79. Jews in the Land of Israel, 132-1492 (Jewish History Lab)

let's go back to the land of israel and  although we did have a few moments where   our discussion of the jews and diaspora  intersected very significantly with the land   of israel it seems to me that we should  take at least a few moments to look at   the perspective of jewish history from the land of  israel itself and we may repeat a couple of things   that we looked at in much greater detail earlier  but at least we'll have some sense of continuity   also i think it's important because we're at  a unique inflection moment politically i think   in the land of israel where we have a lot of  unfortunate tension and warfare and loss of life   and i i thank god i'm a historian not a prophet so  i'm not called upon to actually say anything about   what should be in the future but i can  look back a little bit in the past and   share a couple of some of the ironies of history  that who knows maybe they will illustrate   opportunities for a more productive path forward  for all the peoples of the middle east okay so uh   we're going to go through well over a thousand  years we're going to take it from the bar   rebellion against the roman empire that went  from about the year 132 to 135 and we'll take it   right up to the end of of the medieval period as  we're defining it the spanish expulsion where we   left the jews in the land of israel specific  at this time is that they had gone through   two and if you like three disastrous roman jewish  wars the first major roman jewish war of course is   the the great war that erupted in the year 66 and  resulted in the destruction of the temple and the   the exile of the jews primarily from jerusalem and  judea and you know horrible suffering in its wake   and and the final battle was on the mountaintop  masada then we have the quietus revolt which   was not specifically uh centered in israel there  were more uprisings in north africa in asia minor   so i've skipped over it many people call it the  second roman jewish war but most people call   the barcok revolt the second roman jewish war  it was much more intense and it occurred once   again in judea and um disastrous consequences  so the uh the idea of role of jewish statehood   was you know it was a foregone conclusion  after the end of this particular war and   what it meant for the jewish people besides  the you know tremendous political upheaval   the the end of even the vestigial uh power  that they had under the herodians as a puppet   government under rome that was completely gone but  they also had tremendous economic disasters with   you know punitive taxation and the uh  the redirection of the mahdi sashekal the   the half shekel text that used to go to the temple  upkeep to the uh insulting temple of jupiter   in rome and you know displacement of people  tremendously horrible economic impact but it also   meant that the jews had to think fast and kind of  create a new spiritual realignment for themselves   we see it in a few different locations yavna  for example usha and especially what's going   on in the north in the cities like tiberias  where the the jews are reassembling they're   forming their leadership under the nasi the  office of the prince or patriarchate as it's   sometimes called and you see especially  the writing of the mishnah at this time   politically we should also mention that this  is the time when the term palestine comes into   its first major usage and i'm going to stop a  couple of moments and speak a little bit about   nomenclature because people tend to get hung up  on it i think especially in contemporary debates   the um that the term and everybody knows  especially political leaders know how   sensitive people are to geographic terminology my  own phd supervisor a tremendous scholar named paul   robert mangachi he actually wrote a few atlases  and i remember him struggling to try to find the   correct place names that would describe a specific  location without offending you know half of the   people who lived there um and so you know even in  these lectures we we find frequently you know if   i use the term west bank or if i use the term aza  and shamron where i'm talking about the same place   but there's lots of baggage associated with uh  those terminologies so the romans were quite   aware of this and after the barakah revolt in  particular they made a concerted effort to try and   wipe out any memory of the jewish presence  in israel jerusalem was renamed there's some   question about whether this occurred before the  war after but it was renamed isla capitolina which   is actually a reference to the emperor or hadrian  because of uh i think one of his middle names   something like that and jews after barkhachba  were banned from living in jerusalem there was   however about a hundred years later a noted small  community of jews who lived in you shalom anyways   and it's possible that they did so simply  ignoring the authorities and the authorities   chose to turn a blind eye but they were called the  kahila khadijah de birushalayim the holy community   of yerushalayim of jerusalem i think it's  also interesting and important to note that   one of the the fundamentals of the ongoing  conflict in the middle east is the uh the question   of you know primacy who got there first there's  no question of course that the that the jews had   their political state their earliest but one of  the arguments that sometimes made in the political   polemics is that the jews left i mean they were  gone for quite a bit of time