Historical Judaism

Understanding history and interpreting the past shapes Jewish identity and collective memory. Jewish religion is best understood through the lens of the Jewish experience, which is comprised of several thousand years of miraculous and horrific events. From sacred stories in the Hebrew Bible to the contemporary struggle in the modern state of Israel, the history of Judaism paints a story of persistence and struggle with ancient empires, modern regimes and contemporary politics. This lesson will provide a brief overview of historical Judaism.

Objectives:

• identify people and events significant to Jewish history
• describe the historical relationship between Jewish and non-Jewish communities
• explain how significant people and events in Jewish history contribute to Jewish identity, culture and religious practice.

Early Judaism in Biblical Narratives

Earliest Jewish history is derived from stories in the Tenakh (which is covered in the next lesson.) It begins with the story of Abraham arriving in the land of Canaan at approximately 1850 BCE, Moses leading an exodus of Jews out of enslavement in Egypt at approximately 1260 BCE, David becoming the first Jewish king who makes Jerusalem his capital in 1000 BCE, and David’s son, Solomon, building the first Temple in Jerusalem. The biblical narratives are referred to as ‘sacred history’ by scholars because it lacks external sources to corroborate the story. The earliest biblical figure for whom archaeological evidence exists is David, based on an inscription on a monument called the Tel Dan Inscription, which is debated among scholars. Visit the Biblical Archaeology Society website for an image and description of the Tel Dan Stele.

The origins of the terms ‘Israel’ ‘Jews’ ‘Hebrew’ and ‘Semitic’ are not certain. Some interpretations link the terms to the story of Abraham, who is considered to be the first to have made a covenant, or agreement, with Yahweh. Abraham is referred to as a ‘Hebrew’ in the Tanakh and his grandson Jacob was renamed ‘Israel’ after wrestling with a divine being. Today, ‘Hebrew’ refers to the ancient and modern language, and ‘Israel’ refers to the nation state in the Middle East. The term ‘Jew’ and ‘Jewish’ is derived from Judah, the territory that was considered the Jewish homeland in ancient times. ‘Semitic’ is derived from Shem, the son of Noah in the flood narrative in Genesis, and it refers to both Jewish and Arabic people who are considered direct descendants.

The Khan Academy three-part video below provides an overview of early Judaism

Exile in Babylonia (772 BCE)

King Solomon’s construction of the first Temple in Jerusalem is the foundation for national identity and worship in Judaism. The death of King Solomon in the second half of the 10th century BCE divided the kingdom with Israel in the north and Judah in the south. In 722 BCE Israel fell to the Assyrians and Judah fell to the Babylonians in 586 BCE and the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed. Political and religious leaders were deported to Babylon (modern-day Iraq) marking the beginning of the Jewish Diaspora out of Israel, and the Exile represents the first of several times Jewish people will be expelled from a territory. The Exile ended in 539 BCE when Cyrus of Persia (modern-day Iran) conquered Babylon and freed their slaves. A small group of Jewish people returned to Jerusalem to build a new temple in 515 BCE, and rededicated it the ‘Second Temple’ which remained until 70 CE.

The Second Temple Period (515 -70 BCE)

The period of the ‘Second Temple’ was an era of rebuilding for Jewish people returning from exile. Yet the impact of Alexander the Great brought major cultural shifts to the region. As Alexander conquered new territories, he established Greek, or Hellenic, institutions because he believed Greek culture and philosophy was superior to all others. Greek became the official language within his territories as he aimed to integrate different cultural and religious groups into a single cosmopolis, or ‘world city’, under his reign. Forced assimilation of Jewish people to adopt Greek ways led to a revolt against the Seleucid Greeks in 167-164 BCE, It is referred to as the Maccabean Revolt, after the Jewish leader, Judah Maccabee. Against the odds, Judah Maccabee and his army retook Jerusalem and purged the Temple of statues of foreign gods placed by the Seleucid leaders. The Temple was rededicated as the Temple to the God of Israel.

Chanukah means “rededication,” and it would take eight days to rededicate the Temple. The biblical story describes how priests used a seven-branched candlestick, called a menorah, to provide light. Although there was not enough oil to keep the flames of the menorah burning beyond a single day, a tiny amount of oil kept the flames throughout the rededication.

