Research Paper Ethnic Group - Jews

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) 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) 7

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) Ibid. (pg 218) 12 Ibid. (pg 221) 11

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) 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). 14

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).