The Jews

A Brief History of Movement

&
Religious interpretation

Grant J. Brill
IR 353 – Middle Eastern Culture
Prof. Rudolph E. Tinker
24 June 2008
Introduction

Over nearly 4,000 years the Jewish people have been trying to establish solidarity

to their ethnic identity. This identity though is distinctly characterized by the years of

exile and oppression faced by the hand of a number of empires. A contemporary Jew is

defined as either having converted to Judaism or being born from a Jewish mother, in

some sects this also applies to being born from a Jewish Father. Today, the Jewish Nation

lies in Israel and though it can be said that Jerusalem is the focal point of Jewish culture it

is nearly impossible though, to define their culture without understanding how the Jews

finally came to reside in the Israel we know today. In this paper I will skim over the

history of movement of the Jewish people, starting in 1920 B.C. with Abraham and

ending in 1948 A.D. with creation of the modern state of Israel, once completed I will

then briefly go over some of the implications history has had on Jewish beliefs, which

affect its culture to this day.

Birth of a Nation

The birth of Jewish ethnicity and religion started around 1920 B.C. when God

summoned Abraham. God ordered Abraham to leave Terah’s, his father, house and to

leave his country. In return, Abraham would become the ancestor of a great nation in a

land yet to be seen. Abraham accepted and by doing so is charged with spreading the

word of monotheism to his people. This was no small task as pagan worship was widely

accepted to include by Abrahams father. In order to make early Judaism more appealing,

the emphasis was placed one accepting one all powerful God, while at the same time

allowing the worship of pagan deities, this practice would last until around 1238 B.C.
with the end of the Babylonian exile.1 Today scholars believe that Abraham was a

wondering chieftain who had led his people from Mesopotamia to Canaan. These

followers were by no means un-diverse as not only were they composed of politicians,

merchants, and servants; it was also composed of various ethnic groups that came in three

prominent migrations of Hebrew settlement. The first was associated with Abraham

himself in 1850 B.C. The second was associated with Abrahams grandson Jacob,

renamed Israel, that settled in the area of the present day West Bank. The third occurred

in about 1200 B.C. when tribes arrived from Egypt claiming that they had been freed by

“a deity called Yahweh, who was the god of their leader, Moses.”2

Ironically even though Moses led his people to Canaan, Moses never entered

Canaan. This task, the task of conquering Canaan was given to Joshua. Joshua conquers

Canaan and allies with the Hebrew people, officially claiming the identity as the people

of Israel. In 1020 B.C. the first king, Saul began his rule. Achieving in bringing the tribes

of Israel together and setting up a monarchy, he was succeeded by King David in 1004

B.C. An extremely successful military commander, he lead multiple military campaigns

expanding the kingdom to the border of Egypt and the Red Sea to the Euphrates. King

David also successfully united all the tribes of Israel and established its capital in

Jerusalem. In 965 B.C. King David was succeeded by his son Solomon. King Solomon in

many ways set Israel on a course to be a great nation by establishing treaties and trading

with neighboring nations, and promoting domestic security and production of natural

resources. Perhaps one of his biggest achievements though was the building of the

Temple in Jerusalem which was to become the epicenter for Jewish worship and practice.
1
Wolff,Richard. The Popular Encyclopedia of World Religions. Eugene: Harvest House Publishers, 2007,
(pg 205)
2
Armstrong,Karen. A History Of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. New
York: Ballantine Books, 1993, (pg 11-12)
However, King Solomon’s ambitious nature might have been what consequently lead to

Israel’s division into the kingdom of Israel and Judah.3

Divided, Conquered and Expulsed Again and Again

When King Solomon died in 930 B.C a rift occurred, ten of the tribes who had

experienced unfair treatment by King Solomon due to their polytheism, broke off to

worship the gods who brought them out of Egypt. What resulted was the creation of two

kingdoms, Israel consisting of the ten tribes in the north and Judah consisting of the

Judah and Benjamin tribes in the South.4

In 720 B.C. Judah was invaded by Israel, forcing the Judean king Ahaz, to turn to

the Assyrians for help. The Assyrians were more than willing to help and soon they

conquered Israel and implemented their own solution to the problem. The Assyrians

exiled more than 27,000 Israelites to the Upper Mesopotamia. The victory for Judah was

short lived though and in 587 B.C. the Babylonians led by king Nebuchadnezzar was

conquered. Like the Assyrians, the Babylonians conducted their own exile of the people;

however they limited it only to the class of the elite, exiling them to Babylon to become

scholars in a kind of think-tank for the Babylonians. Between 538 and 332 B.C. with the

direction and leadership of Ezra and Nehemiah some 10,000 people returned from exile

though still under the control of the Persians.5

In 333 B.C. Alexander the Great captured Israel and for the first time Israel is

subject to European control, bringing Greek culture with it. Israel once again divided into

two groups, the Grecians who favor Greek culture and the Hasidim who were Orthodox
3
Wolff,Richard. The Popular Encyclopedia of World Religions. Eugene: Harvest House Publishers, 2007,
(pg 207)
4
Ibid. (pg 207)
5
Ibid. (pg 207-208)
Jews. During this time Palestine fell under control of Syria and in 167 B.C. around