and then other people   came and so they no longer had the same connection  to the land that they once did no longer   a legal or moral authority over the land and  i'm gonna leave the answers to those questions   to others who wish to debate them but on a  historical level it's very important to know that   it's simply not true there's always been a jewish  presence in the land of israel however attenuated   we shall see that later on in the medieval  period you know sometimes just a handful of   people living in places like jerusalem a handful  of jewish people living in a place like jerusalem   but nevertheless there is a continuous settlement  of jews in israel we speak about the exile of the   jewish people it definitely speaks about the bulk  of the population the diaspora early on became   much larger than the population of jews in israel  uh and definitely more prominent more significant   in all kinds of ways but there has always been  a consistent presence of jews however small   in the land of israel the killer qaddish of the  beer shalom is one illustration of that after   rome adopts christianity in the year 313 things  get much worse for the jews in israel because   even though the romans were definitely  not close friends with the rebellious   jews who were seem to be rebellion  every rebelling every generation   the addition of christianity changed things  dramatically because uh as a monotheistic faith   it is intrinsically intolerant of  other faiths and this is something true   of all the monotheistic faiths they're  the idea of a universal vision of   one path to truth we could say this about  islam and we could say it about judaism as well   there are differences in how it is uh rolled out  as it were because you know judaism for example   does maintain that all other faiths especially  polytheistic faiths are intrinsically false   but not however necessarily prohibited to non-jews  they would be considered inappropriate for   a jew but nevertheless a non-jew would still be  theoretically you know worshiping the same god as   the jewish god so there are issues in terms of how  this is viewed christianity however had perhaps   one of the most uh restrictive views of what other  faiths could practice and still be within the pale   of acceptability and this meant that uh it was  intrinsically much more intolerant than let's say   paganism which uh by the very fact of the  multiplicity of gods tends to accept the idea   that some other people could worship uh different  gods uh jews did rebel in particular against a   roman leader named gallus and this rebellion  was centered in the northern part of israel   it began at sephora's in 351 and lasted for  about a year it was put down very harshly   you know the jews were sold into captivity much  like they were in the first roman jewish war but   one of the ways in which the jews kind of pivoted  at that point was they recognized that you know   the situation in israel is just getting more  and more tenuous and so this is the point in   time when they decided to abandon the calculation  of the year of the calendar by sighting of the   moon and to move to a fixed calendar which is  the one that we use today that uh that corrects   the the looney sorrel solar uh discrepancy  by adding a leap month on a 19-year cycle   i'm not going to go into more details on what the  calendar is but we should bear in mind that for a   diaspora people the calendar is crucial because  this meant that all jews would be linked together   in a singular cycle of worship passover at the  same days yom kippur on the same day and so on   as soon as that fractures that represents a  rift in time that would add to the extant rift   in space that they had already experienced  since the first century so by determining   a fixed calendar that was no longer dependent  on having witnesses come and testify to the   sighting of the new moon which had been the  habitual practice for centuries upon centuries   this meant that jews had another valuable tool  to bring with them into the diaspora it made   them actually much more agile and flexible with  regards their existence in a diaspora culture   there is at this time a brief however respite  where there is a roman leader known as julian   the apostate i actually like that title i  think it's kind of cool but uh he died very   early but when he was rising in authority he  promised the jews that he would allow them   cyrus like to rebuild their temple and jews  got a little bit excited about this but   it turned out to be very short-lived this was  also in the fourth century uh more significantly   i think in the the fifth century is the the  recognition by the jews that they really had to   you know prepare themselves for a a more dangerous  time that would involve more diaspora travel   this is when the jerusalem talmud was completed  it's called the jerusalem talmud but that's not   really fair because there are very very few jews  living in jerusalem it really should be uh the um   the the talmud of the galilee uh perhaps also the  coastal region because it was one important center   there as well uh but it's called the jerusalem  talmud before the term was heavily politicized   it was also called the palestinian talmud but  that you know in the 21st century it sounds   like an oxymoron nevertheless that's what this  uh talmud is it's essentially if you'll recall   a um an extended discussion of the mishnah  which was codified in the early 3rd century   it's a major commentary that it's not exactly a  commentator it really is a an