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Under Byzantine Rule
(313-636)
Josephus: A Jewish Roman Historian
By the end of the 4th century, following Emperor Constantine's conversion to Christianity (313) and the founding of the Byzantine Empire, the Land of Israel had become a predominantly Christian country. Churches were built on Christian holy sites in Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Galilee, and monasteries were established in many parts of the country. The Jews were deprived of their former relative autonomy, as well as of their right to hold public positions, and were forbidden to enter Jerusalem except on one day of the year to mourn the destruction of the Temple.
The Persian invasion of 614 was welcomed and aided by the Jews, who were inspired by messianic hopes of deliverance. In gratitude for their help, they were granted the administration of Jerusalem; this interlude, however, lasted only about three years. Subsequently, the Byzantine army reentered the city (629) and again expelled its Jewish population.
Under Arab Rule
(636-1009)
The Arab conquest of the Land came four years after the death of Muhammad (632) and lasted more than four centuries, with caliphs ruling first from Damascus, then from Baghdad and Egypt. At the outset of Islamic rule, Jewish settlement in Jerusalem was resumed, and the Jewish community was granted permission to live under "protection," the customary status of non-Muslims under Islamic rule, which safeguarded their lives, property and freedom of worship in return for payment of special poll and land taxes. However, the subsequent introduction of restrictions against non Muslims (717) affected the Jews' public conduct, religious observances and legal status, while the imposition of heavy taxes on agricultural land compelled most of them to leave their rural communities and move to towns, where their circumstances hardly improved. Increasing social and economic discrimination forced many Jews to leave the country, so that by the end of the 11th century, the Jewish community in the Land had diminished considerably and had lost some of its organizational and religious cohesiveness.
The Crusader Period
(1099-1291)
For the next 200 years, the country was dominated by the Crusaders, who, following an appeal by Pope Urban II, came from Europe to recover the Holy Land from the infidels. In July 1099, after a five week siege, the knights of the First Crusade captured Jerusalem and established the Latin Kingdom. Most of the city's non-Christian inhabitants were massacred; barricaded in their synagogue, the Jews defended their quarter, only to be burnt to death or sold into slavery. During the next few decades, the Crusaders extended their power over the rest of the country, through treaties and agreements, but mostly by bloody military conquests. The Crusader kingdom was that of a conquering minority confined mainly to fortified cities and castles. Thus, although the Land was under Christian domination, it did not become a Christian country.
Once the Crusaders opened up transportation routes from Europe, pilgrimages to the Holy Land became popular and, concurrently, increasing numbers of Jews sought to return to their ancient homeland. Documents of the period indicate that 300 rabbis from France and England arrived in a group, with some settling in Akko (Acre), others in Jerusalem.
When the Crusaders were overthrown by Saladin the Kurd (1187), the Jews were again accorded a certain measure of freedom, including the right to resettle in Jerusalem. Although the Crusaders eventually regained control of most of the country after Saladin's death (1193), their presence was limited to a network of fortified castles. A final defeat (1291) by the Mamiuks, a Muslim military class which had come to power in Egypt, put an end to Crusader domination of the Land.
Under Mamluk Rule (kublai Khan killed the last surviving ancestor of Muhhammed: However Khan was defeated by the Mamluk Sultan, Khan did conquer Jerusalem, and internationalized the city.)
(1291-1516)
The Land under the Mamiuks became a backwater province ruled from Damascus. Akko, Yafo and other ports were destroyed for fear of new crusades, and international commerce was interrupted. By the end of the Middle Ages, the country's urban centers were virtually in ruins/ most of Jerusalem was abandoned and the small Jewish community was poverty-stricken. The period of Mamiuk decline was darkened by political and economic upheavals, plagues, locust invasions and devastating earthquakes.
Under Ottoman Rule
(1517-1917)
For the next four centuries the Land of Israel was ruled from Istanbul by the Ottoman Turks. It was divided into four districts and attached administratively to the province of Damascus.