40,000 Jews were massacred with nearly the same number also put into slavery.6

63 B.C. marks the beginning of Roman occupation of Israel who ruled until 637

A.D. While under Roman control the Jews possessed a certain level of freedom, after the

persecution of Jesus Christ, anti-Jewish sentiments began to increase with the

increasingly more prevalent Christianity. These anti-Jewish sentiments eventually led to

Rome sending Titus to besiege and destroy Jerusalem. With the fall of Jerusalem a

crippling blow had been dealt to the Jewish community. This further led to Jewish revolts

in 115 A.D. in Egypt, Cyrenaica, Cyprus, and Syria. By 135 A.D. nearly one million Jews

had been killed. An even further multiplier was when the Roman Empire officially

converted to Christianity under the leadership of Constantine.7

In 637 A.D. Jerusalem was once again conquered, this time by the Muslim

conquests. Unlike the reputation of the Muslims in the rest of Arabia, the occupiers of

Jerusalem treated the Jews respectfully as they still considered them to be people of the

book. From 637 through 1096 A.D.8 was mostly characterized by freedom of oppression

for the Jews in Jerusalem, Spain, and Europe. This period for Jews lasted until the launch

of the Crusades in 1096 A.D. where under the logic of “why fight infidels in far away

countries when many were at hand?”9 Oppression and exiling Jews became rampant with

Louis IX banning Jews from France in 1254 A.D., England expelling Jews in 1290 A.D.,

France expelling all Jews in 1394 A.D., Spain expelling all Jews in 1492, the massacre of

6
Ibid (pg 208)
7
Ibid (pg 209-211)
8
Spiro, Ken. "History of Judaism." http://www.simpletoremember.com/vitals/Jewish_History.htm
(accessed 23 June 2008).
9
Wolff,Richard. The Popular Encyclopedia of World Religions. Eugene: Harvest House Publishers, 2007,
(pg 215)
nearly 200,000 Jews in the Ukraine in 1655 followed by the Russo-Swedish war with

thousands of Jews massacred in Poland.10

By 1729 the Jewish reform movement was in full swing adopting the philosophy

of “living as free and equal citizens and to be assimilated into the dominant culture.”11 As

a result the Zionist movement received substantially weak from the Reform Jews. The

Jewish Reform Movement to the same effect created an equal and opposite reaction in the

Jewish community with the spark of the Jewish Conservative Movement in 1801 that as

one might guess focused on rejecting change.

In 1789, the French Revolution began a new era welcoming the Jews back to

France. That same year the United States announced that Jewish citizens would receive

entire legal equality. A year later Russia’s Catherine II the Great, under immense political

pressure to drive out the Jews from her newly conquered polish territory. To compromise,

she instead relocated the Jews to areas of Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, and Lithuania

known as the Pale of Settlement. It is estimated that nearly five million Jews lived in the

Pale of Settlement at one point. This lasted for a little less than a hundred years until the

Jews were blamed for the assassination of Alexander II that sparked massive anti-Jewish

movements forcing nearly two million Jews to emigrate, the majority going to the United

States, between 1881 and 1914.12

The Creation of a Modern Jewish Nation as a Solution?

In the final years of the 19th century, Theodor Herzl a Jewish journalist became

very political in the creation of a Jewish homeland/nation that “would become a center of

10
Ibid. (pg 212-218)
11
Ibid. (pg 218)
12
Ibid. (pg 221)
Jewish cultural life.”13 For a number of years Russian Jews had been moving into

Palestine, and by the time the British government announced their intent to create a

Jewish state and to launch Zionism, nearly 90,000 mostly Russian Jews in Palestine. Not

necessarily because of Zionism but rather the 1903 massacre of Jews in Kichinev,

Moldovia.14

Fourteen years later in an effort to combat the growing Ottoman Empire during

World War I, Arthur Balfour, British Foreign Secretary, issued the Balfour Declaration.

The declaration stated the British government was in “favor the establishment in

Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.”15 This declaration materialized in

1918 with the capture of Jerusalem by General Allenby. In 1922 Winston Churchill

reaffirmed British support for the Balfour Declaration with the White Paper of 1922.16

Soon followed by the British Mandate of Palestine, and then deeply influenced by the

Holocaust where Hitler condemned six millions Jews to execution, the United Nations

General Assembly in 1947 voted for the partitioning of Palestine into two separate states.

It can be said that this is where Palestinians feel the most injustice, the UN decided to

partition 55% of the total land to the new Jewish nation leaving the remaining 45% to the

Arabs. This would make sense if it weren’t for the demographic ratio at that time being 1

Jew for every 9 Arabs in the area. In the end what resulted was a Jewish state that was

composed of 55% Jewish to 45% Arab17. Despite the odds though in 1948 Israel was born

into the same geographic territory we see today.