extended discussion   but it was very important in establishing a  traditional jewish practice and a unified jewish   practice it would be superseded by the babylonian  talmud that is much larger particularly in those   areas that don't relate to agriculture in the land  of israel um and uh because it was for various   reasons but one of which is the fact that it  was it was able to consider the jerusalem talmud   in its own deliberations the babylonian talmud  became far more authoritative and the jerusalem   talmud was barely studied for much of the  middle ages unfortunately though at this time   with the rise of christianity in the roman empire  and several other political changes the office of   the nissi was ended in 429 that is the last nasi  the last titular head of the jewish people in   israel in late antiquity there would be a um a an  imposition of a person called an exilar which is   something that we get really from the babylonian  period uh but not really with the same authority   as for example rabbi judah then i see rabbi  yehuda who wrote the mishnah in the 3rd century   so there's like a steady decline of the jewish  situation but there are a couple of interesting   moments of renaissance in the 5th and 6th  century under byzantine rule there is a a   brief moment of respite where there seems to be  much more flourishing also in the north and you   see for example the several synagogues constructed  and preserved well to this time this is the bait   alpha synagogue in the north and it has this  dramatic mosaic on the floor you can see right   in the well at the top of the mosaic there is kind  of like a depiction of the uh the ark holding the   torah and uh there are you know the traditional  menorah which is one of the oldest jewish symbols   and then in the very center of this mosaic of a  brilliant zodiac which is also a very traditional   uh piece of art that you'll see in synagogues  right up until the early modern period and even   the 19th century and at the bottom it looks rather  primitive but it has sort of a gripping character   this is the binding of isaac the the larger figure  on the right hand side is abraham and he's holding   yitzchak and you can see there's actually hebrew  lettering labeling them and he's got the knife   about to perform the uh the sacrifice of his own  son as described in genesis 22 but there is a a   hand that emerges uh right in the center top of  the uh lower register of this mosaic that's the   as it were god saying no stay your hand abraham  and so on and there's appears to be sarah on the   left if i'm not mistaken uh looks like a rather  short skirt i think for the ancient period you   always imagine her wearing longer skirts but who  knows what the sneeze rules were back then uh so   this is like a kind of a renaissance art that  you see not renaissance like the traditional   renaissance but a uh an effervescence of jewish  art that occurs in the fifth and sixth century   so that's kind of what's going on in the roman  and byzantine periods we have in the seventh   century some dramatic events uh with a very  brief lived persian invasion followed by a an   arab invasion that will be much longer in duration  punctuated with one interruption from the crusades   so this is uh obviously an aerial view  i'm sure it's familiar to most of you   the the western or the wailing wall the last  remaining external ramp part of the uh the temple   courtyard that was um most of the blocks that are  up higher today were those that were placed by   herod who was a great builder at the time and on  the uh the temple mount itself of course there are   muslim structures that were put up in the seventh  century the most iconic of which is the dome on   the rock originally built in the late 7th century  and then destroyed at one point and rebuilt a few   centuries later and the gold was added uh even  more centuries after that but it this is perhaps   the most striking image of jerusalem that happens  to exist on the grounds of the destroyed temple   which is uh you know one of those terribly  frustrating things for jews who wish to see   the temple rebuilt and there's a lot  of political developments regarding it   but not for our discussion today so the the  persians invade in the 7th century we looked   at this a little bit more detail a few weeks ago  and but they're only there for a couple of decades   the the byzantine emperors come back in for just  five years they they take over the country and   then finally you have uh the arabs come in this  is shortly after the death of muhammad in 632   and that's when israel the land of israel  formally comes under muslim control   here's what it looked like when it was organized  in the 8th century and you can see here that it's   called jund of philistine philistine is of course  the arabic version of palestine which was the name   that was given to the land by the romans in an  attempt to kind of wipe out judea and israel as   the names associated with it so they the the arabs  inherited the the roman name for the land note   however that jerusalem and arabic al-quds is not  a capital one of the interesting arguments that   that advocates for the land of israel make is  that jerusalem was uh is the the only capital of   the jewish people ever that this is a region that  they've always regarded as their capital i think   that's an interesting observation uh notice that  uh it the the region of philistine also extends   into what would be today in jordan and much  of the north which is uh in modern terms the   galilee region