The Jews: God’s Chosen People



The Jews: God’s Chosen People

By: C.D.NORMAN

About Judaism

JUDAISM is one of the oldest major religions and the first religion to teach the belief in one God. It is also the religion of one people – the Jews, ‘the chosen people of God’, they believed. The basic laws and teachings of Judaism come from Torah, the first five books of the Hebrew Bible.

Judaism teaches that all people are created in the image of God and deserve to be treated with dignity and respect. The moral and ethical teachings play more important role in Judaism. God gave the children of Israel the Ten Commandments through their leader Moses. They call themselves the chosen people of God because God had told them so in their scriptures.

The Jews traditionally believe that God would send them a messiah to save them, but they would not recognise Christ as their saviour because Jesus claimed that he was the son of God, which, according to Jewish belief was blasphemy. Many Jews still believe that the promised messiah is yet to come.

They have no one person on top as their religious head. Each local congregation of Jews chooses its own rabbi and manages its own affairs as independent unit. The rabbi serves as spiritual guide and teacher and interprets the Jewish laws. The Jewish house of worship, the centre of Jewish education and community activity is the synagogue. The Sabbath is the seventh day of the week, Saturday, which is the day of rest. The Sabbath begins at sundown on Friday and ends at night fall on Saturday when three stars could be seen in the sky.

The Jews follow the dietary laws handed down to them in their Bible. They do not eat pork or shell fish like prawns and oysters. Milk and meat are not served in the same meal. Only meat from healthy animals slaughtered after saying special blessing could be eaten by the Jews. Food prepared in accordance with Jewish dietary laws is called Kosher.

When a Jewish baby boy is eight days old he is circumcised as a mark of the covenant God made with Abraham, their forefather. At thirteen he becomes a full member of the community.

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Early History of the Jews

From the earliest time of known history there had been many nomadic tribes wandering with their sheep, cattle and camels in the area now known as “Middle-East”, including the present states of Israel, Syria, Jordan and Iraq. They were of primitive culture but well adapted to the harsh life of the terrain where they lived and the extremes of climatic conditions. Wars between the clans might have taken place frequently over claims to pasture lands and water for their livestock. Each clan must have had their own concept of god or gods and religion.

The Jews among them were a small tribe, partly nomadic and partly in small settlements. Their needs were small and they lived under tents made of animal skins. There was one thing that separated them from the surrounding tribes: they were monotheists. They believed in one God, a supreme spiritual being unlike the polytheistic gods of the neighbouring clans. Apart from this they were a sturdy race as all nomads have to be for survival and were proud of their culture. They were also emotional, volatile and easily provoked to anger. And deeply religious.

Captivity in Egypt

If we unroll the scroll of history through several centuries or a couple of millennia we come to the beginning of Biblical times. Approximately between 1700 B.C. and 1290 B.C. they had been in captivity for 430 years in Egypt. During the reign of Rameses II, the Pharaoh of Egypt, about the year 1290 B.C. a leader among them, Moses, appeared who demonstrated before the Pharaoh the power of the God of his people, God of the Hebrews, who brought ten plagues on Egypt and the Egyptians, to reveal His power, and succeeded in redeeming the tribe from captivity.

Before they left Egypt they “asked from the Egyptians articles if silver, articles of gold, and clothing. And the Lord had given the people favour in the sight of the Egyptians, so that they granted them what they requested. Thus they plundered the Egyptians” -- Exodus 12: 35, 36.

Exodus 12:37 says: ” Then the children of Israel journeyed from Rameses to Succoth, about six hundred thousand men on foot, besides children.” The Bible does not mention the number of women and children. Assuming an equal number of them as men, it can be assumed that the total population that left Egypt had been 1,800,000.

. “ For you are a holy people to the Lord your God; the Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for Himself, a special treasure above all peoples on the face of the earth. The Lord did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any other people, for you were the least of all peoples: but because the Lord loves you, and because He would keep the oath which He swore to your fathers, the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh of Egypt.” Deuteronomy 7: 6 – 8

Thus said God to Moses at the end of the forty years of sojourn of the Israelites through the deserts after their deliverance from captivity in Egypt and just before they were about to be lead into the promised land that flowed with milk and honey. It was approximately 1250 B.C. and from that moment the struggle started for the chosen people in occupying the promised land. They had to fight their way into the promised land, fully supported by God, displacing and practically annihilating those already in occupation of the land.

Taking over of the Promised Land

The Israelites were to usurp and take away by force the land occupied by Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites; seven nations mightier than them.

