Jewish Mythic History and History

The mythic history of the Jewish People as a people
The mythical dates emerge into historical dates

THE PATRIARCHAL AGE
(1800 BCE on)

Three generations of Patriarchs (fathers) and Matriarchs (mothers) including and leading from Avraham Avinu (our father Abraham):

• Abraham and Sarah
• Isaac and Rebecca
• Jacob and his four wives Rachel, Leah, Bilhah and Zilpah

• Semi-nomads
• Wandered over now Syria, Israel and Egypt about 38 centuries ago
• Grazing herds
• Camping within reach of cities

• They believed in one God
• Prayer and sacrifice
• Acts of kindness and hospitality

• God promised these Patriarchs in the Bible that the land of Canaan (now Israel) would one day belong to their descendants

• A severe famine
• Jacob and family settled in Egypt
• Food was available
• Years later a revolt brought a new king to the Egyptian throne
• He enslaved Jacob´s thousands of descendants (Israelites)

• Several generations passed
• God honoured his promise to the Patriarchs
• Moses set the Israelites free from Egypt (1280 BCE)
• Moses is considered the greatest of the prophets
• He is called Moshe Rabbenu (our teacher Moses)
• He led them across the desert
• Seven weeks after leaving they arrived at Mount Sinai
• Moses received God´s commandments
• He taught them as he led the people
• In the desert they worshipped at the Sanctuary
• The Sanctuary is a portable temple
• After 40 years they reached Canaan
• Moses died within sight of the Promised Land
• Joshua led the Israelites in

THE TRIBAL CONFEDERACY
(- 1000 BCE)

• Several years of warfare
  
• Israelites conquered Canaan
  
• Divided among the twelve Israelite tribes
  
• Each territory had own elders
  
• Judges were great prophets with authority over several tribes
  
• Each tribe had a raised point where people worshipped and gave sacrifices.
  
• The Sanctuary in many number of places was the most important place of worship
  
• Hostile neighbours plundered
  
• The Judges tried to raise armies
  
• Those tribes that were attacked fought
  
• The Philistines from the south west wanted conquest
  
• Samuel, the last Judge, was asked for a king to respond
  
• Saul was chosen

THE MONARCHY
(1100 - 586 BCE)

• Saul raised an army from all the tribes
• There were many fights against the Philistines
• Initial success
• Crushing defeat and was killed after two years' reign
• Son in law David beat the Philistines and ruled 40 years
• A small empire resulted from much fighting
• David´s son Solomon brought peace and prosperity
• Solomon replaced the Sanctuary with a Temple
• It took seven years to build

• After Solomon northern tribes established their own kingdom called Israel
• Southern tribes remained loyal to Solomon´s son
• Southern tribes formed the kingdom of Judah
• They were called Jews
• The two kingdoms co-existed for 200 years
• In 722 BCE Assyria conquered the northern kingdom and took the Israelites into exile
• Over 100 years after the Kingdom of Judah fell within the war between Babylon and Egypt
• Some Jews left and formed the Diaspora
• In 586 BCE the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple
• The Jews went to exile in Babylon

THE PERSIAN PERIOD
(538 - 333 BCE)

• In 538 BCE Cyrus the Great, King of Persia, conquered Babylon
• The Jews like others could return
• Some began rebuilding the Temple
• Most stayed in Babylon with prosperity (the largest centre of the Diaspora)
• More Jews returned to the rebuilt Temple

THE HELLENISTIC PERIOD
(323 - 63 BCE)

• By 323 BCE Alexander the Great had conquered the Persian Empire
• The Art, literature, philosophy and government was Hellenism
• Many Jews abandoned their traditions for Hellenism
• Antiochus IV (175 - 163 BCE) tried to force all Jews of the empire to Hellenize
• Thus the Maccabean Revolt
• The Jews rebelled and set up their own monarchy

THE ROMAN PERIOD
(63 BCE - C.300 CE)

