rebels down.

The aftermath of the revolt was devastating to the Jewish people. Virtually all the Jews of Judea were killed, exiled, or sold into slavery. The Romans reconfigured the area's geography, incorporating Judea into a new entity-Syria Palestina-and Jerusalem remained officially known as Aelia Capitolina. To add insult to injury, the Romans added a statue of the emperor Hadrian to the new Temple to Jupiter on the site of the Second Temple, and Jews were forbidden to enter Jerusalem until the 4th century.

While there would always be small groups of Jews living in the greater land of Israel, it was not until the late nineteenth century before they began returning in numbers sufficient to begin to roil the local residents.

As we leave the Jews to return to our wicked problem and the birth of Islam, we are left with the one thing that has never changed for the Jews - the connection they have felt to the real estate they believed was promised Abraham by God. “To your descendants, I give this land.” Through generations of war, conquest, and exile, Jews never lost faith that the land was theirs and ended their yearly Passover seder with the words “next year in Jerusalem.”

Please feel free to comment below, and we look forward to our next installment, which will focus on Islam as a major force in the world, especially in the context of Palestine.