“ and when the Lord your God delivers them to you, you shall conquer them and utterly destroy them. You shall make no covenant with them nor show mercy to them. ….. But thus you shall deal with them. You shall destroy their alters and break down their sacred pillars and cut down their wooden images and burn their carved images with fire.” Deuteronomy 7: 2, 5

A period of utter destruction of people and property, abduction and enslavement of women, lifting of cattle and livestock of all kind, permitted by divine sanction, followed. God’s instruction to the Israelites as how to treat the enemies defeated in battle is given in Deuteronomy 20: 13, 14, 16 & 17 and 21: 10, 11 & 14

“……. You shall strike every male in it (the defeated city) with the edge of the sword.

But the women, the little ones, the livestock and all that is in the city, all its spoils, you shall plunder for yourself; and you shall plunder for yourselves which the Lord your God gives you .

….. of the cities of these people which the Lord your God gives you as inheritance, you shall let nothing that breaths remain alive,

…..but you shall utterly destroy them

“When you go out to war against your enemies, and the Lord your God delivers them into your hand, and you take them captive,

and you see among the captives a beautiful woman and desire her and would take her for your wife,

then you shall bring her home to your house

And……. If you have no delight in her, then you shall set her free, but you certainly shall not sell her for money; you shall not treat her brutally, because you have humbled her.”

Their conquests are described thus:-

CONQUEST OF SIHON Deuteronomy 2: 33, 34, 35

We utterly destroyed the men, women and little ones of every city; we left none remaining

We took only the livestock as plunder for ourselves, with the spoils of the cities which we took

CONQUEST OF OG, KING OF BASHAN. Deuteronomy 3: 6, 7

And we utterly destroyed them,……… utterly destroying their men , women and children of every city.

But all the livestock and the spoils of the cities we took as booty for ourselves.

CONQUEST OF JERICHO: Joshua 6: 21, 24

And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both men and women, young and old, ox and sheep and donkey, with the edge of the sword.

….. they burned the city and all that was in it with fire ……..

VICTORY AT AI: JOSHUA 8: 23, 24, 25, 28, 29

……..when Israel had made an end of slaying all the inhabitants of Ai in the field, in the wilderness where they pursued them and when they all had fallen by the edge of the sword until they were consumed, that all the Israelites returned to Ai and struck it with the edge of the sword.

……all who fell that day, both men and women, were twelve thousands – all the people of Ai.

Only the livestock and the spoil of the city Israel took as booty for themselves according to the word of God

So Joshua burned Ai and made it a heap for ever, a desolation to this day

And the king of Ai he hanged on a tree until evening…………

VICTORY OVER THE AMONITES : Joshua 10: 23, 26, 38, 39

……..they… brought out those five kings to him from the cave: The king of Jerusalem, the king of Hebron, the king of Jarmuth, the king of Lachish and the king of Eglon.

……….Joshua struck them and killed them and hanged them on five trees and they were hanging on the trees until the evening

Then he returned to Debair and they fought against it

And he took it and its king and all its cities; they struck them with the edge of the sword and utterly destroyed all the people who were in it.

Joshua Chapter 12:- The kings conquered by Joshua were thirty-one in number , their cities destroyed and their men and women put to the edge of the sword, their silver and gold confiscated and their cattle claimed as booty

DESTRUCTION OF THE MEDIANITES Numbers 31: 7, 8, 9, 10, ( 15, 17, 18 ), 32 to 35

And they warred against the Medianites, ………….. and they killed all the males

They killed the kings of Median …………….. the five kings of the Median….

And the children of Israel took all the women of Medians captive, with their little ones, and took as spoil all their cattle, all their flocks, and all their goods

They also burned with fire all the cities where they dwelt, and all the forts.

……..killed every male among the little ones, and killed every woman who has known a man intimately.

And the booty which the men had taken was sheep – 675,000

Cattle -- 72,000

Donkeys -- 61,000

and women who had not known a man intimately -- 32,000

The Jews occupied the promised land and divided it between their different tribes after a period of violence, merciless massacre, burning down of entire cities, abducting of virgin women and taking away all domestic animals, sheep, donkeys as booty

These acts of plunder, brutal mass murders, enslaving of women and lifting of cattle could, perhaps, be justified in tribal warfare and in primitive cultures, but nevertheless, condemnable. The modern rules of warfare and treatment of prisoners of war according to Geneva convention is far more civilised and humane though not fully followed even in the present day.