uh is under the region of urdun i'm  not exactly sure where ordun is but that's kind of   fascinating and damascus has the the very very  top part including banyas which is a beautiful   part of israel and then down in the south uh  it also uh controls some of the region on the   other side which would once again be jordan um so  the jews living there at that time we don't have   really good numbers but an arab demographic source  from that period mentions the city of kaisari or   caesarea which is on the coast it's historically  a very roman city it was kind of like a   a city that was built up heavily by herod and it  was sort of like where romans could go so they   don't have to they don't have to feel like they're  in some kind of crazy religious environment like   jerusalem or something sort of like surf side  for five towns people right you can go to surf   surfside and it doesn't feel too crazy so it's  it's always been more of a roman style city   but the uh the arab demographer records  that there were 700 000 romans living there   200 000 jews and 300 000 samaritans i think  there are a lot of reasons to doubt the sizes   of those numbers they seem rather  large to me i think by many fold   however it is kind of interesting to think  that maybe the proportions were correct maybe   that's um roughly you know maybe it's uh only one  tenth of that population seventy thousand romans   twenty thousand jews thirty thousand samaritans  but it does give you a sense of what a famously   roman oriented city would have had in terms of  its jewish and non-jewish population oh and here's   another really important thing that we should bear  in mind especially as we look back from our point   of view in in the 21st century never  in its history was the land of israel   ever monoethnic it always had multiple populations  multiple ethnicities multiple languages   it's true that the jews did dominate for much of  the ancient period and they dominate of course   from the second half of the 20th century but there  has always been a mixed population in israel and   the degree to which they get along with each other  of course is the the stuff of history uh when uh   the kind of uh environment that jews were  living at this time we get a sense from the   when the pact of umar was imposed in the eighth  century for example jews were required to wear   yellow colored turbans uh and christians blue  turbans and samaritans red turbans this is in   accordance with a more strict observance  of that pact of umar which on the one hand   guaranteed monotheistic faiths like judaism  christianity a a degree of of tolerance because   they are after all monotheistic but nevertheless  they were to be clearly distinguished from the   larger muslim population it is also worthy  to note just like we see in christian europe   after the 13th century and the imposition of the  jewish badge that it was uh very commonly ignored   typically by paying a small bribe or you know  the authorities not really being interested in uh   you know enforcing these kinds of rules but it  just does give you a sense of uh what you know   the uh the oscillation must have been like between  periods when it was more intolerant and periods   in which it was more tolerant it is during this  period after the muslim conquest that you begin   to have a very large-scale migration of arabs and  in particular they're moving to the city of ramleh   let me point out as well that the term arab  is an ethnic designation muslim is a religious   designation in other words uh arabs may practice  christianity for example many lebanese arabs are   christians and many muslims are not of arab of  arab ethnicity at all they may be uh chinese for   example the uighur or you have black muslims in  america of african-american descent so the term   arab however is clearly ethnic because the the  early islamic empire was dominated by forces   from saudi arabia over today saudi arabia and  that was the the rule that was imposed in israel   as you move on of course there's going to  be lots more inter-muslim political change   with muslim rulers who are not arabs at all at  turks for example but for the time being at the   beginning we're talking about an arab empire uh  jewishly there's a lot of fascinating things going   on here we discussed a little bit about this in  terms of the rivalry with the geonate in babylonia   but for example one thing we didn't talk about  very much were the masoretes it is at this period   of time when jews perhaps you know influenced to  a large degree by the arabs and their tremendous   love of the arabic language got much more serious  about recording the traditions of pronunciation   and getting strict about grammar and so on so  the there's some question as to exactly when   the nekudot the the vowels were um were became a  convention in terms of a denoting pronunciation of   hebrew letters but it is at this time where they  get serious about it and the so-called masorits   from the word mesora being tradition begin to make  sure that we have safer torahs that are written   with not as a safer torah not as a ritual element  but as a teaching element written with vowels and   so on and that's how we have our pronunciation  today however this is no longer the language   of the jews in their daily usage arabic clearly  becomes the uh the lingua franca of the region   jews may communicate in writing in judeo-arabic  which is essentially arabic written with hebrew   characters but the hebrew language declines in  terms of its daily usage quite precipitously   