After the Maccabean Revolt and the re-taking of the Temple, Judaism gained momentum and a wide variety of different approaches to Judaism diversified religious practice. Sadducees came from the upper echelons of wealthy families, and they became responsible for running the Temple. Sadducees considered the Torah as the only authority, and approached Judaism as temple-based worship. The Pharisees, in contrast, aimed to apply halakha, Jewish Laws, to everyday life. Pharisees also integrated social and moral conscience into Judaism and practiced alms-giving, prayer and fasting. Unlike Sadducees who took a more literal translation of the Torah, Pharisees questioned the meanings within scriptures and sought to develop answers. For example, the Pharisees asked, ‘what does it mean to keep the Sabbath day holy? as Jewish law specifies; they then developed answers to help Jewish people abide by Jewish law. Pharisees also held an apocalyptic wordview that included resurrection and a day of judgement.

The Essenes were an all-male monastic community of meticulously observant priests. They aimed to achieve cultic purity to share sacred space with Yahweh.they also shared an apocalyptic worldview believing that the world was under control of evil and corrupted hellenized Jews, and it would be one day liberated by Yahweh.

Therapeutae were a monastic group in Egypt that included women as well as men who lived and ate separately but worshiped together with song, dance, and prayer.

Zealots became an organized group in the first century, and unlike other groups, Zealots refused to cooperate with non-Jewish authorities, organized rebellions, and encouraged violent rebellion. They led the First Jewish Revolt which resulted the destruction of Jersualem and the Second Temple, and much of the Jewish population killed or enslaved by Romans. The tragic Story of Masada, and the mass suicide of Zealots who refused to surrender to Roman forces, is significant to contemporary Jewish nationalism in Israel today.

Judaism in the Roman Empire – Constantine

As the Roman empire began to expand, a wide range of Jewish communities fell under Roman rule. By this time, Jewish communities were diverse of political affiliations and religious practice, yet all groups shared a common belief in four ways;

1. the oneness of a single, all powerful creator God
2. sacredness and authority of the torah
3. Israel as the chosen ‘people of god (Yet who was and was not included was not agreed upon)
4. Temple of Jerusalem as the place where Yahweh met people

In time, differences in politics and practice generated internal conflicts within a diverse Jewish community, and the Roman general Pompey was sent to Judea in 63 BCE launching four centuries of repressive Roman rule.

In 37 BCE the Romans named Herod the Great as King of Israel. Although Herod is known in history for being brutal and deceptive, he is considered one of the greatest leaders in Roman history, and is known for his ability to balance Jewish and Roman interests. His family were Idumeans, converts to Judiasm, yet since he was not of Judean descent, many Jewish people did not recognize him as a legitimate ruler. Regardless, Herod is responsible for massive developments in Judea including renovation of the Second Temple. Yet the Temple was destroyed by Titus in 70 CE, and was never rebuilt and only the Pharisees survived. In 135 CE, the Jewish people were permanently exiled from Jerusalem after a failed Zealot revolt against Hadrian who planned to build a Roman city over the Jerusalem which included a temple to the Roman god Jupiter on the ruins of the Second Temple. The Romans exiled all Jewish people after the failed attempt with penalty of death if they returned. Judea was renamed ‘Syria-Palestina’ in 136 CE.

Watch the video below to learn more about Ancient Jewish and Roman relations in the first revolt.

Judaism and Christianity

In 314 CE, the Roman Emperor Constantine established Christianity as the official religion in Rome, and he quickly aimed to Christianize the entire Roman empire, by force if necessary. The role of Constantine will be addressed in the next module on Christianity, yet this historical change transformed the political and religious relationship between Jewish people and Roman rulers and with the increasingly more powerful Christian community in Rome. The political rivalry between Christianity and Judaism resulted in anti-Jewish sentiments and sermons. roman laws began to restrict Jewish people from holding public office, build synagogues or marry Christian people. In time, Jewish religious activities and commerce were prohibited. By the seventh century CE, leaders such as King Sisebut, began forcing Jewish people to choose between converting to Christianity or be put to death. This period marks the beginning of a persecution that would last into the 20th century.

Judaism and Islam

Islam emerged in the 7th century and quickly spread west to the Iberian peninsula (modern Spain) and east to India after the decline of the Roman empire. Unlike Christian rulers in Rome, however, Islamic rulers recognized Christianity and Judaism as ‘people of the book’ and partners in the monotheistic worship of the same one God. Under Islamic rule, Jews and Christians were recognized as dhimmis, or ‘protected people,’ with rights to worship and own property in exchange for paying taxes and adhering to specific rules established in the Pact of Umar.

By the thirteenth century, Jewish and Muslim people lived in relative peace while tensions and conflicts developed between Christian and Islamic armies during the Crusades. For more information about the early relationship between Jewish and Muslim communities, watch the video below.

Judaism and the Christian Crusades

The Crusades were a series of religious wars sanctioned by the European Church between 1096 and 1291. The campaigns in the Eastern Mediterranean aimed to secure control of holy sites considered sacred by both groups. In all, eight major Crusade expeditions occurred. While the conflicts were primarily between Christian armies and Muslim territories, Jewish communities in Europe, known as Ashkenazi Jews, were also attacked and expelled. For more information, watch the video lecture below.