At the outset of the Ottoman era, an estimated 1,000 Jewish families lived in the country, residing mainly in Jerusalem, Nablus, Hebron, Gaza, Safad and the villages of Galilee. The community was comprised of descendants of Jews who had never left the Land as well as immigrants from North Africa and Europe.
Orderly government, until the death of the Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magificent (1566), brought improvements and stimulated Jewish immigration. Some newcomers settled in Jerusalem, but the majority went to Safad where, by mid-16th century, the Jewish population had risen to about 10,000, and the town had become a thriving textile center as well as the focus of intense intellectual activity. During this period, the study of the Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism) flourished, and contemporary clarifications of Jewish law, as codified in the Shulhan Arukh, spread throughout the Diaspora from the study houses of Safad.
With a gradual decline in the quality of Turkish rule, the country was brought to a state of wide-spread neglect. By the end of the 18th century, much of the land was owned by absentee landlords and leased to impoverished tenant farmers. Taxation was as crippling as it was capricious. The great forests of Galilee and the Carmel mountain range were denuded of trees; swamp and desert encroached on agricultural land.
The 19th century saw medieval backwardness gradually giving way to the first signs of Western progress. The European powers jockeyed for position, often through missionary activities. British, American and French scholars launched studies of biblical geography and archaeology; Britain, France, Russia, Austria and the United States opened consulates in Jerusalem. Steamships began to travel regularly between the Land and Europe; postal and telegraphic connections were installed; the first road was built connecting Jerusalem and Yafo. The Land's rebirth as a traditional crossroads of three continents was accelerated by the opening of the Suez Canal.
Consequently, the condition of the country's Jews slowly improved, and their numbers substantially increased . By mid-century, overcrowded conditions within the walled city of Jerusalem motivated the Jews to build the first Jewish suburb outside the walls (1860) and, during the next quarter century, to add seven more, forming the nucleus of the New City; by 1880, Jerusalem had an overall Jewish majority. Land for farming was purchased throughout the country; new rural settlements were set up; and the Hebrew language, long restricted to liturgy and literature, was revived. The stage was being set for the founding of the Zionist movement.
Inspired by Zionist ideology, two major influxes of Jews from Eastern Europe arrived in the country at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries. Resolved to restore their homeland by working the soil, these pioneers reclaimed barren fields from centuries of neglect, built new settlements and laid the foundations of what would later become a thriving agricultural economy.
The new arrivals faced extremely harsh conditions: The attitude of the Ottoman administration was hostile and oppressive; communications and transportation were still rudimentary and insecure; swamps bred deadly malaria; and the soil itself suffered from centuries of neglect. Land purchases were restricted and construction was banned without a special permit, obtainable only in Constantinople. These and similar difficulties hampered the country's development but did not stop it. At the outbreak of World War I (1914), the Jewish population in the Land numbered 85,000, as compared to 5,000 in the early 1500s.
In December 1917, British forces under the command of General Allenby entered Jerusalem, ending four centuries of Ottoman rule. Included in the British army were three battalions of the Jewish Legions comprising thousands of Jewish volunteers.
Under British Rule
(1918-1948)
In July 1922, the League of Nations entrusted Great Britain with the Mandate for Palestine, recognizing, "the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine", and therefore called on Great Britain to facilitate the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine. In September 1922 the Council of the League of Nations and Great Britain agreed that the provisions to facilitate the establishment of a Jewish national home should not apply to what today is the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, constituting three quarters of the territory included in the Mandate.
Immigration
Motivated by Zionism and encouraged by British "sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations," as communicated by Foreign Secretary Lord Balfour (1917), successive waves of immigrants arrived between 1919 and 1939, each contributing to different aspects of the developing Jewish community. Some 35,000 who came between 1919 and 1923, mainly from Russia, strongly influenced the community's character and organization for years to come. These pioneers laid the foundations of a comprehensive social and economic infrastructure, developed agriculture, established kibbutzim and moshavim, and provided the labor force for the construction of housing and roads.
