Life in Palestine Jews in the Land of Israel from the destruction of the Temple through the Ottoman Empire.

Life in Palestine

Jews in the Land of Israel from the destruction of the Temple through the Ottoman Empire.

By Jeremy Moses

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In 70 CE, the Second Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed by the Roman Empire, effectively ending Jewish rule in the Land of Israel until 1948. While the Jewish population was not given a decree to leave the land, the conditions, such as the fiscus Judaicus, a special tax imposed on Jews, were grave enough to convince most residents to disperse around the globe.

A Small Community Remains

Still, some Jews did remain in Palestine. Bar Kochba led a small band of Jews in a revolt against the Romans from 132-135 CE in response to the building of the new Roman city “Aelia Capitolina” on the grounds of Jerusalem. While the revolt was met with violent and harsh retributions, by the end of the century, the Romans officially permitted Judaism as a sanctioned religion in Palestine.

When the Christian Byzantines took control of Palestine in the fourth century, many restrictions were put on the remaining Jewish community, from banning intermarriage between Christians and Jews to forbidding Jews from owning Christian slaves. There was talk of banning Judaism outright, but those plans never came to fruition.

Despite its smaller pool of scholars, the rabbinic academies of Palestine were able to complete what is known today as the Talmud Yerushalmi (Jerusalem Talmud). Though the Babylonian Talmud is considered to be the more authoritative work, the Jerusalem Talmud is still one of the most important contributions to Jewish literature.

Life under Muslim Rule

In 638, Caliph Omar conquered Jerusalem from the Byzantines, launching Muslim rule over the territory. While Jews and Christians were considered second class citizens, the amount of direct persecution decreased substantially.

The community in Palestine was fairly quiet during the early Islamic period. A rabbinic academy was formed in Tiberius (and later moved to Ramle) in order to compete, unsuccessfully, with the ten Jewish academies in Baghdad.

Christian Rule: More of the Same

In 1099, Crusaders arrived in Palestine and created a Christian kingdom in Jerusalem that lasted until 1187. The Crusaders banned Jews from living in the city of Jerusalem, though they were permitted to live in the rest of Palestine, and were permitted to visit Jerusalem.

But Christian rule was short-lived. In 1187, Saladin and the Ayyubid dynasty conquered Jerusalem. Indeed, while Christian Europe wanted to establish a permanent presence in Jerusalem and the Middle East, they eventually retreated to Europe after the Muslim recapture of Acre in 1291.

In 1258, Baghdad fell to the Mongols. Fearing a collapse of their empire and wanting to prove their strength, the Muslim rulers imposed harsh sanctions on Jews and Christians throughout the region, including Palestine. These restrictions–including wearing special clothing and doctors not being allowed to serve Muslim patients–were enumerated in the seventh century Pact of Umar, a list of laws concerning non-Muslims living in Muslim lands that had previously rarely been enforced.

The Ottoman Rule: New Opportunities for the Jewish Community

The Ottoman Empire conquered Palestine in 1517 and held it until the empire’s decline at the end of World War I. The Ottomans, though practicing Muslims, were much less harsh on the Jewish community than previous Islamic empires and actually allowed them to thrive. The Jewish population in Palestine had exploded in the previous decades with the influx of Spanish and Portuguese Jews who had been expelled during the Inquisition. The Jewish communities in Jerusalem, Tiberias, Gaza, Hebron, Acre, and Safed greatly increased in number during this period.

In Safed, Rabbi Isaac Luria revolutionized Jewish mystical thought and established Safed as the center of Kabbalistic study. Also in Safed, Luria’s follower, Joseph Caro, wrote the Shulchan Arukh, which remains the most influential Jewish legal code to this day.

In 1798, Napoleon invaded Egypt. Though he never captured Palestine, the European influence on the Middle East did have positive effects on the Jewish community. A number of reforms in the 19th century led to more rights for Jews, with full citizenship being granted to them (along with all others in the Empire) in 1876.

By the end of the century, after an increase in anti-Semitic incidents in Eastern Europe, Jews started moving to Palestine with the hope of one day creating a Jewish homeland there. This was the beginning of the modern Zionist movement that officially became an organized body with the first World Zionist Congress which was held in Basel, Switzerland in 1897. By 1909, Jewish settlers had founded Tel Aviv, the first all-Jewish city in modern Palestine.

By the end of the World War I, the British had taken control of Palestine as part of the Sykes-Picot Agreement with France in their partition of the soon non-existent Ottoman Empire. This would not be the last political change in Palestine. Conflicts between the Arab population and the growing Jewish population would, in the coming decades, alter the face of the Middle East.

Palestine under Persian, Byzantine and Arab Rule

24 years, 3 empires, and 1 new faith in Palestine

By Professor Isaiah Gafni

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The following article is reprinted with permission from A Historical Atlas of the Jewish People edited by Eli Barnavi and published by Schocken Books.

The early decades of the seventh century C.E. comprised one of the most eventful periods in the history of the Land of Israel. Within 24 years, between 614 and 638, the country changed hands three times. The four-centuries long conflict between Rome and Persia was to come to an end in a final collision of the Byzantine and Sassanid armies. Both these powers had attained great victories and suffered terrible defeats, and as they continued to enfeeble each other, they gave way to the rise of a new power, the Islamic forces, which would drive them both out of the region. 

The two monotheistic religions claiming Palestine as their holy land were joined by a third faith, newly born and extraordinarily vigorous. The Muslim conquest was destined to shape the character of the entire Middle East for the following thirteen centuries, down to this very day.

