As we look around us, we need to understand how we got to this point. To do so, it is necessary to travel back in time. Dating back to the earliest known history of the Jewish People, we find them in the ancient land of Canaan. This area encompasses much of modern day Israel and Lebanon as well as parts of Syria and Jordan.
“He who does not know how to look back at where he came from will never get to his destination.”
— José Rizal
The Israelites weren’t the only people in this region of course, but they lived amongst their myriad neighbors in a vast network of tribal lands — various cities, villages, and swaths of rural areas were under the auspices of different peoples such as the Canaanites, Philistines, Hittites, Moabites, Egyptians, Edomites, and many others. In short, like today, the area is home to many different peoples with their own cultures, languages, and religious practices.
The Israelites in particular, were established in the central highlands of Canaan. This area would correspond to the area today that we refer to as Judea and Samaria, Jerusalem, and the surrounding areas. These particular places were rugged and hilly, which made them easy to defend, but were not as fertile as the plains. A trade off the tribes of Israel accepted for protection against the city-states along the coast.
Eventually, the fractious tribes of Israel had enough of both quarreling amongst themselves and facing attacks from powerful neighbors, they demanded a change. Namely, they wanted to unify under a strong leader, as other, stronger nations did.
Land and Covenant
The start of the unification was under Saul, appointed by the prophet Samuel in around 1050 BCE. Saul’s key tasks were to unite the tribes of Israel and defend them against their enemies. He presided over some military success, but internal strife prevented him from fully unifying the tribes and eventually weakened his reign.
After Saul’s death, David emerged as a strong leader and was able to create a cohesion among the tribes. His reign from about 1000 to 962 BCE is often viewed as the true consolidation of the monarchy.
David led his people through numerous military campaigns to strengthen and expand the Kingdom’s borders. The Kingdom reached from parts of modern-day Lebanon and Syria in the north, the Mediterranean Sea in the west, into parts of Jordan in the east, and south deep into the Negev Desert.
David established Jerusalem as the capital, early in his reign. He captured the city from the Jebusites, who taunted David — thinking their city was so well fortified no one could possibly beat them militarily. The vanquished Jebusites mostly dispersed — joining various groups of people and assimilating into them — though some stayed in Jerusalem and eventually became incorporated into the fabric of the Kingdom.
David wanted Jerusalem as the capital of the Kingdom of Israel as it was located in a midpoint between the two strongholds of the Jewish People, and served as a neutral ground for consolidation. After bringing the Ark of the Covenant to the city, it was established as the religious center for the Jews, in addition to being their political, military, and diplomatic capital. He built a centralized government, in this new seat of power, and presided over a relatively stable kingdom.
David appointed his son, Solomon, to take over the monarchy. Solomon’s reign was one of relative peace, extensive diplomatic relations, and great wealth — having control over numerous key trade routes. Not without controversy, however, Solomon used much forced labor to build his infrastructure projects, cities, palaces, and Temple. This, along with a perceived favoritism towards particular tribes, heavy taxation, and theological issues, led to resentment among other tribes which undermined the unity of the Israelites and would lead to the bifurcation of the kingdom after his death.
Unity and Division
Following the death of Solomon, the tribes split — albeit unevenly. Ten of the twelve tribes of Israel rejected Solomon’s heir and instead chose to follow another official from Solomon’s reign. These Israelites, under the banner of the Kingdom of Israel, kept the northern region. Unfortunately for them, the kingdom was politically unstable due to economic factors, theological disputes, and a lack of clear monarchical lineage.
In the south, the Kingdom of Judah fared better. Remaining centered on Jerusalem and avoiding theological issues by following the traditions of the Temple, it enjoyed significantly more stability. They also kept the monarchy within David’s lineage, adding more authority for the people to rally behind.
The Kingdom of Israel fell first. In 722 BCE, Israel attempted to ally itself with Egypt to stand against Assyria — primarily to avoid paying onerous tributes to the Assyrian rulers. Unsurprisingly, this was not welcome news and instigated a siege of Israel’s capital, Samaria. After several years, Samaria fell and with it the Kingdom of Israel. The Israelites themselves were forcibly dispersed throughout Mesopotamia and even further afield. Colloquially, these are known as the Ten Lost Tribes.