The next influx between 1924 and 1932 of some 60,000 people, primarily from Poland, was instrumental in developing and enriching urban life. These immigrants settled mainly in Tel Aviv, Haifa and Jerusalem, where they established small businesses, building firms and light industry. The last major wave of immigration before World War II took place in the 1930S, following Hitler's rise to power, and comprised some 165,000 people, mostly from Germany. The newcomers, many of whom were professionals and academics, constituted the first large-scale influx from Western and Central Europe. Their education, skills and experience raised business standards, improved urban and rural amenities and broadened the community's cultural life.
Administration
The British Mandate authorities granted the Jewish and Arab communities the right to run their own internal affairs. Utilizing this right, the Jewish community elected (1920) a self governing body based on party representation. The "Assembly of the Elected," as it was called, met yearly to review its activities and elect an executive board, the National Council, which implemented its policies and programs. Financed by local resources and funds raised by world Jewry, these bodies developed and maintained a countrywide network of educational, religious, health and social services for the Jewish population. In 1922, as stipulated in the British Mandate, a "Jewish Agency" was constituted to represent the Jewish people vis-a-vis the British authorities, foreign governments and international organizations.
Economic Development
During the three decades of the British Mandate, development of the country gained momentum. Agriculture expanded considerably; factories were established; the waters of the Jordan River were harnessed for the production of electric power; new roads were built throughout the country; and the Dead Sea's mineral potential was tapped. The Histadrut-General Federation of Labor was founded (1920) to advance workers, welfare and provide employment by setting up cooperatively-owned enterprises in the industrial sector and marketing services for the communal agricultural settlements.
Culture
Day by day, a cultural life was emerging which would become unique to the Jewish community in the Land of Israel. Activities in art, music and dance developed gradually with the establishment of professional schools and studios. Galleries and halls were set up to provide venues for exhibitions and performances attended by a discriminating public. The opening of a new play, the appearance of a new book or a retrospective show by a local painter were all scrutinized in the press and immediately became the subject of discussion in coffee shops and at social gatherings.
The Hebrew language was recognized as one of the three official languages of the country, alongside English and Arabic, and was used on documents, coins and stamps, and on the radio. Publishing proliferated, and the country emerged at this time as the dominant center of Hebrew literary activity. Theaters of all styles and genres opened their doors to enthusiastic audiences, accompanied by first attempts to write original Hebrew plays.
Arab Opposition and British Restrictions
The Jewish national revival and the efforts of the Jewish community to rebuild the country were opposed from the outset by extreme Arab nationalists. Their strong resentment erupted in periods of intense violence in 1920,1921,1929 and 1936-1939 when Jewish transport was harassed, fields and forests set on fire, and unprovoked attacks launched against Jewish population centers and individuals.
Attempts to reach a dialogue with the Arabs, undertaken early in the Zionist endeavor, were ultimately unsuccessful. Henceforth, Zionism and Arab nationalism were polarized into a potentially explosive situation. Recognizing the opposing aims of the two national movements, the British, who had already once partitioned the territory under the Mandate (1922), recommended a further partition (1937), dividing the land west of the Jordan River into two states, one Jewish and one Arab. The Jewish leadership accepted the idea of partition and empowered the Jewish Agency to negotiate with the British government in an effort to reformulate aspects of the proposal. The Arabs were uncompromisingly opposed to any partition plan.
Continuing large-scale Arab anti-Jewish riots led Britain (May 1939) to issue a White Paper imposing drastic restrictions on Jewish immigration, despite its consequence of denying European Jewry a place of refuge from Nazi persecution. This policy caused David Ben-Gurion, later Israel's first prime minister, to declare after the start of World War Il: "We will fight the war as if there were no White Paper, and the White Paper as if there were no war."
During the war, some 26,000 men and women of the Jewish community volunteered to join the Allied effort against the Nazi regime, serving under British command in many regiments in the army, air force and navy, as well as in the Jewish Brigade.
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