All Jewish History in Under 18 Minutes

hello I'm sure you're all familiar with the  shortest version of Jewish history which goes   like this they tried to kill us we survived let's  eat that's invariably recited around the festive   table whenever we have a Jewish holiday I would  like to just discuss very briefly a slightly   expanded version a little more sophisticated but  still keeping it under 18 minutes let's do all of   Jewish history so let's start first of all with  the question who are the Jews well it's easier   to say who they are not than to say who they  are actually there are about 15 million Jews   living around the world today primarily in the  land of Israel and in the United States but also   in many many other countries virtually every other  country in the world they are not a race if you go   to modern Israel to see Jews of many different  racial backgrounds whatever that means exactly   they're not even a religion because in according  to Jewish thought even when a Jew decides to   adopt another religion they still retain Jewish  identity and well there's a lot more to say about   that but this is under 18 minutes they don't  have a common language I'm speaking to you in   English for example and they don't have a common  geography because of course Jews are scattered   around the world however they do have a historical  common language which is of course Hebrew and a   historical common land which is Israel but we'll  return to that shortly so then what is the Jewish   people I think the easiest way to define them is  really what the great 10th century philosopher   sadhya Gowen called the unity of the Jewish  people is in the Torah it is their connection   to the Torah that keeps the Jewish people together  now it's also true that many Jews struggle against   the Torah and that is also endemic to the entire  Jewish condition as the very name Israel if you   have a look in the book of Genesis the very name  Israel means one who struggles with God okay lots   more to say about this but we are going to rush  through 18 minutes so let's look at the historical   origins of the Jewish people our best source for  ancient Jewish history is without a doubt the   Bible it is also the most difficult source to work  with as archaeologists will tell you it's very   difficult to line up the kinds of things that they  are slowly discovering about the ancient Middle   East with the text of the Bible but that again  we're sticking to 18 minutes here so that will not   detain us there are a few scraps of information  from the ancient ancient period like for example   this amazing steal from Merneptah a pharaoh from  the 13th century who famously wrote israel is   wasted its seed is no more now if you had a look  at Merneptah x' mummy you'll see that he's not   doing so great himself but nevertheless there are  only a few scraps of information about the Jews   in the ancient world and much of their distant  distant origins are lost in the mists of history   except for the Bible which gives a very detailed  account however problematic it is for historians   according to the Bible the Jews first emerged from  Mesopotamia the patriarch Abraham and Sarah lived   in the region of what would be today Iraq and  they follow the Fertile Crescent up into what   we today Syria and then they descend into Israel  proper they make some temporary sojourn in Egypt   but it is only under their grandson Jacob with  his large family that Jews actually moved there   on mass and are eventually enslaved now I'm sure  you're familiar with of course the famous story of   the exodus which is the second book of the Bible  and that talks about how the Jews enslaved cry   out to their God who sends a redeemer Moses and  then brings them out of Egyptian servitude having   them wander in the desert for a while until  they finally cross over into land of Israel   archaeologist pause it's several other models for  how the Jews may have actually settled the Land of   Israel but there's no question that by the time  you get to about the Year thousand BCE there's   a significant Jewish presence in the region of  Israel they've established a major religious   site in Jerusalem where the temple is located  and they go through as described in the Bible   you know a series of kings some civil wars that  ultimately end in the eighth century before the   Common Era with a major invasion from the north  that takes away than the ten northern tribes   essentially they're the Lost Tribes of Israel and  then in the sixth century before the Common Era   then there's another invasion that takes away the  southern region now neither of these by the way   our total there are still Jews that are living in  the Land of Israel but the Jewish Commonwealth is   destroyed there's no more Jewish political entity  at that point the Babylonian exile only lasts for   a few decades however and under Ezra's describe  once again in the Bible the Jews returned to   Israel they reestablish the Temple in Jerusalem  that had been destroyed in the sixth century and   they begin the second Commonwealth period the  most important historical event that begins   to happen in this period the second return to  Israel is when Alexander the Great emerges from   Macedonia and creates this massive empire that  stretches all the way from Greece throughout the   eastern Mediterranean down to Egypt and way out to  Afghanistan and he brings with him Greek culture   called Hellenism the Jews love Hellenism they  