The Precarious Balance Between Persia and Rome

The events in Palestine during those years should be seen within the wider context of the relations between the powers in the Orient. Several centuries of struggle had created a sort of equilibrium; the Persians ruled east of the Euphrates, Rome ruled to its west, and the “buffer states”–Armenia, Syria, Mesopotamia and Palestine—constituted the battlefield for their frequent wars.

This precarious balance persisted till the early sixth century when the sovereigns of these two empires, threatened by other enemies, began a correspondence that was meant to secure the frontier between them. The Byzantine Emperor Maurice and the Persian Khosrow II Parviz (the “Victorious”) finally signed an “eternal” peace accord which was to last for ten years. In 602 a soldier’s mutiny overthrew the Byzantine monarch and placed a junior officer named Phocas on the throne.

Khosrow seized this opportunity to renew the war, leading the Persian armies into Byzantine territories in the Near East. In 613 his soldiers completed the conquest of Syria and captured Damascus. As the Persian armies were advancing, Jewish communities were rising in revolt against local Byzantine rulers and hailing Persians as liberators.

Khosrow’s Troops Enter Jerusalem

In the early summer of 614, Khosrow’s troops entered Jerusalem and massacred its Christian population. The role of the Jews during this Persian siege and conquest of Jerusalem remains unclear. Later Christian sources, however, accused the community of collaboration with the invaders and of destruction of many churches in the city.

On the other hand, there is clear evidence that the status of the Jewish population under Persian rule had deteriorated prior to 617. The Persians apparently realized that there was little to be gained from appeasing a small local minority. According to contemporary Jewish documents, a Jewish leader by the name of Nehemiah ben Hushi’el, probably a messianic figure, was executed: “And there was trouble in Israel as never before” (Book of Zerubbabel).

The Persian victory, however, was not to last. Following a victory in Nineveh in 627, the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius besieged the Persian capital of Ctesiphon. Khosrow was deposed and assassinated, and his son, who wished to end the war, died in 629. Heraclius reached an agreement with the Persian army commander who ordered his troops to withdraw from Mesopotamia, Egypt, Syria and Palestine, and also returned to the Byzantines the relics of the True Cross. On March 29, 629, as Heraclius triumphantly entered Jerusalem, Christians wept with joy at the miracle of the restoration of the True Cross. In his hour of glory, the emperor magnanimously refrained from taking reprisal against the Jews.

Enter the Muslim Army

But the Christian restoration was also short-lived. In 634 the Arabs invaded the land and besieged Gaza. In 636 they defeated the Byzantines by the Yarmuk River, and two years later Jerusalem was conquered by the Muslim army.

The Jews of Palestine looked on powerless as three empires fought over their land. With each upheaval, messianic expectations soared. Their hopes were expressed in religious hymns (piyyutim) which were recited on festivals in centuries to come: “When the Messiah son of David will come to his oppressed people, these signs will appear in the world…A king of the West and a king of the East will do battle and the western armies will grow strong. But from Yoktan [Arabia] another king will go forth whose forces will overrun the land…And the kohanim [temple priests] will officiate, and the Levites will preach from their pulpit [God] saying: I have returned to Jerusalem in mercy.”

But Christian rule was short-lived. In 1187, Saladin and the Ayyubid dynasty conquered Jerusalem. Indeed, while Christian Europe wanted to establish a permanent presence in Jerusalem and the Middle East, they eventually retreated to Europe after the Muslim recapture of Acre in 1291.

In 1258, Baghdad fell to the Mongols. Fearing a collapse of their empire and wanting to prove their strength, the Muslim rulers imposed harsh sanctions on Jews and Christians throughout the region, including Palestine. These restrictions–including wearing special clothing and doctors not being allowed to serve Muslim patients–were enumerated in the seventh century Pact of Umar, a list of laws concerning non-Muslims living in Muslim lands that had previously rarely been enforced.

The Ottoman Rule: New Opportunities for the Jewish Community

The Ottoman Empire conquered Palestine in 1517 and held it until the empire’s decline at the end of World War I. The Ottomans, though practicing Muslims, were much less harsh on the Jewish community than previous Islamic empires and actually allowed them to thrive. The Jewish population in Palestine had exploded in the previous decades with the influx of Spanish and Portuguese Jews who had been expelled during the Inquisition. The Jewish communities in Jerusalem, Tiberias, Gaza, Hebron, Acre, and Safed greatly increased in number during this period.

In Safed, Rabbi Isaac Luria revolutionized Jewish mystical thought and established Safed as the center of Kabbalistic study. Also in Safed, Luria’s follower, Joseph Caro, wrote the Shulchan Arukh, which remains the most influential Jewish legal code to this day.

In 1798, Napoleon invaded Egypt. Though he never captured Palestine, the European influence on the Middle East did have positive effects on the Jewish community. A number of reforms in the 19th century led to more rights for Jews, with full citizenship being granted to them (along with all others in the Empire) in 1876.

By the end of the century, after an increase in anti-Semitic incidents in Eastern Europe, Jews started moving to Palestine with the hope of one day creating a Jewish homeland there. This was the beginning of the modern Zionist movement that officially became an organized body with the first World Zionist Congress which was held in Basel, Switzerland in 1897. By 1909, Jewish settlers had founded Tel Aviv, the first all-Jewish city in modern Palestine.

By the end of the World War I, the British had taken control of Palestine as part of the Sykes-Picot Agreement with France in their partition of the soon non-existent Ottoman Empire. This would not be the last political change in Palestine. Conflicts between the Arab population and the growing Jewish population would, in the coming decades, alter the face of the Middle East.