13
Ibid. (pg 222)
14
Ibid. (pg 223)
15
Ibid. (pg 224)
16
Bickerton, Ian J, and Carla L Klausner. A History of the Arab-Israeli Conflict. Fifth ed. New Jersey:
PEARSON Prentice Hall, 2007, (pg 49)
17
KryssTal, "Palestine Partition Plan (1947)." http://www.krysstal.com/democracy_israel_partition.html
(accessed 25 June 2008).
Histories Effect on Modern Jewish Culture

Historical events have had a significant impact on Jewish beliefs and the belief

system. Starting with the Assyrian and Babylonian conquest and exile of Israel and

Judah, to make sense of the situation Jews connected their exile with the will of God.

Why? Judaism believes that because of the rampant spread of idolatry, Gods punishment

was the defeat and exiling of the Jewish people. The believe that when good things

happen it is because you have worshipped correctly and when something bad has

happened its because of worshipping incorrectly has been paramount in Jewish logic

when explaining their painful history of expulsion and is still used today to explain events

in present day Israel. In the creation of Israel one of the best examples is what is

considered to be the miracle of the Six Day Way in 1967.

As mentioned earlier, the geopolitical setting sparked the Jewish Reform

Movement in 1729 which later sparked the Conservative Jewish movement in 1801 these

are not the only branches of Judaism however, there is also the Orthodox Jews. Each one

of these sects has a unique set of beliefs that influence the lifestyles of its followers.

Reform Jews, as stated before, believe in the adaptation of its belief system to

meet the times. Therefore Reform Jews “worship is a combination of tradition and

modernity.”18 A key controversial issue that is a hot topic Conservative Jewish Movement

and is still a prominent issue today is when “Reform Judaism decided in 1982 that

anyone born of a Jewish father of mother is Jewish.”19 This differs significantly in that

before one could only be Jewish if converted or if born from a Jewish mother, not father.
18
Kertzer,Morris N. What is a Jew?. Revised ed. Lawrence A. Hoffman. New York: Touchstone, 1996, (pg
12)
19
Wolff,Richard. The Popular Encyclopedia of World Religions. Eugene: Harvest House Publishers, 2007,
(pg 196)
This has significantly affected the modern understand of what a Jew is, as now various

groups hold different interpretations.

Out of the Reformist movement came Conservative Jews who “embrace Jewish

ethnicity and Jewish law.”20 Despite their strict principle of holding onto tradition, they

did deviate from normal tradition by allowing women to serve as Rabbis.21 This did not

appeal to Orthodox Jews who “Most resist change, on the grounds that the Torah was

literally given to Moses on Mount Sinai.”22 Women under this doctrine, similar to some

Muslim cultures, are not allowed their husbands without their husbands consent. The

equality of women is where Conservative and Orthodox Jews differ the most, but despite

this difference they share the same thoughts on Zionism. Both school of thoughts rejected

the British induced Zionist movement to Israel, holding to the scripture stating that only a

prophet can lead the Jewish people back to the Promise Land.

Conclusion

Since the creation of the modern state of Israel in 1948, it has already endured

five major wars; The War of Independence 1949, The Sinai Campaign 1956, The Six Day

War 1967, The Yom Kippur 1973, and The Lebanon War 1982. To this day urban warfare

and terrorism has sporadically devastated communities along the boarder of Israel and

Lebanon and Palestine, the most recent treaty with Lebanon in mid June of 2008. Despite

modern conflicts, history has shown time and time again that the Jewish people no matter

what the hardships. Equally remarkable is that despite the split amongst Jews when it
20
Kertzer,Morris N. What is a Jew?. Revised ed. Lawrence A. Hoffman. New York: Touchstone, 1996, (pg
13)
21
Ibid. (pg 14)
22
Ibid. (pg 9)
comes to matters of beliefs, Judaism as a whole has never experienced a fundamental

split in its religion, unlike Christianity or Islam.23 Throughout history the Jews have gone

through salvation to exile over and over again, it seems though that most regarded Jews

as inferior, on one more so than Hitler. However, all these presumption tend to be highly

inaccurate when compared with Jewish occupations in history. The Babylonians exiled

the Jews to Babylon to serve as think tanks for the empire, the British once used Jews to

establish their political and economic infrastructure, and even today Jews in western

civilization hold high positions of political authority in both the United States, Britain,

and other areas of the world.

Work Cited

Wolff, Richard. The Popular Encyclopedia of World Religions. Eugene: Harvest House

Publishers, 2007

Bickerton, Ian J, and Carla L Klausner. A History of the Arab-Israeli Conflict. Fifth ed.

New Jersey: PEARSON Prentice Hall, 2007.

Armstrong,Karen. A History Of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and

Islam. New York: Ballantine Books, 1993.

23
"Unique Facts about the Middle East: Judaism."
http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/Middleeastweb/factfile/ (accessed June 16, 2008).
Kertzer,Morris N. What is a Jew?. Revised ed. Lawrence A. Hoffman. New York:

Touchstone, 1996.

KryssTal, "Palestine Partition Plan (1947)."

http://www.krysstal.com/democracy_israel_partition.html (accessed 25 June

2008).

Spiro, Ken. "History of Judaism."

http://www.simpletoremember.com/vitals/Jewish_History.htm (accessed 23 June

2008).

"Unique Facts about the Middle East: Judaism."

http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/Middleeastweb/factfile/ (accessed June 16,

2008).