go crazy for it it's got so many amazing things   for it but the problem is they have a difficulty  figuring out how much Hellenism could be absorbed   by Jewish culture without completely capitulating  to Greek influence and as a result there is a   major upheaval in the second century which is  really a civil war between traditionalists on   the one hand and Helenus on the other and this  is called the Chanukah rebellion ultimately   the traditionalists when they reestablish the  traditional worship in the temple which had been   defiled by Greek gods and so on and they start a  new Jewish kingdom at that point now even though   the Jews have a strong measure of Independence at  this point it doesn't take long before this new   dynasty of Maccabean kings the so called hosmer  nians begins to decline and by the year 63 before   the Common Era the state is so weak that Pompey  and his armies from Rome invade the region and   Judea becomes a client state of Rome it is in this  environment under Rome that there's tremendous   factionalism among the Jewish people there are a  group called the Sadducees who basically control   a temple called there are zealots who want  to rebel against the Romans there are the   Pharisees who are essentially separating for much  of the debate and maintaining charismatic circles   it's try and perpetuate the Torah those are the  people who essentially become the modern rabbis   and then of course there are Jewish Christians at  this point Christianity is born it's entirely a   Jewish movement at first and only after the first  couple of centuries did it really acquire a strong   non Jewish character ethnically and there's a lot  more to say about that but you know I only have 18   minutes okay so the the Jews rebel against Rome  they lose a major war in and in the year 70 the   temple is destroyed once again they try to rebel  again in the second century under a man named Bar   Kochba even more devastation and the Romans take  great pains to exile even more of the Jews the   Roman exile which begins formerly in the first  century and extends through the second century   becomes even more important and long-lasting  than the earlier Babylonian exile it is at this   time however the Jews decide to incorporate  many of their oral teachings which had been   handed down for centuries into a core document  called the Mishnah which eventually becomes the   the center of a major document called the Talmud  which talked about in just a second the Jews who   are living in Babylonia they start to flourish  as Israel begins to decline under the Romans and   it is here that the Talmud is created what is the  Talmud there's so much to say about this document   but again 18 minutes the Talmud is essentially a  long commentary it's a massive document about 20   volumes and it is essentially a commentary on  the Mishnah which is in itself sort of like an   extended primarily legal document commenting  on the Torah more to say about this but you   have to go look at the other videos I guess so  this community begins to flourish and it has a   high point really from the 3rd through the 6th  centuries in the 7th century Islam comes into   the region and initially the Jews actually do  very well under Islam there's a lot of cultural   similarities between the ancient Jews and Muslim  culture this will ultimately decline when you get   to the modern period however now what is medieval  Jewish history it's you can define it in a lot of   different I mean we can't really apply the same  parameters of Western history to the experience   of the Jews but one thing we can say for sure is  the medieval period is when you see Jews begin to   really spread out beyond the ancient Near East  itself Jews spreading out across the course of   North Africa major Jewish settlements in Egypt  and what would be Morocco and then up into Spain   there are also Jewish settlements forming in  Europe as well in southern France in northern   Germany and so on later they would expand even  further east to Eastern Europe Ukraine Poland   places like that Jews are involved in all kinds of  activities at this time there's a whole wide range   of trades but two are especially important that  make a lot of sense one is international commerce   because Jews are of course at this point connected  through this massive diaspora and second is money   lending which because of a quirk particularly in  Christian theology Jews were essentially given   several centuries of a monopoly of being the only  providers of credit in in all of Christian Europe   there is definitely a link between money lending  and the growth of anti-semitism which becomes   really bizarre in the medieval period there are  earlier roots to anti-semitism beyond the scope   of our 18 minutes but in the medieval period you  really see it particularly in Christian Europe   as Christians try to articulate the difference  between the dotter religion of Christianity and   the mother religion of Judaism you see it in  a lot of artwork like the famous ecclesia at   synagogue image which is repeated hundreds of  times throughout European art and monumental   architecture things like that you also see it in  the growth of really bizarre ideas blood libel   charge which says that Jews somehow need to drink  the blood of Christian children I mean that's what   they call in Hebrew meshugganah totally crazy but  nevertheless from the 13th century this becomes   a very powerful myth that pervades right up until  