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Post Occupation, Judges and Kings

The Jewish people got tired and restless about the supervision of the Judges who presided over their affairs for the past 250 years and clamoured for a king like the other tribes around them. Their voice reached God who warned them about the disadvantages of having a king over them but the people of Israel wanted a king. The heavenly choice was made known through prophet Samuel who picked a handsome and brave young man of the tribe of Benjamin, Saul. Saul was formally proclaimed king of the Israelites at Gilgal.

Saul took his residence at a small town, Gilbeah. Saul’s throne room was about fifteen by twenty-four feet and his garden enclosed a space less than forty by sixty yards. The life in Gibeah was primitive. The kingdom of Israel had a very humble beginning.

Saul gathered an army of some three thousand men and lost no time in furthering his own personal ambitions. And very soon he was found wanting in the eyes of God who chose as the next king, David, a shepherd boy and son of Jesse in Bethlehem.

David was a harpist and a musician and also a composer of songs. He stayed in Saul’s court for some time and later returned to his former life as a shepherd. Later he was reunited with Saul and Jonathan, son of Saul, after David defeated the Philistine giant Goliath, by a sling shot. David became very popular among the people and Saul became jealous of his popularity. He had by then become the son-in-law of Saul. The violent behaviour of Saul made him flee the court of Saul to save his life. Saul pursued David but he had to meet the Philistines in battle and was defeated. To save himself from captivity, he fell upon his own sword and committed suicide. Saul ruled from 1020 B.C. to 1000 B.C.

David was anointed king of Judah at Hebron. He was a gentle person and an able poet. He wrote seventy three of the 150 psalms in the Book of Psalms. In 993 B.C. the northern tribes came to Hebron and anointed him king over all Israel. One of the contributions of David to his kingdom was the orderly organization of his government. .David’s most important mission of his reign was to make Jerusalem the spiritual and cultural centre of Hebrew life.

David’s family included a wide variety of wives and concubines and a large number of children. As power and wealth accumulated, strife and contention in the family increased. As David grew older he realised that his son Absalom was in a position to seize his throne. He hurriedly fled Jerusalem to escape assassination and took refuge in the hill country east of Jordan. There was an encounter with Absalom in which Absalom got killed by the arrows shot by Joah, David’s commander-in-chief.

King David returned to Jerusalem triumphant and ordered a census of all Israelites who could fight. The Lord God did not approve of this act of David and He sent a pestilence, which took seventy thousand lives. David repented for the misery he had caused to his people. By now David had become old and semi-invalid. Before he died his son Solomon was anointed king. Solomon, in turn, killed his other half-brother Adonijah who aspired for the throne and all other leaders who opposed him. Solomon became king in 961 B.C. and ruled till 922 B.C.

King Solomon’s first interest was the building of the Temple which his farther had planned and for which materials had been gathered by him. God willed that the Temple should be built by Solomon and not by David. It took seven years to build the Temple with marble walls and roof of cedar wood from Lebanon, all overlaid with gold.

I Kings 5 :13 – 17 : 6:38 : 8: 6

Then King Solomon raised up a labour force out of all Israel; and the labour force was

Thirty thousand men

And he sent them to Lebanon, ten thousands a month in shifts; they were one month in

Lebanon and two months at home.

Solomon had seventy thousand who carried burdens, and eighty thousand who quarried

Stones from the mountains,

Besides, three thousand three hundred from the chiefs of Solomon’s deputies , who

supervised the people who laboured in the work.

And the king commanded them to quarry large stones, costly stones and hewn stones

to lay the foundation for the Temple.

…….. so he was seven years in building it.

And Solomon offered a sacrifice of peace offering, which he offered to the Lord,

Twenty-two thousand bulls and one hundred and twenty thousand sheep So the king

and all the children of Israel dedicated the House of the Lord.

Solomon was the richest and wisest monarch of his time:- I Kings 4: 7, 27, 22, 23, 26

9: 11, 14

10: 14, 16 – 18, 21

And Solomon had twelve governors over all Israel, who provided food for the king

and his household; each made provision for one month of the year.

And these governors, each one in the month, provided food for King Solomon and for all

who came to King Solomon’s table. There was no lack in their supply.

Now Solomon’s provision for one day was thirty kors ( 1 kor =6.52 bushels = 52 gallons )

of fine flour, sixty kors of meal,

ten fatted oxen, twenty oxen from the pastures, and one hundred sheep besides deer,

gazelles, roebucks and fatted fowl.

Solomon had forty thousand stalls of horses for his chariots and twelve thousand

horsemen.