• Jews were divided on response to harsh rule
• Some wanted to rebel, others wanted peace
• Many Jewish sects
• Most expected the immediate coming of a Messiah
• There were different ideas on how a Messiah would act
• A Messiah might drive the Romans out
• A Messiah might teach well
• A Messiah might suffer
• A Messiah would inaugurate universal peace
• The Zealots in 66 CE led a revolt against the Romans
• The Romans destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple in 70 CE
• Still rebellions
• Simon bar Coziba (Bar Cochba: son of a star) drove the Romans out of Jerusalem 132
• In 135 CE he was defeated
• Many Jews left for the Diaspora

THE JEWS OF BABYLON
(C. 200 - 1040 CE)

• Jewish communities in Rome, Egypt, Persia and Babylon
• In Babylon power led to independent principalities
• Jewish troops helped local kings against the Romans

• Jewish learning strong in Babylon
• The Talmud was written
• Major academies had heads called (gaon means excellency)
• Jews consulted the gaonim on Jewish law
• Jewish prosperity in Babylon waned
• The last gaon was assassinated in 1040

THE EUROPEAN MIDDLE AGES
(700s - 1400s)

• Christian Church was powerful in Europe
• Medieval Christians called Jews as the killers of Christ
• Many Jews were arbitrarily taxed and often massacred
• Harsh laws restricted and humiliated Jews
• There were many expulsions of entire Jewish populations (England in 1290)
• Jews often lived in locked in ghettos
• Jews often had to wear distinctive clothes
• They went into the gutter to let Christians to pass by
• Jews were barred from professions/ universities
• Jews most tolerated in Muslim areas
• Jewish learning rose in Europe and Muslim countries
• Jewish scholars explained the Talmud (for all time)
• Jewish scholars explained the Bible
• Jewish scholars developed Hebrew grammar
• Rabbi Solomon Yitzhaki (1046 - 1105) (Rashi) wrote commentaries on the Bible and Talmud
• Rabbi Moses ben Maimon (1135 - 1204) (Maimonides) wrote on Jewish law and philosophy

EXPULSION AND SAFED
(1492 -)

• In 1492 Jews were expelled from Spain
• Many into Safed (Holy Land) established a major centre of Jewish learning
• Some explained Jewish law
• Rabbi Joseph Caro wrote a Code of Law called the Shulchan Aruch (the Prepared Table) (1555)
• Jewish mystical teachings looked at the individual and God

EMANCIPATION AND ENLIGHTENMENT
(1640s -)

• In the Netherlands Jews should banking and international trade skills
• Some countries saw them as getting around Christian restrictions
• Governments began granting the Jews more rights
• Some Christian thinkers saw the Jews as biblical people
• Jews accommodated themselves to European society
• Moses Mendelssohn (Berlin mid 1729-1786) favoured integration and study of secular subjects as well as Bible and Talmud
• Moses Mendelssohn wanted business records and biblical translation and use in local languages
• This integration was called the Haskalah (Enlightenment)
• Some converted to Christianity

• The French Revolution of 1789 offered liberty, equality and fraternity to everyone including Jews
• Liberal Christian groups demanded Jewish emancipation and equality as part of the removal of old semi-feudal old religious regimes

• Napoleon sought full integration even disappearance
• Napoleon set up a Sanhedrin (supreme Jewish council) in 1807 for it to change Jewish law
• Napoleon wanted rabbis to permit Jews to marry non-Jews
• The Rabbis resisted Napoleon

• Jews of Russia were forced to serve 20 years in the Czar´s army to weaken community ties
• Russian Crown schools were to make Jews more Russian
• A society was set up to persuade Russian Jews to accept Christianity
• The Russian government supported Moses Mendelssohns views
• The Bund (Jewish socialists) wanted Jews to drop Judaism for Russians loyalty

• Abraham Geiger (1810-1874) took the influence of Moses Mendelssohn in a practical direction
• Geiger argued that the Talmud was remodelled in the Middle Ages (itself a remodelling of the Bible) and could be again
• Judaism had evolved and some mitzvot (teaching directions) could be abandoned
• Judaism could be approaching ethical monotheism
• Followers of Geiger said the Bible itself was evolutionary
• Samuel Holdheim (1806-1860) argued to abolish all Mitzvot
• Holdheim moved Shabbat to Sunday
• Men prayed bareheaded and circumcision was ended
• Reformers especially in Germany stopped praying for a Messiah and the return of Israel
• between 1844 and 1871 these decisions formed the new Reform Movement
• In Reform synagogues men and women sit together
• Women can pray and carry the Torah and there is some stress towards participation including some women rabbis
• Prayers are shorter and some in the home language
• Work on Shabbat is more narrowly defined
• Kosher food is continued in synagogues but not rabbinically supervised