The Kingdom of Judah faced even more pressure from the Assyrians who dominated the region, though they managed to survive for several more centuries. Assyria was replaced by the Babylonian Empire as the powerhouse of the region. The Babylonians wished to expand its grip of the region, especially in the Levant, which further pressured the Kingdom of Judah.
This pushed the Kingdom of Judah into attempting to ally itself with Egypt. This provoked the Babylonians, who besieged Jerusalem in 597 BCE. The Kingdom of Judah eventually surrendered the city and the Babylonians installed a puppet king and exiled many of Jerusalem’s elite, deporting many to Babylon. In 588 BCE, Jerusalem once again rebelled against the Babylonians, at the behest of some pro-Egyptian factions. This led to the Babylonians’ final siege which led to the fall of Jerusalem in 586 BCE and the destruction of the Temple.
Conquest and Exile
This period, of around fifty years, strengthened the Jewish People. Theologically, they centered themselves around the study of Torah, and they renewed their commitment to monotheism — seeing their exile as a punishment from God.
In 539 BCE, the ruler of the Persian Empire, Cyrus the Great, issued the Edict of Restoration under the Empire’s policy of tolerance. This Edict allowed the Jewish exiles — much as the Persians allowed other exiled peoples to return to their homelands — to return to Judah and to rebuild their Temple in Jerusalem. This move back to their homelands was marked by religious autonomy, but they lived under Persian rule.
Those who returned, known somewhat unoriginally as the Returnees, immediately set about rebuilding the Temple. This Second Temple was completed in about 516 BCE and was the mainstay of Jewish life, at least for the Returnees, until its later destruction. For those who chose to remain in Babylon marked the beginning of what we would know as the Jewish Diaspora. These Jews, who would remain a distinct People with a distinct identity, would contribute to the spread of the Jewish People throughout the ancient world.
Return and Renewal
Under the Persian kings, Jews had significant cultural and religious freedom. This led to a stable, peaceful period of roughly two centuries. That stability was fractured in 331 BCE when Alexander the Great conquered the Persian empire. For a while, this Hellenistic influence was limited and life in Judea went on. Following Alexander’s death in 323 BCE, his empire was divided amongst his generals. At first, Judea was under the control of the Ptolemies, based in Egypt, and things continued on more or less as it had. By about 200 BCE, it fell under the purview of the Seleucids — based in Syria. The Seleucid ruler, Antiochus IV Epiphanes, tried to outlaw Jewish customs and imposed Greek religious practices in its domain.
This led to the Maccabean Revolt (167-160 BCE), in which the Jewish People rebelled against the Greeks and eventually led to the rededication of the Temple — something you’re probably familiar with, at least in passing, as it is memorialized in the annual celebration of Hanukkah — and the establishment of the Hasmonean dynasty.
This Hasmonean Kingdom was a semi-independent Jewish state. The Hasmoneans expanded their territory and enjoyed relative autonomy until internal strife cracked the foundations of power and made them vulnerable to attack.
Hellenism and Revolt
In 63 BCE, the Romans intervened in a civil war between two Hasmonean brothers, Aristobulus II and Hyrcanus II, and laid siege to Jerusalem. As the city fell, Judea was made a subordinate kingdom to Rome. By the early first century in the Common Era, further revolts and internal unrest led to the incorporation of Judea as a province within the Roman Empire.
This further imposition of Roman authority was not well received by the populace of Judea. Tensions continued to build between the Romans and the Jews over religious, cultural, and political matters. This boiled over in 66 CE with a small revolt against Roman taxation in Caesarea which then spread unrest throughout Judea. Triggering the Jewish Great Revolt which aimed to expel the Romans and reestablish Jewish independence. The Romans responded with overwhelming force and crushed the rebellion as they advanced through the region — leaving destruction in their wake.