And Solomon gave Hiram twenty cities in the land of Galilee

Then Hiram sent the king one hundred and twenty talents of gold ($ 690m approx)

The weight of gold that came to Solomon yearly was six hundred sixty-six talents

And King Solomon made two hundred large shields of hammered gold; six hundred

shekels of gold went into each shield. (shekel = 8 ounce = 22.8 grammes )

He also made three hundred shields of hammered gold; three minas of gold went into

each shield. ( one mina = 1.25 lbs = 50 shekels )

Moreover the king made a great throne of ivory, and overlaid it with pure gold.

All king Solomon’s drinking vessels were of gold, and all the vessels of the House of the forest of Lebanon were of pure gold, not one of silver……

Solomon was the richest monarch of his time and most wise. He also had a harem of

seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines. Most of these women were idolatrous heathen. Solomon has married them for political convenience. They influenced his mind and made him build alters for pagan gods and distracted him from the God of Israel. Compared to his father King David, Solomon displayed a very shallow religious spirit, casual and opportunistic. When Solomon died the kingdom divided into two parts; Judah and Israel: Israel formed a major part in the North and Judah, of a smaller area south and east, including Jerusalem.

Expansion of Assyrian Empire

The kingdom of Israel which had lasted for two centuries had now come to the end in 721 B.C. when the Assyrians captured it and carried off a large number of people of the ten tribes who occupied the land, to Assyria. They became the ‘lost tribe’ of Israel for they have not been traced in history. Possibly they merged with the local population and lost their identity as Hebrews. Thus the northern kingdom made up of greater portion of the domain given by God to his chosen people had passed back into heathen hands.

Only the tiny Judah in the south remained, not fully independent but paying tribute to the Assyrians .

Expansion of Babylonian Empire

Judah came under the control of the Babylonian empire in late 6th century B.C. and was obliged to pay its tributes to the Babylonian king. Jehoiachin, the king of Judah revolted and failed to pay the tribute. The Babylonians took the king of Judah captive, took him in chains and exiled him along with his nobles to Babylon. They placed a puppet king, Zedekiah in the throne of Judah, but he too, after nine years of his rule, revolted. So the Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzar II stormed Jerusalem in 587 B.C. Zedekiah escaped with a few of his men but was captured by his enemies on the plain of Jericho and brought in chains before Nebuchadnezzar . One by one his sons were also brought before Zedekiah and slain. Zedekiah was blinded and put in prison in Babylon till his death. Zedekiah was the last king of Judah.

Jerusalem defended itself for two more years and finally fell into the hands of the Babylonians who destroyed the Temple and took away all the valuables and sacred vessels of the Temple to Babylon. They also destroyed all important buildings of Jerusalem and left it as a ruined city. The captives were lead to Babylon, the number of which is not certain; it could be between fifty to a hundred thousands. This captivity lasted till 536 B.C.

The kingdom of Judah came to an end.

Expansion of Persian Empire

Cyrus, a Persian prince attacked Babylon in 539 B.C. Babylon was a well-fortified city with the river Euphrates flowing through its fort. The troops of Cyrus managed to divert the flow of the river by digging huge trenches and entered the city through the dry bed of the river. Cyrus decreed that all foreign nationals captive in Babylon be freed. Hence the captivity of the Jews from Judea came to an end. They were free to go back to their land but some of them of the second and third generation born in Babylon were reluctant to go back, getting used to the life in Babylon. They had no firsthand knowledge of their land of Judah. But the people who did return to Judah in 536 B.C. were about 50,000. Their goods and food were carried by 8136 horses, camels and asses. Cyrus also let them carry all the vessels and property belonging to the Temple in Jerusalem, plundered by the Babylonians.

The people who returned from captivity in Babylon started to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem and completed its construction in 516 B.C. This was the second temple in Jerusalem after the first one built by Solomon was destroyed by the Babylonians. This temple lasted till 70 A.D. when Titus a Roman general destroyed the temple to put down the rebellion of the Jews against the Roman Empire.

Grecian Conquest and After

Alexander the Great was twenty when his father was assassinated in 336 B.C. Educated by the Greek scholar Aristotle, he was accomplished both as a ruler and as a general. In 334 B.C. He marched into Asia and defeated the Persian king Darius III. He also conquered Syria (including Palestine) and Egypt and established the city of Alexandria in Egypt, which, for centuries, remained the centre of art, science and learning and a refuge for the Jews. Alexander spared Jerusalem at the request of the leading citizens of Jerusalem. While returning from his Asian campaign, Alexander died in 324 B.C.

The vast empire of Alexander was divided by his army commanders into three parts. Antigonus Cyclops took Asia minor and Syria, Ptolemy took Egypt, and the eastern part up to India went to Seleucus Nicator Later Seleucus Nicator took Syria from Antigonus and established the city of Antioch . He made it his capital in 300 B.C. Palestine lay between the Selucid kingdom of Seleucus Nicator in the north and the Egyptian kingdom of the Ptolemies in the south, both contesting for the control over Palestine.

