Introduction
Israel
As most of my blogs will be presented from personal encounters and experience, I will try to share a bit of the background of that nation with you, mainly the most recent history of that nation. Since the histories of all Middle Eastern nations are thousands of years old and multitudes of books have been written about them, I will focus on what affects the nation today.
Anyone familiar with the Bible will find the story of the Jewish people, their journey beginning with Abraham’s call in the Book of Genesis, to their journey to Egypt due to a major famine in the Land of Canaan, in which they lived, and their 400-year enslavement within Egypt. Then, the story of Moses, whom God separated to bring a great deliverance of the Jewish people from the hand of Pharaoh, was recorded in the Book of Exodus.
While in the desert, after their deliverance from Pharaoh, the Law, which God gave to the Jewish people through Moses, a Book of Life as you would call it, was the guideline of how the Jewish people were to live as a separate and unique people within the nations of the world. It showed that they would serve not the multitudes of gods worshipped at that time but one God, Yahweh.
Much could be written regarding this history, but it all starts with understanding the Bible and, most specifically, the Torah or the first five books of the Bible. The history of the Jewish people is mainly understood through scripture, and trying to understand the Jewish people outside of scripture will leave a person confused because their roots are much different than those of all other nations of the world. There is only one Jewish nation, or one people called by God to represent Him and His purpose to bring human beings back to Himself after the Fall of Man through disobedience in the Garden of Eden (Genesis).
In the big picture, after the Jewish people were given the Law and began to possess the land (modern-day Israel as we understand it) as promised to Abraham, with conditions spoken by Moses, that they could remain in the land if they were faithful to Him and His Word (Leviticus and Deuteronomy).
After generations of disobedience (summarizing here), and after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 AD by Rome and the tragedy of Masada, where 900+ Jewish people died fighting the Roman army, Israel’s fate was sealed. The Jews living in the land that were still alive were dispersed into the nations of the world. Within that dispersion prophesied beforehand was a promise that one day, God would return the Jewish people to the land promised to them through Abraham.
In the late 1800s, Theodor Herzl, an Austro-Hungarian Jewish journalist, lawyer, and writer, became burdened with the plight of the Jewish people. His people, recognizing their millennia of suffering, formed the Zionist Organization, which promoted Jewish immigration to Palestine (which is what the whole land area was called at that time). Herzl believed that the only solution to ending the suffering of the Jewish people would be for them to have their Homeland. Herzl’s message was shared throughout the nations and adopted by governments and influential Jewish people worldwide. An attempt in the early 1900s to identify a Jewish homeland began, but in 1904, Theodor Herzl died of a heart ailment.
The movement to establish a nation for the Jewish people continued. The Jewish Agency was formed, and other political and military work was being created. The culmination of this desire for their own Homeland came because of the Holocaust during World War Two when six million Jews died. The world had great sympathy for the Jewish people, and for the fulfillment of God’s promise; in November 1947, the United Nations voted for the establishment of the State of Israel, which would become official in May 1948.
Within this agreement was the presentation of a Partition Plan that would include the Arabs living in the land as well. The desire would be that both Jews and Arabs could live together within the Land of Palestine (Jews and Arabs living in the land before 1948 were called Palestinians) and both have their own country. Yet, sadly, due to many outside forces (not excluding the continuous influence of Adolph Hitler’s great hatred of the Jewish people that reached the Middle East and influenced Arabs living in the land even after his death), war broke out immediately against the new fledgling nation by five surrounding Arab countries, and including the Arab Palestinians living in the land. The war continued for one and one-half years, resulting in the nation dividing between 1949 and 1967, also creating numerous Arab refugees who fled their Land within Palestine, even the land that they would have been able to possess if an easier assimilation of the Jewish people from the nations could have occurred.
The Six-Day War in 1967 resulted in Israel seizing Syria’s Golan Heights, the Jordanian-annexed West Bank, including East Jerusalem and Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula and the Egyptian-occupied Gaza Strip.
Since this time, Israel and the Jewish people have continued to be at war with the Arab nations surrounding them, as well as battles within the country with the Arab Palestinians, who want to see the fulfillment of their own State or Nation. Yet, due to the continual animosity from Arab nations and the building up of terrorist regimes and communities, peace for both the Jews and Arabs seems very far off.
This background is a very brief overview of Israel, which includes both Jews and Arabs (Palestinians) living in this land. Much study can be done to fill in the gaps of history.
I want to create a blog on Israel for all people. The blog will focus on culture, traditions, religion, and handicrafts. I will include photographs and brief stories regarding various groups of people within the nation.
I look forward to hearing any feedback or input.
Chronicles of the Middle East
Introducing Israel
‘Chronicles of the Middle East’ is about capturing the stories of people living in the Middle East and Mediterranean region and releasing these through photographs, videos, vlogs and blogs – For a greater understanding of the richness of the history of the Middle East and its peoples, and to show how what happens in this region affects all regions of the world.