and i've already mentioned how there's lots of  invasions of different muslim groups that i'm   not going to go into here because it would take us  too far afield from our narrow focus on the jews   now uh there is one really important uh  interruption in the various muslim rules   over israel and is of course the uh period  of the crusades which we discussed in a few   lectures a while ago but let's look at  it again from the perspective of israel   here is a uh rather dramatic 19th century  representation of the uh you know the the   the religiously inspired europeans coming and and  a fairly small number of people massacred at the   their feet of their horses and so on uh in reality  the crusades were a very brutal period especially   in israel the crusader period extends from 1099  which marks the fall of jerusalem in the first   crusade to 1291 when they are finally removed  from the territory of israel what's fascinating   again ironic viewed from the perspective of our  century that jews were solidly allied with muslims   against the european crusaders at this time  these europeans who are making their way   to free the land from the infidel but both  muslims and jews realize that this meant   disaster for them so you actually have jews and  muslims fighting side by side for the peace of   jerusalem unfortunately the city fell in june  of of 1099 and there was a horrible massacre   of muslims and jews many of the jews defending  jerusalem were actually burned alive in synagogues   there and many others were simply sold into  slavery you have a huge you know exodus of jews   after the crusader kingdom's come into  place here is a map of the crusader kingdoms   at their greatest extent it actually fluctuated  significantly because the the muslim rulers   surrounding the uh the new christian kingdom  were not well disposed to tolerate its presence   and so there were there's frequent  fighting over the next couple of centuries   but you can see here that they did establish quite  a few locations particularly on the coast where   not surprisingly you see a lot of the the  crusader remains even to the present day   fascinating what's going on with jews after the  crusades yehuda al-kharisi reports that after   saladin the famous muslim defender of jerusalem  the great walls around the old city are date from   his period uh he after he he was successful in  talking jerusalem he actually invited jews to   migrate to the city of jerusalem which is again  one of those sentences that it's hard to imagine   having a muslim ruler over jerusalem saying  about jews today but this is in fact one of those   ironies of history that they recognize that  they had an alliance that was quite strong and   effective and in fact though many jews did migrate  to jerusalem and to israel as a whole from prior   to the crusades but especially after saladin's  invitation this included 300 european rabbis who   settled throughout the land many in the northern  coastal city of acre or ako in hebrew many of   them were tostophists meaning they were in from  the school of tociphote that is in the tamuric corpus they included the famous uh re of lunell  from southern france who made his way to israel so   here you see there's a surge of uh  jewish immigration to israel it would not   uh you know significantly really populate the land  because when nachmanidis came later in the 13th   century he found very very few jews in jerusalem  in particular more of them places like akko and   also uh something similar we have from uh  the uh rabbi ovady of barton ura uh here   is what the land of israel looked like for much  of the post-crusader era this is under the mamluks   which is one of the many dynasties of muslims  that ruled the region and as you can see the   this the uh israel was treated very differently  the southern part of the negev was simply   abandoned to the traveling uh bedouin the uh  the arab tribes that were uh non-sedentary uh   nomadic and you see that uh jerusalem is  actually part of the mamlaka of damascus   i don't know arabic very  well but i think it's like   in hebrew right like a state as it were um and  gaza of course was much more significant gaza was   actually a very large town at this point because  it was about double the population of jerusalem   in the 15th century and the northern part was  ruled by tsvat safet which is one of the most   fascinating cities that we're going to zip right  back to look at spot in the period immediately   after the spanish expulsion because many of  the great mystics of the iberian peninsula   made their way to spot in the 15th century and  created an explosion of creativity that uh you   know is still being felt today well i'm really  looking forward to speaking about that with you   but what we know from the region uh by the time  we get to our med end of the medieval period   rava vadim he is the famous commentator  on the mishnah known simply as the rav   he wrote that when he arrived in 1488 there were  only 70 jewish heads of families and they were all   incredibly impoverished like tiny population at  the time and it was uh as i mentioned dwarfed   by the city of gaza so that's a very quick look  at the land of israel over this 1200 odd years   and just emphasizing the fact that there is  a continuous jewish settlement there with uh   some dramatic achievements but for the most  part they were overshadowed by events in the diaspora you

Channel: Henry Abramson

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Length: 32min 49sec (1969 seconds)

Published: Sun May 30 2021