During the disturbed periods in Judaea (Greek name for Judah) some of the Jews migrated to North Africa and Alexandria. Those who migrated to Alexandria dropped the use of Hebrew and Aramaic and adopted Greek as their language of communication and were gradually Hellenised. During this time Jewish scholars in Alexandria translated the Torah into Greek which was the common language in their area and much of the Mediterranean countries

In 217 B.C. Antiochus III of Syria fought with Ptolemy IV (Philopator) to gain control over Palestine but was defeated in the battle near Gaza, not far from Jerusalem. Philopator visited Jerusalem and insisted on offering sacrifices in the Holy Temple for his victory. That was not acceptable for the Jews and he was prevented entry into the Holy of Holies of the Temple. He became enraged at the behaviour of the Jews and on his return to Alexandria he attempted to assassinate the Jews in the city resulting in the dispersal of the Jews to various other countries in Africa and Mediterranean coast.

But in 198 B.C. Antiochus III again invaded Palestine and won, adding the country to Seleucid Empire. Less than a decade after (190 B.C.) he fought with the Romans at Ephesus and was badly defeated. The Romans took his son Antiochus Epiphanes as a hostage to Rome where he was kept for fifteen years. During this period he became thoroughly Hellenised. When he returned to Syria and made the monarch of the kingdom, he wanted to have a uniform culture and religion in his empire which also included Palestine. What he wanted was the Hellenisation of his empire. Little did he realise the intense loyalty to their God felt by the Jews. There was immediately a conflict between the king of Syria and the Jews of Palestine.

Syrian emissaries sent to Judaea with explicit order to stamp out Judaism robbed the Temple, burned the holy books and set up a statue of Zeus, a Roman god, at the Temple for worship. They made it mandatory to sacrifice pigs at the alter of the Temple which was abhorrent to the Jews. The Syrian chief tax-collector marched into Judaea with armed troops and destroyed homes and buildings, massacred people and drove away women and children into slavery and herds of animals for food. In desecrating the Temple, Antiochus Epiphanes had struck a blow heavier than the Jews had expected . Judea, caught between the Seleucid rulers in the north and the Ptolemies in the south experienced pressure of forced changes by way of Hellenisation on their culture. Idols of Jupiter and Zeus were set up in all public places and sacrifice offered to them. Those who did not obey or openly defied the decree were publicly flogged or slain. The Jews were completely dazed, but recovered within a year and were ready to fight back.

The Maccabees

Resistance began to build up. One of the first to give it frank and open expression was an aged priest, Mattathias. He belonged to a family with a tribal name Hasmonaeans. When he was approached by a Syrian official to help him establish idol worship in Judea , Mattathias not only resisted it but also had the officer killed, knowing fully well that the Syrian reaction will be brutal and savage.

In 167 B.C. Mattathias, fearing the Syrian reaction, fled to the nearby hills with his five sons and hid in the caves. Many devout Jews followed them and organised a resistance group. When Mattathias died the next year, his third son, Judas, became the leader. He changed the name of the rebel group to “Maccabees”, meaning hammer. The descendents of this family to the fourth generation kept fighting the Syrians . They also considered themselves kings and High Priests of the Jewish community.

During this period the differences between the Pharisees and the Sadducees widened and came to a point of civil war. Alexander Jannacus, the Macabeean King and High Priest loved Hellenistic tastes where as the Pharisees hated them. During a feast at the Temple, the Pharisees pelted Alexander Jannacus with lemons and called him unfit for his office. Alexander was both king and High priest. He called his troops and killed 6000 of the protesters. A rebellion broke out which lasted nine years and cost 50,000 lives. It ended with the capture and crucifixion of 800 Pharisees during an open air public banquet which Alexander attended with his concubines. He also slaughtered the wives and children of those whom he killed. Alexander died in 76 B.C. His descendents continued for some more time.

In 63 B.C. Pompey, the Roman general took over Jerusalem and the administration of Judea leaving the Hasmonaeon to continue as High Priests. From now on to the close of the Bible times the Holy Land was under the rule of the Romans.

The Romans

In the year 66 A.D. Florus, the procurator sought to raid the Temple treasury to make good the deficit in tribute the Jews owed Rome. The people were ready to start a rebellion when Agrippa II (king of Judea, great grandson of Herod the great) pacified the mob and persuaded them to make good the deficit by voluntary contribution, thereby averting the a direct confrontation with the Romans. But soon after the revolutionary elements began to rise up again.