Antisemitism and The Holocaust

The wake of the Crusades culminated in a rising tide of antisemitism (hostility and prejudice against semitic people, particularly Jewish people) in Christian kingdoms that continued to expand globally during the 15th centuries. By the 20th century, European kingdoms and states had occupied nearly 85% of the globe making Christianity a politically dominant religion worldwide. During this time, a wide range of Jewish conspiracy theories and scapegoating served to justify the exclusion, prosecution and even the extermination, of Jewish people in Christian societies. During the Dreyfus Affair in France (1894), the French army accused and prosecuted a Jewish army officer named Alfred Dreyfuss of spying on behalf of the Germans yet, it was later discovered that the evidence was forged and Dreyfuss was pardoned. In Tsarist Russia, Jews were labelled as outsiders and enemies of Christianity. The Russian secret police published The Protocols of the Elders of Zion which was a fictional account of meeting among Jewish leaders to discuss global domination. Although it was revealed a fraud, the book remains in circulation today. Antisemitism climaxed in Germany during the Nazi campaign under Adolf Hitler the 1930s with the horrors and atrocities that took place during the holocaust which resulted in the murder of six million Jewish people in Europe as well as five million people from other minority groups.

To learn about the Holocaust, visit the links below;

• United States Holocaust Museum
• The Florida Holocaust Museum
• Holocaust Memorial and Education Center of Florida

The dramatic film, Schindler’s List, by Steven Speilberg provides a human perspective to the holocaust experience.

Zionism, Jewish Nationalism and The Modern State of Israel

In response to growing antisemitism, a movement called Zionism emerged among Jews in Europe which sought to create a means for Jews to return to the ancient homeland in the middle East referred to as Zion which is known today as Temple Mount. It became an official political movement during the Dreyfus Affair, and the first Zionist Congress took place in Basel Switzerland in 1897 with the goal to establish an internationally recognized country for Jewish people to live. The leader of the congress, Theodor Herzl, argued that Palestine was the only suitable location.

The Balfour Declaration of 1917, was a US-backed British statement of support in the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine. Arabs and Jews already living in the region protested against the settlement, and this ignited the first tensions between people living in Palestine and members of the Zionist movement.

During the 1930s there was an unusual partnership between Nazi leaders in Germany and Zionist German Jews to establish a new Jewish state in Palestine. The Haavara Agreement was signed in 1933 between the Zionist Federation of Germany, the Anglo-Palestine Bank (under the directive of the Jewish Agency) and the economic authorities of Nazi Germany. The controversial agreement was criticized by many Jewish leaders and members of the German public, as it allowed the migration of approximately 60,000 German Jews who chose to relocate to Palestine between 1933–1939 while millions of Jews who were unaware of the concentration camps in Germany chose to stay at home and were later killed.

After the atrocities of the holocaust were revealed after the surrender of the German military in 1945, There was an international movement to establish a new state of Israel in Palestinian territory, and State of Israel was created in 1948. The Arab-Israeli War of 1948 broke out when the Arab Liberation Army composed of volunteers from Palestine and neighboring Arab countries invaded territory in the former Palestinian mandate immediately following the announcement of the independence of the state of Israel. After an armistice was declared in 1949, a series of international airlift campaigns transported thousands of Jewish people of different communities in Iraq, the United States, Europe and North Africa to settle in the new State of Israel. The conflict arising out of the modern state of Israel has come to redefine centuries of peaceful of relationships between Jewish and Muslim people. Today, Israel is a strategic location for US and European interests in the Middle East, and the international politics surrounding the contemporary Israeli-Palestinian conflict has generated rifts between Jews and Muslims worldwide.

Judaism in Social and Historical Context

This lesson offered a brief introduction to people and events that are considered significant to Jewish history, and it described some of the historical relationships between Jewish and non-Jewish communities from ancient Babylonians and Romans to modern Germany and contemporary conflicts in Israel. Jewish history is the foundation for understanding Jewish memory and contemporary Judaism.

Readings and Resources:

• Israel Science and Technology Directory: A brief history of Israel and the Jewish People
• Jewish Memory, My Jewish Learning
• Visual Timeline: Story of the Jews, PBS

For Discussion: Research and describe an historically significant person or event in Jewish history. 1. Describe person or event, 2.) explain scholarly evidence of person or event, 3.) Describe how this person or event is significant in Jewish memory. Include references, and always respond to other student posts in discussion.

When you complete the discussion, move on to the Tanakh lesson.