• Lily Montague (1873-1963) argued for a kighter touch Judaism for people to retain a relvant Judaism
• Claude Montefiore (1858-1938) joined her in forming the Jewish Religious Union which was the forerunner of Liberal Judaism
• He argued that the Bible was not directly given by God
• The Torah was not received on Mount Sinai
• Christian ethics were superior to Jewish ethics
• He wanted a higher ethical monotheism
• Reform Judaism was an uneasy compromise and not enough
• People should study Judaism and then use their conscience about beliefs and observances
• The Mitzvot became optional for Liberal Jews
• In the synagogue men and women mix and men can pray bareheaded
• There is a stress on male and female equality in conformation and practices
• Festivals do not always begin at sunset
• The Chanukah Lamp, the shofar at Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur fasting and Matzah at Pesach are retained
• Many festivals have been dropped
• Shauvat is symbolic only
• A child is Jewish if either parent is a Jew or has been raised as a Jew
• A civil divorce is valid
• Some dead are buried and some created

RESISTANCE AND EXILES
(1800s - 1900s)

• The Russians anyway passed harsh anti-Jewish laws leading to exodus from 1880 from Russia, Poland and the Ukraine
• Most Russian Jews went to America whilst others went to Palestine, Britain, South Africa and Australia
• Zionism in eastern and central Europe argued for a Jewish homeland
• The Chassidism (Pious Ones begun 1600s in Poland) argued for a pure Jewish serving God with joy
• The Musar Movement in Russia promoted character and traditions
• Neo-orthodoxy in Germany under Rabbi Hirsch promoted Jewish ethical values as the true way to integrate but not assimilate

REPRESSION AND SHOAH
(1933 - 1948)

• The National Socialist (Nazi) Party was sufficiently elected in Geermany in 1933
• It then crushed opponents
• Under Hitler's ideology it blamed the Jews for Germany's past problems
• Nazis said the Jews controlled the banks
• Nazis said the Jews dominated the professions and universities
• Nazis said the Jews were in league with the Communists
• The Jews lost all citizenship rights
• Jews became slave labour and were routinely worked to death and killed without sanction
• The industrial scale destruction of the Jews emerged as the final solution
• In Germany and most occupied countries six million Jews were murdered in special concentration camps
• This was Shoah or the Holocaust

ZIONISM AND ISRAEL
(1897 -)

• The first Zionist conference was in 1897 in Basle
• It wanted a Jewish homeland in Palestine
• in 1900 a London based fund was set up under common Jewish ownership for a homeland
• In 1909 the fund purchased land to create Tel Aviv
• In 1917 the British (asking the Americans) pledged general support for a Jewish homeland in Palestine
• At the end of 1917 the British General Allenby put Palestine under British control
• In 1920 the Mandate of Palestine included creating a homeland for Jews
• The British with a mind to Arab opinion resisted too fast an influx of post Holocaust Jews to Palestine
• Jewish resistance movements in Palestine attacked the British
• The British withdrew its armed forces
• Arabs attacked the Jews
• In 1947 the UN voted to end the British Mandate
• Two states were created for Jews and Arabs and in 1948 the State of Israel was declared

• Traditional Jews opposing Zionism had done so so because only the Messiah can create a true Israel
• Reform Jews opposing Zionism had done so because the worldwide Diaspora was a punishment for sin and Jews should mix with other peoples
• Socialist Bund Jews opposing Zionism had done so because they wanted to be a Russian nationality using Yiddish not Hebrew
• Arab countries attacked the new State and the Jews defeated them in the War of Independence

• Israel and the Arabs have fought five main wars
• In 1979 Egypt signed a peace treaty with Israel
• Palestinians gained limited autonomy in the 1990s but Israel and the repressed Palestinians remain locked in conflict

Adrian Worsfold