The Roman legate of 40,000 men sent from Syria to Jerusalem met with stiff resistance and was routed by the Jews who killed 6000 of the Roman soldiers before they could retreat to Caesarea , about sixty miles from Jerusalem. Nero, the Roman Emperor sent his general Titus Flavius Vespasian to put down the Palestinian rebellion. Titus landed in Palestine in 67 A.D. with some 50,000 troops. Nero died in 68 A.D. and the Jewish war was abandoned for two years. Finally, in 70 A.D. Titus returned, laid siege to Jerusalem and entered the city after a stiff resistance killing one million Jews! Titus ordered the city destroyed completely and levelled to the ground. Of the remaining people 100,000 were taken prisoners.. Some of them were taken as slaves to Egyptian mines and the others were distributed to various amphitheatres to be slaughtered as spectacle.

After the fall of Jerusalem fighting continued until the fortress of Masada built by Herod the Great, was taken by the Romans in 73 A.D. The proud and determined people trapped in the fortress decided upon mass suicide. First the men killed their wives and children and then one in every ten men killed the other nine and finally killed themselves. In all 960 men died. When the Romans entered the fort, not one soul was found alive. King Agrippa II fought on the side of the Romans, was wounded and taken to Rome where he died around 100 A.D.

It was difficult for the secular minded, matter-of-fact Romans to understand a people whose lives, thought and actions were governed by their spiritual beliefs. The Romans could not understand how a people given up to the belief that they were a chosen people of God, could look upon all governments except of their own choosing was insufferable slavery.

The next emperor, Vespasian, issued a decree to terminate the Jewish religion for all time. His edict was a harsh one. He abolished the Office of High Priest and dissolved the Sanhedrin. He also imposed a Temple tax on all Jews and maintained a large police force to maintain order in the land, but without much success. On the birthdays of Vespasian, spectacles were held in amphitheatres in Palestine where thousands of Jewish captives perished in gladiatorial exhibits and combats with lions and other wild animals.

Titus became the Roman emperor after his father Vespasian died in 79 A.D. His reign ended in two short years when he died in 81 A.D.

In 116 A.D. the Jews again sought to revolt, but this time the uprising was spread out far and wide even to Jewish communities out side Palestine in many lands along the African and Mediterranean coasts. In Cyprus alone the Jews slew an incredible number of 240,000 non-Jews. A similar number of Romans and Greeks were killed in Egypt and African coast

Hadrian, the Roman emperor, a staunch adherent of paganism made no distinction between the Jews and the Christians. Those who refused to sacrifice to pagan gods were tortured, thrown into dungeons or killed. During his reign the Jews attempted another rebellion under their leader Bar Kochba. The Romans, determined to drive out the Children of Abraham from their promised land, turned it into a war of extermination. Jews were prohibited from entering the city of Jerusalem and in 132 A.D. the Jews were driven out from the land. They spread out to far off India and China, Arabian peninsula, Egypt, Africa and Europe. For almost 2000 years, until the formation of the modern state of Israel in 1948 , the Jews were deprived of their home land. The Romans succeed in scattering the Jews into distant parts of the world but they did not succeed in eradicating their religion. Wherever the Jews went they carried their ancient beliefs with them

Hadrian devastated the city of Jerusalem completely and raised a new pagan city over the ruins of Jerusalem. In this new city, ‘Aelia Capitolina’ Hadrian built temples to pagan gods which lasted for the next two centuries.

Diaspora and after

The dispersal of the population of the Jews from Palestine to lands far flung as Africa and Asia and Europe is known as ‘DIASPORA”. Though they were away from their fatherland, living in small communities in different countries, amidst different peoples of varied cultures, they never forgot the land given them by God. Their desire to get back to Palestine one day persisted In their minds and every year, after the Passover Feast, they solemnly pledged, “Next year in Jerusalem.”

The period of Jesus is as important in the history of the Jews as any other period. Jesus was born in 5 or 6 B.C. He was born in a family of Jewish parents of the house of David. He died in 29 A.D. at the age of thirty-three. During the last 3 ½ years of his life he constantly moved around Palestine, preaching, curing the sick, driving away the devils from the demon-possessed, raising the dead, converting water into wine, augmenting a handful of food to feed many thousands and many such miracles. He also interpreted the Jewish Religious Laws in a new light and earned the displeasure of the priests who were conventional and rigid in their traditional beliefs. When Jesus claimed that he was the son of God he antagonised the Pharisees and Sadducees and earned the wrath of the High Priest.