Finally in 70 CE, the Romans laid siege to Jerusalem over the course of several months. When they breached the walls, the Romans laid waste to the city and destroyed the Second Temple. Much of the population of the city was killed or enslaved, though some managed to flee and others were exiled — scattered throughout the Roman Empire. Those Jews who remained in Judea attempted to maintain some sovereignty and continued their revolt against their Roman oppressors. These last pockets of resistance were, in the main, extinguished by 135 CE when the Romans killed many more thousands of Jews and destroyed their villages.
The Romans prohibited Jews from entering Jerusalem and rebuilt the city as a Roman colony (Aelia Capitolina). Jews were, however, allowed to enter the city on the anniversary of the Temple’s destruction, known as Tisha b’Av, to mourn. Hadrian, though, wasn’t content to just keep the Jews out of the city. He wanted to sever all Jewish ties to the land. He renamed the province of Judea to Syria Palaestina, a reference to the ancient enemies of the Israelites, the Philistines.
Rome and Erasure
In the interest of accuracy, it is important to know that the Philistines were an ancient people that originated somewhere in the 12th century BCE. They were one of the so-called Sea Peoples that originated from what is likely Crete. They came into conflict with the Israelites throughout the time covered by the Hebrew Bible, but were ultimately assimilated into other cultures as a result of conquests. By the 7th century BCE, there was no longer a distinct cultural identity. Though their name is similar to one we will discuss later in the book (Palestinians) there is no basis to believe any connection between these two distinct groups of people.
Ancient Lies
The Jewish People have always faced pressures and undue oppression and discrimination. From Ancient times, Jews have been looked at with varying levels of envy, derision, skepticism, and malice. The origins of this are not well documented, but it would likely be accurate to suppose that these ancient issues are moderately well reflected in slightly more modern, better documented instances of antisemitism.
For example, we can look to the writings of Manetho. He was an Egyptian historian and priest from the 3rd century BCE. Though much of his original works were lost to antiquity, some survived through fragments and discussion in other extant writings. In roughly 280 BCE, he wrote what he intended to be a history of Egypt. In it he employed some of the earliest antisemitic rhetoric known to exist in writing. Manetho, among other things, incorrectly claimed that the Jews were an unclean people all descended from lepers.
Manetho wasn’t the first, and certainly wasn’t the last, to defame the Jewish people simply because they were Jewish. Manetho’s work influenced countless others that came after, drawing from his writing to underpin their own efforts to denigrate Jews. The first extant and known comprehensive rebuttal to this work was by Flavious Josephus, a military leader, scholar, and historian in the 1st century of the common era. He wrote Antiquitates Judaicae (Antiquities of the Jews) in 93 CE. It was meant to counter Manetho’s misrepresentations and against Roman and Greek slander—not to mention as a comprehensive history of the Jewish people from the dawn of time to the 66 CE Jewish Revolt.
These, and other, writings and teachings didn’t occur in a vacuum. The Greek and Romans held views of Jewish theology — particularly objecting to monotheism — and customs as strange and barbaric. As the Jews clung to their own traditions and beliefs, as they resisted full assimilation into Hellenistic and Roman culture, they provoked resentment from the people around them. As we touched on earlier, these differences heightened the tensions between the Jews and those in power — leading to violent clashes on both micro and macro levels. Jews facing assaults based solely on their status as Jewish have been occurring since the very beginning.
As it turns out, people don’t like to have their beliefs challenged — even in an indirect manner. The Greeks and the Romans looked at the Jewish religious practices — their dietary laws, their observance of the Sabbath, et cetera — as a direct challenge to their own beliefs and customs. This led to misunderstandings, prejudices, and using the Jew as a scapegoat.
Hatred as Conspiracy
This scapegoating of Jews gives birth to some of the earliest antisemitic conspiracy theories. Jews, because they — in the eyes of those around them — worshiped a single, strange God frequently “provoked the Gods” of those whose culture the Jews lived amidst. This led to a succession of rulers (and others) to blame the Jews for various natural disasters, economic instabilities, political upheaval, and the like. Jews were often portrayed as “other” and often malevolent.
These ancient roots of antisemitism laid the groundwork for more systemic, institutionalized forms of Jew Hate in the Middle Ages and beyond. They’ve persisted from ancient times and shifted to fit modern-day conspiracies — throughout the globe, wherever Jews may be.