the 20th century so these kinds of things actually   drive a lot of Jews towards Eastern Europe where  the anti-semitism initially initially at least is   quite a bit more muted we should also mention this  point the really bizarre and fascinating story of   the Jews of Spain while the Jews in Spain they  have this tremendous Renaissance from the 9th to   the 13th centuries in particular where there  was this flourishing of Jewish culture for a   variety of reasons the fact is it's a triangular  culture with Jews Christians and Muslims forced to   interact in a non binary way like they would Jews  versus Muslims or Jews versus Christians elsewhere   in Europe secondly it's on the periphery from the  Muslim world so a lot of things that could happen   in Muslim Spain could not happen let's say in  Baghdad and there are incredible figures that rise   up at this time it declines in the 12th century  with the invasion of more extremist Muslims that   drive for example Maimonides and his family out of  Spain and towards Egypt but it represents a real   high point in Jewish culture it will unfortunately  decline even further as the Christians conquer the   Iberian Peninsula and Institute an inquisition  to try to try to drive out those new Christians   that is forcibly converted Jews in the pogroms of  1391 and this ultimately results in an expulsion   of Jews a major expulsion in 1492 one of many  expulsion that occurred throughout Europe for   a wide variety of reasons primarily economic  in nature driving the Jews out of Spain and   throughout the Mediterranean Basin oh my gosh I  only have about four and a half minutes left so   I got a rush through modern history the Western  European experience is quite different from the   Eastern European Western Europe tends to modernize  quite a bit faster and the Jews of Western Europe   start to adopt all kinds of new technologies like  printing for example which is something that Jews   really love to adopt right away in Eastern Europe  there's a major uprising under a man named bohdan   khmelnytsky in 1648 this is followed by a mass  movement to follow a false messiah named Shaba   tights bein in the 1660s and then about a century  later the rise of a populist movement called Casa   de zhim which really you know made a huge impact  on the experience of Jews in Eastern Europe   rushing ahead now when we get to the contemporary  period and by this I'm talking about the the   modern area the last hundred years Western Europe  there's been a large push towards emancipation   that is the granting of equal rights to Jews it  happens all of a sudden in France in 1791 shortly   after their revolution and then slowly slowly  begins to creep up in Germany and other countries   as well truth begins who would take advantage of  this and start studying in universities and so   on and they begin to really express themselves as  major members of nineteenth-century culture Jews   are also emigrating in very large numbers from  Eastern Europe to America and to a lesser degree   in Israel South Africa and elsewhere as Russian  persecution increases under the Tsar's you begin   to see the development of many Jewish political  movements including that of Zion has been so on   when we get to the 20th century certainly the most  horrific moment in Jewish history as a whole is   the Holocaust when you have the combination of a  devastating first world war economic depression   and the legacy of anti-semitism all focused then  the leadership of Adolf Hitler and this creates   a move in which we cannot possibly do justice to  in such a short treatment but the end result is   as I'm sure you're aware six million Jews were  killed in Eastern Europe that's fully one out   of three Jews throughout the world at the time  but in the amazing whipsaw like nature of Jewish   history the Jews reestablished themselves in the  modern State of Israel 2,000 years after their   expulsion under the Romans the amazing thing  Israel goes through it's a difficult birth   Israel goes through a lot of difficult changes  they fight major Wars in 1948 with independence   in 1967 the famous six-day war 1973 and they  have ongoing conflict with the indigenous Arab   population the Palestinians and that is far from  solved although major steps were made with the   1993 peace accords in Oslo and with the withdrawal  from Gaza which is also a very problematic event   in the year 2005 and that basically brings us up  to the present day Jews still have a tremendous   amount of challenges to contend with it is not an  easy history nothing happens automatically but I   have managed to squeeze this under 18 minutes  and you may be wondering why 18 minutes why   not 20 or why not 10 18 minutes is two things  first of all it is an easy-to-remember number   because that's the amount of time it takes for  unleavened bread to become leavened making it   not kosher for Passover but more importantly the  number 18 is written as a word in Hebrew the word   is high in life so as the saying goes in Hebrew  AM Yisrael high the Jewish people live I hope   you found this very brief overview of Jewish  history useful and if you want to learn more I   got lots of videos on all kinds of periods of  Jewish history thanks very much for watching you

Channel: Henry Abramson

Views: 475,165

Keywords: Jewish, History, Judaism, Torah, Henry, Abramson, Hebrew, Israel, Talmud

Id: vW1wseGyR1Q

Length: 16min 24sec (984 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 05 2020