The traditional Jews were neither willing to change their beliefs nor accept the divinity of Christ. They considered the claim of Jesus to divinity a blasphemy and finally they were responsible to get Jesus crucified with the consent of Pontius Pilate, the Roman Governor.

Though Jesus did not mean to establish a religion, his disciples called themselves Christians and did not pardon the sins of the Jews in betraying Jesus to the Roman Law. This hatred for the Jews, deep seated as it were in the minds of Christian societies of later days, has been the cause for immense suffering and misery to which the Jews were subjected.

“The root of Jewish suffering grew out of the rise of another religion (Christianity) dedicated , paradoxically, to the love of man for man. Burning in the ardour of their new faith to convert the pagan masses, the early fathers of Christian churches strove to emphasise the differences between their religion and its theological predecessor by forcing upon the Jews a kind of spiritual apartheid.”

The Jews Through the Ages

1) Dagobert, King of Franks, drove them from Gaul. 2) the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius forbade Jewish worship. 3) the crusaders fell on every hapless Jewish community on their route to Jerusalem. 4) most countries barred Jews from owning land. 5) the Church forbade Jews to employ Christians and Christians to live among the Jews. 6) England, France and Germany forced them to wear distinguishing badges ( at different periods of history) 7) Edward I of England and later Philip the Fair of France (1200 –1300A.D.) expelled the Jews from their nations, seizing their property before evicting them. 8) over two hundred Jewish communities were exterminated in the slaughter stirred by the belief that the Black Death in Europe was caused by them 9) In 1492 A.D. Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain expelled the Jews from Spain 10)In Germany Jews were forbidden to ride in carriages and were made to pay special toll as they entered any city 11) the republic of Venice restricted them to ghettoes. 12) In Poland, the Cossack Revolt wiped out 100,000 Jews in less than a decade. 13) Jews were conscripted at the age of twelve for twenty-five years’ of military service. 14) Jewish women were not allowed live in big city University centres without the yellow ticket of a prostitute. 15) in 1880, after the assassination of Alexander II, of Russia, the mob aided by the soldiers burned and butchered their way through one Jewish community after another, shouting POGROM, “organised murder”. 16) Hitler slaughtered six million Jews in concentration camps, gas chambers, shooting by firing squads and other methods of ghastly murder in Germany and in the lands occupied by them during the second world war, 1939 –1945, on the assumption that the Semitic race to which the Jews belong was inferior to the Aryan race of the Germans. (Six millions of people is a number difficult to imagine: It is the entire population of Bangalore city today) While the population of the Jews in the world at that time was about 20 millions, one in every three Jews was killed by Hitler.

In 1933 Hitler issued laws excluding the Jews from public services, Universities and professions. He also proclaimed the boycott of Jewish shops. In Vienna, hundreds of Jews, both men and women were picked off the streets and put to work cleaning public latrines and toilets. In retaliation to the killing of a German in the German Embassy in Paris by a of On November 7, 1938, a seventeen year old Jewish boy shot dead a German embassy official in Paris. The youth’s father was one among the 10,000 Jews deported to Poland in boxcars shortly before. Terror was unleashed in Berlin by the S.S. Troops on 9th and 10th November. During the night of 9/10 November Jewish houses and shops were burnt and men and women and children shot dead --- 815 Jewish shops destroyed, 171 Jewish dwelling houses set on fire; 119 synagogues set fire to and 76 synagogues completely destroyed. None of the leaders of the Christian Churches in Germany, nor the “good” Germans spoke out in open protest. The Nazis not only killed German Jews but also the Jews in the territories occupied by them. They organised concentration camps and extermination camps where mass killings were carried out. 250 to 300 250 250 to 300 thousand Hungarian Jews were exterminated in Auschwitz in 1944. The total number annihilated in this centre alone was 3 millions, both by gassing and by starvation.

310,000 Polish Jews were “resettled”, which means that they were sent to extermination camp at Treblinka where they were gassed. In Warsaw Ghetto where the SS troupe trapped 60,000 Jews, half of them were starved or burned to death and the other half exterminated in death camps. During the days of the siege, children used to sneak out into the streets and smuggled bits of food for their starving paraents. A poem scribbled on the wall of the Ghetto by a Jewish child during the days of German occupation of Warsaw reads: “Do not weep for me mother, do not cry, Are we not all marked to die? Only one worry besets me, lying in agony Who will care for you tomorrow? Who’ll bring you, dear mom, a slice of bread?”

Post Roman Period to the Present

330 A.D. The end of Roman occupation of Palestine 330 – 634 A.D. Palestine under Byzantine rule (Eastern Roman empire) 636 A.D. The Muslims conquer Jerusalem and make it their holy city 1099 – 1187 A.D. Jerusalem captured by Crusaders; Latin Kingdom established 1187 A.D. Saladin, a Moslem prince from Egypt ends the Latin Kingdom 1400 A.D. Mongol tribe under Tamerlane invades Palestine and occupies it 1517 A.D. Turkish Ottoman Empire conquers Palestine 1917 A.D. Palestine taken over by the Allies in World War I 1920 –1948 A.D. Palestine under British mandate by United Nations

It is sad to note that from the time of written history of the chosen people of God, from 1720 B.C. to 1948 A,D. a period of approximately 3700 years, the Jews had been in slavery for 500 years and were ruled by eleven different non-Jewish peoples for 2300 years. They were free and independent only for 600 years, those years continually filled with strife and instability; only 1/6 of the period from slavery in Egypt to the recognition of the statehood of Israel in 1948 by the United Nations.

Birth of Zionism

At a ceremony in Paris in January 1895, Captain Alfred Drefus and Theodor Herzl, a newspaper man, both Jews, heard the mob cry, “Kill the traitors, kill the Jews.” Drefus was an officer in the French Army. He was accused with false charges of passing military intelligence to Germany and later acquitted of the charge. A shock wave went down their being. They left the place in deep sorrow and in their despair and concern for the emancipation of the Jewish people they started a movement, “Zionism” and demanded a separate state for the Jews. Two years later Herzl launched his movement with the First World Zionist Congress in Basle, Switzerland where they chose their national flag and the national anthem.

The British Government’s offer of land from any other part of the world as Jewish home land was not acceptable to the Jews. The Zionists wanted only the land that was chosen for them by God, Palestine, and no other land. In 1917 A.D., during the World War I, Britain captured Palestine from Turkey. In the same year the British Government promised through what is known as Balfour Declaration the establishment of the Jewish home land in Palestine, provided it did not prejudice the rights and interests of the existing population of non-Jews there. From then on the Jewish immigration into Palestine increased rapidly and new Jewish settlements established. The quick growth of Jewish population in the land aroused the suspicion of Arabs who were in occupation of the land for the past 700 years. They began to resist Jewish immigration and looked upon the Balfour Declaration as an act of British Imperialism. The Arabs felt betrayed by the British. Their focus of anger was turned on the Zionist immigrants. Britain maintained a large number of troops in Jerusalem to control and check unauthorised flow of Jews in to Palestine. The Jews, by clandestine methods, smuggled into the country a large number of Jews from all parts of the world thereby increasing their population alarmingly for the Arabs. A suggestion to partition Palestine as a solution to the Jew-Arab confrontation was not acceptable to the Arabs. Even after twenty-eight years’ British presence in Palestine, between 1920 and 1948, and several attempts to reach a peaceful settlement, no lasting solution could be found for the Israel-Arab problem. The British left Palestine sad and disappointed. The problem of Jerusalem hung by the balance. It was left to the two warring nations to settle the problem themselves

In 1920 riots broke out in Palestine against Jewish immigration. The problem of protecting the immigrants and their properties increased. The Jews organised a semi-legal and a semi-underground army in 1920. During the 1930s thousand of German Jews fleeing from the anti-Semitic policy of Adolph Hitler, found their way to Palestine. They organized their army and started equipping their army with modern weapons smuggling them into Palestine. Hundreds of Jews from Europe entered in to Palestine as tourists and pilgrims and disappeared in to the Kibbutzim, the community farms. The British though aware of this clandestine activities, were unable to check them and turned a blind eye to it.

In spite of the opposition of the Arab countries the partition of Palestine was approved by the General assembly of the United Nation on 29th November 1947. Having won, on principle, the approval of the formation of a Jewish state, where they wanted, they had to wait for some more time to get the new state ratified and recognised by the U.N. This happened on 14th May 1948. A new Jewish state, Israel, was born that day. And, immediately after the announcement of recognition of Israel by the U.N. war broke out between he Jews and the Arabs in Jerusalem. This war continues even to this day and the settlement is not in sight , yet. The Jews and the Arabs continue to fight for the possession of Jerusalem which they both claim to be their holy city.

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Books referred to and quoted from:-

1) The Open Bible 2) World Book Encyclopaedia 3) O Jerusalem By Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre 4) Jesus and His Time -- Readers Digest Book 5) The Good News -- The American Bible Society 6) Story of the Bible World -- Readers Digest Book 7) The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich By William Shirer

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